What's next in Pakistan?

David Lindsay

Benazir Bhutto may have been very beautiful and stylish, and she may have held degrees from Harvard and Oxford. But her superb English was in fact the mere speaking of her first language; she had little Urdu and even less Sindhi, despite Sindh’s being her (dynastic) political heartland. She was, at the end of the day, a corrupt and ineffective Prime Minister.

And Pakistan was a bad idea in the first place.

A handful of cranks and semi-schismatic priests were able to force the partition the United Kingdom against the wishes of the Gaelic-Irish working class on both sides of the Irish Sea, and of the Catholic hierarchy no less than Protestant leaders. A handful of cranks and outer-fringe rabbis were able to force the re-creation of Wilhelmine or Weimar Germany in the Levant against the wishes of almost every Jewish religious authority on earth at the time, and of the territory in question’s Jewish Arab no less than its Christian Arab, Muslim Arab and Druze Arab inhabitants.

And a handful of cranks and mad mullahs (of questionable qualifications) were able to force the establishment, against the wishes of the Indian Muslim working class and of India’s Islamic scholars, of the only country on earth where the case for an Islamic State is permanently unanswerable, since the country itself has no other reason to exist.

Quite what most Muslims in what was then India made of this is clear from the fact that post-partition India is the second-largest Muslim country on earth, even though Muslims are a minority there, and contains more Muslims than the entire population of Pakistan.

Pakistan is engaged in a nuclear arms race with its southern neighbour, but the all-powerful generals will not allow any politician anywhere near the nuclear codes, and moreover maintain a permanent unit to stage a coup whenever they feel that this is necessary, as they do with remarkable frequency.

Meanwhile, the creation of Pakistan massively boosted those who wanted Hindutva in all its caste-conscious ghastliness, in principle throughout what they see as Bharat, but in practice throughout the territory that they might be able to control, namely India. (Such people are by no means confined to the RSS and the BJP, important though those and the associated organisations are as the leading edge.)

Hence the Indian side of the nuclear arms race. And hence the fact that hundreds of millions of people in India were probably better off under the Moghuls, and certainly better off under the British.

Yet still the Muslim hundreds of millions do not jump out of the frying pan that is India and into the fire that is Pakistan.

Noname

Sounds like a deranged wigger limey who's had a little too much lime juice.

Mohammed Sharif

To the second paragraph of the article. I understand Pakistan and many other countries are not sophisticated as the West. I was born in Britain, cultured and live here on a permanent basis. I love this country, and its norms and values. The concept of democracy, capitalism and etc is normal to me and correct. But why id the West so afraid that a political figure that hasnt nor wants any Western influnce maybe elected. Should we judge the person, by his/her ideal, character, capability and manifesto. Maybe this person might not have ways to run the country as West, but his/her methods be beneficial to Pakistan and its people?