Pakistan is crumbling

Stampedes for subsidised government-distributed flour, the worst economic crisis in decades, a coalition government unsure of its moorings and reluctant to carry out much-needed economic reforms, sectarian and separatist violence across large spans of the country, terrorist groups, diplomatic and ideological problems with neighbouring Afghanistan, and some of the worst floods the country has ever experienced – disaster has gripped Pakistan. 

On January 7, Harsingh Kohli, a labourer and a father of six, was trampled to death while trying to get subsidised flour at the Gulistan e Baldia park in the city of Mirpur Khas in Pakistan’s Sindh province. The trucks had been sent by the government with flour at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kilo when the retail price is around Rs 150. The crowds, already infuriated by the food crisis, were incensed by Kohli’s death. They took his body into the street to protest the situation.

Pakistan is the world’s eighth-largest producer of wheat. But there’s an acute shortage of flour in the country caused by floods and the worst economic crisis Pakistan has faced in decades. 

In October and November last year, unprecedented and devastating floods ravaged Pakistan. The agriculture, food, livestock, and fisheries sectors lost an estimated US $3.7 billion in the catastrophe. Pakistan’s planning commission has estimated that the long-term losses from the floods are around $9.24 billion, and the government says it needs over $16 billion to rebuild after the damage caused. 

Then, there is the terrorism factor. A terrorist organisation – the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)  – dared seize a Counter-Terrorism Department’s office in the town of Bannu in the country’s restless Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in December. It held army personnel hostage there for nearly two days. And just a month ago, TTP suicide bombers killed six in the country’s capital, Islamabad, a city that’s always been relatively safe from such attacks. 

An agricultural crisis following floods might have been easier to understand. However, the floods have only compounded a worsening economic scenario in Pakistan. The country’s politicians have had little choice but to plead with friendly nations for relief – and dollars. Last week, just over $9 billion in aid was obtained from friendly developing countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but the developed world has largely stayed away. So has China, which has committed to the $64 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but offered the country little else. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) could have helped and did to some extent, but the reforms it demanded in return haven’t been forthcoming. It was the 23rd time since it achieved independence in 1947 that Pakistan had approached the IMF for relief. 

By the first week of this month, Pakistan’s forex reserves had dwindled to $4.3 billion, barely enough to cover a month’s imports. Oil companies and other importers complained that banks were unwilling to give letters of credit. Inflation topped 24 per cent. The country’s long-term debt stood at $274 billion, with $8 billion due this quarter. The country’s GDP is just over $375 billion. 

Last April, the IMF issued a dire warning. It stated: ‘Pakistan’s exports, which peaked at about 15 per cent of GDP in 2003, have been on a declining trend since 2011 and currently stand at about 11 per cent of GDP, which is much lower than peer countries. At the same time, export volume growth has stagnated since FY 2007 amid de-industrialisation, resulting in a widening export volume growth gap compared to other emerging market developing economies. This has contributed to Pakistan’s share of global exports declining by almost 40 percent since the early-1990s to only 0.13 per cent of world exports in 2020.’ 

Global investors are staying away. Even the Chinese economic corridor has been marred by protests and violence. The country needs a government that can overhaul the economy with major structural reform and the capacity to curb terrorist activity. Instead, it has a shaky coalition led by Shahbaz Sharif comprising two parties – the Pakistan Muslim League and the Pakistan People’s Party – who have never seen eye to eye before. Fresh elections are due between August and October this year, but no party is expected to gain a majority. 

Prof. Ahsan Y. Choudhary, a political analyst, is sceptical that any effective structural reforms are possible, even after an election. ‘Attempts have been made by elected governments, but they’ve been hampered by their leader’s sincerity and competence. No genuine leadership ever emerges, and no party gets a clear majority and completes its tenure. I see the current policies continuing,’ he argues, painting a veil over any prospect of reform. 

These views are also shared by Andy Khan, head of the Pakistan Institute of Constitutional Studies (PKICS). Khan points to the long-standing issue of subsidies that have been used to woo voters – expenditure that the country can ill afford. He argues: ‘There will be no impact of elections on the economy. I still do not find one concrete plan from any political party to fix the economy. They talk about poverty and inflation. But instead, they offer subsidies on energy and groceries, especially flour, sugar, and lentils, instead of empowering the private sector and bringing jobs. Subsidies are temporary relief, not long-term solution.’ 

Pakistan is a complex nation. Its army has ruled the country for nearly half of its 75 years of existence. The ‘establishment’ as it is popularly called, has long been accused of ‘political engineering’ – manoeuvring to bring friendly and compliant political parties to power. Only twice have political parties completed a five year term. No prime minister has completed a five year term.

Elected governments have either been brought down by army coups or by political engineering, a charge that’s lately levelled rather loudly by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, whose government lost power last April. Khan had allegedly fallen out with the army. 

