The current crisis in Pakistan has been fuelled by Musharraf's disastrous misjudgement in sacking Chief Justice Chaudhry and his hesitance and appeasement in dealing with the Lal Masjid militants. But they also reveal some more deep-rooted contradictions in the country's political process. With elections on the horizon, any democratic government will need to deal with the tensions between Islam as Pakistan's official religion and the requirements of a modern, culturally diverse society, as well as the imbalance between military and civilian power and gross disproportions in the regional distribution of power.
As the dust settles after the violent events at Lal Masjid, Pakistan's battle against the forces of jihadi extremism and fundamentalism appears far from over. If the London Sunday Times is right, Al Qaeda has opened a new front in Pakistan; its number two Ayman al-Zawahiri recently directed the Lal Masjid militants, who included 18 foreign fighters.
Al-Zawahiri has openly exhorted Pakistanis to rise up against President Pervez Musharraf. The truce with pro-Taliban tribals in North Waziristan has collapsed. There have been scores of deaths in bombings in the NWFP and Islamabad.
India's Pakistan-baiters are delighted at this and believe Pakistan's support for jihadi militancy has come back to haunt it. But there is another Indian view, which values India-Pakistan peace and would like Pakistan to learn some lessons from Lal Masjid and firmly embrace democracy.
After Lal Masjid, Musharraf appears to exude confidence for the first time since his disastrous sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, which dealt a heavy blow to his legitimacy. He is now trying to redirect the domestic political debate from one centred on "democracy vs military rule" to a contestation between "extremism vs moderation" and hopes to enlist the support of radical Islam's opponents.
However, the general is on shaky ground. Much of the blame for allowing Lal Masjid to turn into a fortress of fundamentalist forces lies at his door. Had he acted resolutely earlier, especially after the Jamia Hafsa's women students went on a rampage in January, he might have been able to avert Operation Silence, with its high human costs.
But he gave the militants a free hand. His soft handling of them bears a sharp contrast to his treatment of the Baloch nationalists or Justice Chaudhry's supporters, especially in Karachi in mid-May. It's only when the Lal Masjid militants "arrested" foreign nationals for "immorality", and China angrily protested, that Musharraf stopped appeasing extremist forces.
Much of what happens to Musharraf's pledge to root out extremism and to his own plans will be determined by the Supreme Court's impending verdict on Justice Chaudhry's constitutional petition, and by how successful Pakistan's political parties are in mobilising opinion in favour of holding free and fair parliamentary elections prior to the presidential elections. External pressure in favour of constitutionalism will also play a role.
As things stand, Musharraf will find it hard to browbeat Pakistan's judiciary, which has been emboldened by massive shows of spontaneous support for Chaudhry. It's unlikely that the judiciary will acquiesce in General Musharraf's plans to get himself re-elected as president by the existing legislatures.
The major powers, including the United States, are also unlikely to accept this easily -- absent a new, special jihadi threat to them, to meet which they need Musharraf, no matter what the cost.
Besides, new political regroupments are emerging in Pakistan, including the formation last week in London of the All-Party Democratic Movement, an alliance between the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz Sharif) and MMA.
Although Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party kept out of this, and differentiated itself from it by supporting Operation Silence, the APDM's formation will make it difficult for her to cut a deal under which she's allowed to return to Pakistan from exile and contest parliamentary elections -- in return for supporting the general's presidency bid.
It seems increasingly likely that the general will have to allow both Sharif and Bhutto to return and contest elections. The elections would have to be credibly free and fair in order to produce a legitimate government, including the president.
The only way Musharraf can prevent this is by precipitating a fresh crisis and declaring a state of emergency, or creating another pretext to postpone elections. This would only aggravate his crisis of legitimacy, strengthening the forces of jihadi militancy, with grave domestic consequences.
It will also greatly erode his USP (unique selling proposition) for the West -- namely, he remains its best ally in combating Al Qaeda/Taliban. Such a devious manoeuvre will probably prolong the stagnation in and complicate the peace process with India. And it will seriously weaken the general's attempt to redefine Pakistan's political debate along "extremism vs moderation" lines.
There is an alternative. Musharraf can grasp the nettle by boldly opening up the political process and setting Pakistan on the road to democratisation, while decisively severing the quarter-century-old link between the state and jihadi extremism and finally ending General Zia-ul Haq's terrible legacy.
This means holding genuinely free and fair elections monitored by international observers, with the participation of all parties, including the PPP and PML-N, which represent significant social groups and regions. More, it means beginning the dismantlement of the institutional structures of the state-jihadi nexus.
Pakistan's next, elected, government will have to grapple with the three major anomalies or contradictions that have marked the country's evolution. These include: tension between Islam as Pakistan's official religion, and the requirements of a modern state presiding over a culturally diverse society; fundamental imbalance between military and civilian power; and gross disproportions in the regional distribution of power, skewed in favour of the Punjab.
All three contradictions are interrelated, and feed upon one another. For instance, the importance of religion in politics cannot be reduced unless the state acquires independent popular legitimacy. A genuine reform agenda must seek to resolve all these tensions. If Musharraf has an enlightened vision, and if he seriously believes in moderation, he must embrace this agenda with enthusiasm, and help begin Pakistan's structural transformation.
This won't be an easy task -- certainly not for a general who wields power by virtue of heading the army. As Ayesha Siddiqa shows in her remarkable study, Military Inc, the army is deeply integrated into Pakistan's economic and industrial power structures. It is Pakistan's biggest landowner. It runs its vast predatory operations through countless enterprises such as the Army Welfare Trust, Fauji Foundation and Frontier Works Organisation. It has acquired an entrenched interest in maintaining these institutions.
So Musharraf will have to launch something akin to Pope John Paul XXIII's Second Vatican Council of the 1960s -- a quiet revolution in the Catholic Church to make it relevant to the contemporary reality of a diverse world divided along ideological lines, which judges faith not just by a theological, but a social, yardstick. This is a tall order. Musharraf may never rise to it. But we must hope that Pakistan's intelligentsia and its more enlightened political leaders will take up the task.
India has a big stake in a Pakistan that pursues political and religious moderation, is strongly pluralist and inclusive, and is firmly committed to subordinating its military to civilian control. Contrary to what India's Right-wing "security experts" never tire of saying, Pakistan is not destined to be a military dictatorship, nor a wahabi-salafist society.
Pakistan's Islam, like all South Asian Islam, is marked by Sufi influences and diversity. It's eminently amenable to moderation and the idea that different religions and non-religious traditions can coexist and enrich one another. Pakistani Islam's literalist Wahabi reinterpretation is recent and must be combated -- even as enlightened rationalism is promoted and the scientific temper fostered.
Ultimately, we must remember, Pakistan's and India's destinies are bound together.
