If the areas that are part of today’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia become peaceful and stable by finding their ancient roots, the people in those regions will become prosperous.
A lot has been written about the war with Pakistan but it is also important to plan for peace in the country. Pakistan was created as a religious theocracy and that has led to the country becoming the fountainhead of international terrorism and one of the most unstable places on the planet. When Pakistan tested its nuclear bombs, it labelled them “Islamic bombs”, thereby sending a message to the world that the bombs were meant for waging a global jihad against the rest of the world. Regardless of that history, there is now an opportunity for India and the world to help liberate Pakistanis as they are now frustrated by their rulers and their Constitution which imposes a religion on them.
Many of them no longer want to reject their own ancient and rich civilization that blossomed around the Indus river thousands of years ago, but want to restore the culture that grew out of that civilization. Tarek Fatah, the late thinker, was one such person, and the fact that he was not an exception but part of a general trend is clear from the fact that Pakistanis did not oppose China’s actions of bringing civilized thought and modernity to the Uyghur people of Xinjiang province despite being prodded by the West to oppose China’s efforts. Instead, they watched the state of affairs with utter fascination and longed for similar changes in Pakistan. Critics of China were clearly proven wrong by the emergence of many videos posted by young women from Xinjiang province who welcomed the positive change ushered in by China.
The Pakistani state’s deterioration into multiple power centres with the army, the intelligence agency, the Supreme Court, the politicians, and the religious clerics forming the power centres that have constantly been at war with one another is an indication of the fact that even the members of the Pakistani elite are unhappy with their system. However, they are unable to put a finger on the actual problem that ails their country. Once they realize that the root of their discontent is really their medieval era setup and the associated ideologies, they too will welcome India ushering in positive change on their behalf.
It is not unusual for Pakistanis to look up to India and want their country to become similar to India. Not long ago, Imran Khan, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, expressed this desire and praised both India and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India can help the people of Pakistan and make the dreams of people like Imran Khan come true by bringing them liberty, democracy, secular polity, women’s rights, free-speech rights, rule of law, and religious freedom along the lines of what is described in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which includes the right to propagate any religion or even leave one’s religion and embrace another religion.
Instilling each of these values among the people of Pakistan is necessary, but before that can happen, India would need to take control of Pakistan and demarcate it into several administrative zones of manageable sizes, each containing ethnic groups who can live together in peace. Among such zones should be Gilgit, Baltistan, the area of Kashmir that is currently occupied by Pakistan, Sindhu Desh, Balochistan, Pakhtunistan, Chitral, and West Punjab. India should also enter into talks with the Afghanistan government and offer Pakhtunistan to them in exchange for Afghanistan ceding Nuristan, which can be merged with Chitral as both Nuristan and Chitral have populations that practice Hinduism. In the interest of avoiding future ethnic wars, Afghanistan will also have to give up areas with Tajik majority population to Tajikistan and Uzbek majority areas to Uzbekistan. For their part, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have experimented with the banning of the burqa on the grounds that they are expressions of religious fanaticism. In reality, such actions are desperate measures rooted in a subconscious desire to go back to their original ancient culture, the hint of which can still be found in the archaeological sites of Panjakent in Tajikistan.
If the areas that are part of today’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia become peaceful and stable by finding their ancient roots, the people in those regions will become prosperous as they find themselves becoming part of a major trading hub that lies between the three major countries of India. Russia and China. This would also undo historical wrongs as both Pakistan and Afghanistan were, in part, created to prevent Russia and India from conducting trade with each other.
It makes sense for India, USA, Russia and China to work together and bring peace and stability to the region. US President Donald Trump has articulated some good ideas to develop Gaza into a Middle Eastern Riviera, and similar out-of-the-box thinking is necessary for developing Pakistan and Afghanistan. China has already proposed working together with India at the civilizational level and India should take up this offer. Apart from China sharing its expertise that it applied in Xinjiang, another person who can to be roped in is Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as he has the unique experience of using peaceful means to successfully persuade religious zealots into joining the mainstream.
The onus is now on the Indian government to take the initiative and help bring peace to the region. India needs to take over Pakistani ports and secure them. It also needs to move into Gilgit and Baltistan without playing the game of back-and-forth escalation and coordinate its efforts with both Balochistan and Afghanistan. This is the right time to act as there were reports of Pakistan giving away their weapons to Ukraine. Additionally, India has the moral high ground, and acting quickly to liberate the Pakistani people is the right thing to do. There will certainly be some resistance from Pakistan’s rulers as they have no choice but put on a brave front, but their weak response so far shows that they lack the will to oppose India, and probably even secretly wish that India delivers them from their misery.
* The author can be reached at arvindk@uchicago.edu