Pakistan is also a nation where religion and governance are deeply entwined. As Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, writes in his book, Pakistan—Between Mosque and the Military: ‘Pakistan’s leaders have played upon religious sentiment as an instrument of strengthening Pakistan’s identity… Islamist groups have been sponsored and supported by the state machinery at different times to influence domestic politics and support the military’s political dominance. In the South Asian region, the Islamists have been allies in the Pakistan military’s efforts to seek strategic depth in Afghanistan and to put pressure on India for negotiations over the future of Kashmir.’ 

The Pakistan army’s spy wing – the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency – stands accused of fostering the growth of the Taliban and supporting it overtly and covertly over three decades. The TTP is an offshoot of the Taliban and seeks Sharia law across Pakistan, by violent means if necessary. 

Some Islamist parties are part of the formal political process but have never won elections on their own. They’ve often been a part of a ruling coalition, the last one being the government of Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). 

Gulalai, a social worker in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, argues that since extremists or religious parties cannot come to power through the democratic process, they threaten the fabric of the government through violence. ‘They are worsening the situation in the country,’ she warns. 

Then, there are the restive provinces. A clamour for independence is slowly but surely raising its head in Balochistan. There’s rising discontent in Sindh with its politically powerful provincial neighbour, Punjab. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, next to Afghanistan, is hard to govern and has undefined and porous borders. These complex strands make governance complicated. 

Terror attacks and clashes with the army occur with disturbing frequencies. CPEC installations haven’t been spared. A Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) report highlights that the TTP is just one terror group operating in the country. Other groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), and its offshoot, the Islamic State Pakistan Province (ISPP), have become increasingly restive and are staging acts of violence, especially across the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Waziristan, and Balochistan. 

Worryingly, new terror groups are raising their heads. The PIPS report points out: ‘A new Sindhi insurgent group, which calls itself Sindhudesh People’s Army, claimed the heinous attack that targeted a dental clinic run by a Chinese couple in Karachi. Over the past few years, Sindhi insurgent groups have been trying to be more assertive. There were reports that some of them even forged alliances with some Balochi insurgent groups.’ 

The report went on to highlight: ‘Different nationalist insurgents, religiously inspired militants, and violent sectarian groups perpetrated a total of 262 terrorist attacks in Pakistan in the year – including 14 suicide bombings. – which marked an increase of 27 per cent from the year before. These terrorist attacks claimed 419 lives.’ 

The report points out that the TTP was ‘a major actor of violence in the year’ and has arguably benefitted most from the Afghan Taliban takeover in Kabul in 2021. In May 2022, a UNSC monitoring team also noted that the group was focused on a long-term campaign against the Pakistani state. When the army threatened to take the battle with the TTP into Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban government subtly warned that it could lead to war. The TTP has its bases across the border. 

The Afghan Taliban is reluctant to control its ideological kin, the TTP, and sees it as a useful tool to keep Pakistan’s border question with Afghanistan alive. The border between the two countries is defined by the so-called Durand Line, drawn in 1893 between the then British India and Afghanistan by Mortimer Durand but was never endorsed by the Afghans. 

Andy Khan points out that the Taliban also finds itself between a rock and a hard place with the terror groups. ‘If they align themselves with a democratic government in Pakistan, [the Taliban’s] own rule comes under attack by democratic forces, and when they try to align themselves with the groups like TTP and ISPP, their relationship with the Pakistan army is at stake.’ 

The army’s strategy for gathering power in Afghanistan is an old one. Control over Afghanistan has been sought for decades as a part of Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’. Physicist and political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy argues that with Afghanistan supporting the TTP, any distinction that might have once been raised by the army between ‘good Taliban and bad Taliban’ in terms of its attitude towards Pakistan, is now under question. 

All this does not help Pakistan today. The country faces the serious spectre of destabilisation. Its supporters argue that it’s been a victim of US machinations in the region, which to some extent might be true. But equally, its inherent ideology, its institutions like the ISI and the army, and its political class share the bulk of the blame. 

Lately, there have been signs that the TTP might be responsive to the control of religious leaders. The TTP chief, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, put out a video asking religious leaders if they had a problem with the group’s actions. ‘If you find any problem with the jihad that we waged [against this global infidel agenda] if you believe we have changed our direction, that we have gone astray, then you’re requested to guide us. We’re always ready to listen to your arguments happily,’ he said. Mehsud is said to be in hiding in a safe haven in Afghanistan. 

A group of religious scholars then issued an edict or fatwa against terrorist activity. They said that declaring war against the security forces of an Islamic state was proscribed by Islamic law. Pakistan is officially an Islamic country. The TTP’s future course remains to be seen. Its agenda of setting up an Islamic government in Pakistan, however, remains intact. 

Ten years ago, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom, pointed out that her country was ‘located at the intersection between the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia, three critical regions in the world,’ She added: ‘It is a nuclear state, it has a Muslim identity… a strong society but a fragile state.’ Pakistan’s many problems may seem intractable, but the world ignores them at its peril.