Book review: A focus on Pakistan’s tumultuous last decade

Book: Pakistan: Democracy, Terror And The Building Of A Nation
Iftikhar Malik
New Holland
208 pages
Rs395

Pakistan is probably the single most important country in the world today, but unfortunately, for many wrong reasons. Islamic fundamentalism has a strong base there, it has nuclear arms, weak democratic institutions and an army that plays dangerous games that often hamper the country’s progress.

In his book, Iftikhar Malik, an expert on South Asia politics and history, has pored over the last decade of Pakistan’s life. Ten years in a country’s life is akin to a few months in an individual’s life; but given that Pakistan was born in 1947, and conceived just a few years earlier, a decade is a sufficient period to study; particularly a decade of strife in neighbouring Afghanistan, which shares a long border with Pakistan.

Malik writes about the birth of Pakistan, its formative years, and how democracy never managed to survive, let alone flourish, and about the ongoing war on terror. The book covers history and current affairs, jumping from one to the other in a somewhat jerky manner.

Malik agrees that Pakistan faces many challenges, none more so than weaning away young and poor (or lower middle-class) Muslims from the lure of Islamic radicals. The radicals find it easy to lure these youngsters because the state has so little to offer them by way of economic opportunities. But Malik also takes umbrage at those who condemn Pakistan, and points out that journalists and academics tend to take a simplistic view of Pakistan. Like other countries, there are many parallel streams in Pakistan, including a rising middle-class urban population that is keen to have a modern state (as shown by the judges and lawyers who overthrew Musharraf). He criticises those who only talk about the risks emanating from Pakistan while ignoring these other progressive processes currently under way in Pakistan, which may succeed in establishing the kind of nation that Jinnah envisaged.

Unfortunately, Malik’s arguments won’t convince many people, particularly because he has not given sufficient reasons to believe that the middle-class is relevant. The spectre of radicals hell bent on establishing their brand of puritanical Islam is still alive; and they don’t intend to stop with Pakistan, particularly if they get their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This book’s analysis attempts to make the reader believe the situation might improve in Pakistan. One sincerely hopes it will, but the argument is not sufficiently convincing.