Talibanised Pakistan: a threat as well as a crucial lesson for us in India
Pakistan's
Lesson
By
Jug Suraiya
18
Mar 2009
Nawaz
Sharif's civil agitation is a sideshow. Pakistan's real danger is that of being
taken over by the Taliban. This represents both a serious threat as well as a
crucial lesson for us in India. The threat is obvious; the lesson less so, but
all the more vital for that.
The
Taliban is in full control of Swat, where it has declared Sharia law.
Islamabad, whose writ does not run in the area, has virtually bribed the forces
of radicalism into calling a truce as uneasy as it is transient. Like a tidal
force that cannot be checked, Talibanisation is spreading across the country
and now threatens to overwhelm Peshawar.
A
Frankenstein's monster which they helped to create with US help to fight the
Russians in Afghanistan, the Taliban have turned on Pakistan's army and the ISI
in a deadly twist of irony. The murderous fanaticism that Islamabad exported,
first to Afghanistan and then to India, in continuance of its 'proxy war' with
New Delhi, has rebounded on its creators, with dire implications not only for
Pakistan but for the entire South Asian region, beset as it already is with
continuing strife and instability in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
What
makes a Taliban takeover of Pakistan particularly scary is Islamabad's nuclear
arsenal. Washington's reassurance that Pakistan's nukes are adequately
safeguarded with the US playing a supervisory role sounds increasingly hollow
in the face of the Obama administration's dithering disguised as strategy that
seeks to fight the 'bad Taliban' with the antibody of a specious 'good
Taliban'. A nuclear-armed Taliban, whether 'good' or 'bad', whose sworn agenda
is ceaseless war against all infidel nations which includes India, along with
the US and Israel is South Asia's worst nightmare becoming a reality.
That's
the literally terrifying threat that a Talibanised Pakistan holds out for
India. And the lesson? That there but for the grace of democracy and a vigilant
civil society go we. That we in India could follow Pakistan's slippery path to
extremist perdition. The thought of a Talibanised India might seem absurd. But
the seeds of fanaticism have been sown and have begun to sprout on Indian soil,
not just among the Muslim minority but far more alarmingly among the Hindu
majority. While most Muslims and Hindus cleave to the Indic tradition of what
has been called spiritual secularism the belief that all faiths are deserving
of reciprocal and interdependent respect there is growing and disquieting
evidence of radicalisation in both communities, be it in the form of SIMI or
the Indian Mujahideen or their mirror avatars like Abhinav Bharat or the Sri
Rama Sene.
Alleged
conspiracies involving home-grown bombers as in the Malegaon case and attacks
on pub-going women in Mangalore are a far cry from the radicalised coup that
threatens to overwhelm Pakistan. But, as Pakistan has shown, the embers of
fanaticism can only too easily be fanned into a raging fire that is difficult
if not impossible to extinguish. What is at the heart of this virulent
fanaticism, what is common to both the Muslim Taliban and its sectarian alter
ego, the nascent Hindu Taliban?
Apart
from religious bigotry and intolerance the one striking feature common to both
is a violent misogyny, a pathological fear and hatred of women. In Talibanised
Pakistan or Afghanistan, women cannot go to school or receive any education,
they cannot travel anywhere or go out in public unless accompanied by a male
member of the family. In proto-Talibanised India, women are susceptible to
physical assault if they are seen to socialise with men, particularly if they
belong to a different community, or if they dare to be so 'un-Indian' as to go
to a pub or wear jeans and T-shirts in public.
The
systematic demonisation and suppression of women which militates both against
the Hindu principle of Shakti and the gender egalitarianism of Islam whereby
the Prophet's first disciples were women is the beginning of the suppression of
civil liberties and a free society. That's Pakistan's lesson for us. Are we
prepared to learn from it?
secondopinion@timesgroup.com
Source:
The Times of India,
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