Abbotabad & after

The image of Pakistan has taken a severe beating in the last few days. Most of the world sees its actions as being both duplicitous and untrustworthy, confirming what many in India have believed to be true for a long time. The absurdity of bin Laden living for over five years next to a military garrison in a comfortable mansion in an urban settlement is not lost on anyone. The Pakistani version, such as it is, does little to improve things for even if it were to be believed, it is nothing more than an admission of the most staggering ineptitude of both its military and its otherwise highly regarded and feared intelligence apparatus. Pakistan has thrived on its apparent weakness. Its biggest source of immunity is its fragility, which on the surface at least, looks very real. Between the civilian government, the military, the religious establishment, the intelligence, and sundry tribal and regional warlords, nobody is visibly in charge of Pakistan. As a nation state, it is amoebic in definition and shape-shifting in behaviour. Pakistan is the name we give to an amorphous set of competing interest groups, covered loosely by the ill-fitting fabric of nationhood. The law is variable, its borders are broad indicators of very porous intent, the democratic process works but in a way to make the idea of democracy weightless and insubstantial, and it has many centres of power that are able to transfer responsibility with giddy agility. It is an unstable mess, a cauldron of primitive passions and canny venalities, which impregnates others with its own confusion. The visibility and the reality that underpin its fragility make it a grenade waiting to explode but the real genius lies in communicating to the world that it holds the pin. Pakistan’s internal contradictions married with its strategic importance and its status as a nuclear state serve to transfer responsibility for its viability to everyone but itself. Pakistan must be tolerated, because the world cannot handle a failed Pakistan, is the argument.