It is nowadays the fashion to refer to Pakistan as a failed state. However, is this really so? The fact of the matter
is that
Pakistan is not a state at all – it is a grouping of four disparate provinces (
Punjab,
Afghan,
Kashmir and Baluch
istan). In fact, the word Pakistan itself is an acronym of the first letters of these four provinces. These provinces, and the people who inhabit them (Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmiris and Baluch), have nothing in common and never had anything in common. Pakistan is not a failed state for the simple reason that it was never a state to begin with!
Pakistan is that rarity among nations – it has no history of its own! Egypt takes pride in its Pharaohs and its Pyramids, Indonesia accepts the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as part of its cultural heritage, and even Iran (second to none in terms of Islamic zeal) has found a place for its Zoroastrian past. But for Pakistan the past does not exist – because the past is Hindu; and to accept the past would be to deny that it has an identity distinct from its Indian identity. Unfortunately for the founders of Pakistan, geography, language, race and culture do not lie. Interestingly, outside their own nation - even in the neighborhood of the Islamic Gulf – Pakistanis are routinely addressed as “Indians”! Foreigners see, and make no distinction between the people of the two states.
In every aspect of the term, Pakistan is a child of terror. Two children were born at the stroke of midnight (in 1947) – India and Pakistan. If India won her independence by civil disobedience (the application of non-violent means to the public domain), the creation of Pakistan is the result of “Direct Action” – a euphemism for the use of state sponsored terror on a massive (and unmanageable scale). To but it bluntly, the Muslim League was made victorious through the use of terror. If people are surprised at the widespread use of terror – by all sides - in Pakistan today, they need not be. Pakistan was born out of terror, and it has simply carried on from there. And why not? When terror is seen as the route to achieving one’s goals, the path to success…
Given this genealogy, is it any surprise that Pakistan has emerged as a state sponsor of terrorism? To begin with, in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Where they honed their tactics, developed their plans and fine-tuned their strategy. And then (by proxy) throughout the western world. Let us not be in any doubt that the jihadi terrorists that attacked America and Europe were born and bred in Pakistan. The question is sometimes raised as to where they receive their instructions – but the question is meaningless. It is in Pakistan that they received their training, their motivation and their indoctrination. And when they had been sufficiently wound up (like pieces of clockwork), they were put in motion and let loose upon an unsuspecting world.