Like army, like nationBY NADEEM F. PARACHA ON APRIL 21ST, 2011 The basic socio-political mindset of the Pakistani society is the outcome of various faithbased experiments conducted by the state and the armed forces. The party In 1995, sometime in May, an uncle of mine (an ex-army man), was invited to a party of sorts. The invitation came from a former top-ranking military officer who had also worked for the Pakistan intelligence agency, the ISI. He was in the army with my uncle (who now resides abroad) during the 1960s. My uncle, who was visiting Pakistan, asked if I was interested in going with him. I agreed. The event was at a military officer’s posh bungalow in Karachi’s Clifton area. Most of the guests (if not all) were former military men. All were articulate, spoke fluent English and wore modern, western clothes. I was not surprised by this but what did surprise me was a rather schizophrenic aura about the surroundings. Though modern-looking and modern-sounding, the gathering turned out to be a segregated affair. The men’s wives were placed in a separate room, while the men gathered in a wider sitting area. By now it become clear to me that I wouldn’t be getting served anything stronger than Pepsi on the rocks! I scratched my head, thinking that even though I was at a ‘party’ in a posh, stylish bungalow in the posh, stylish Clifton area with all these posh stylish military men and their wives and yet, somehow I felt there very little that was ‘modern’ about the situation. By modern, I also mean the thinking that was reflected by the male guests on politics, society and religion. Most of the men were also clean-shaven and reeking of expensive cologne, but even while talking about cars, horses and their vacations in Europe, they kept using Arabic expressions such as mashallah, alhamdullila, inshallah, etc. I tried to strike up some political conversations with a few gentlemen but they expected me to agree with them about how civilian politicians were corrupt, how democracy can be a threat to Pakistan, how civilian leaders do not understand India’s nefarious designs, et al. Then, alas, as if right on cue, the moment I began telling them that I was actually a working journalist (they thought I was a college student in some foreign university), in came two senior journalists who seemed to be very close to some of the men there. These journalists were known for their somewhat right-wing views. They are still around. I thought hard about what had just taken place. Especially when (quite accidentally) I glanced into the ladies’ section, I saw smart women (designer handbags, blow-dried hair and the works) leftleaning moves and rhetoric with controlled Islamic bluster. the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Awami League). However. enthusiastically mixing their tales of fashion-related escapades with sincere talk about what dua to say at what time and how Pakistanis are moving away from ‘true Islam’. unperturbed by the fact that their gaudy modernism somehow did not include mixed gatherings. . Balochistan and NWFP and that from the Islamist parties which. military symbols were fused with those of Islam. He thought that this way he would be able to keep in check both the secular opposition coming from radical nationalist groups in Sindh. The situation in this context remained the same during the early 1970s. some Islamic symbolism was tactfully used by the military during the 1965 war against India. but this did not last long – especially in an era when a secular military dictatorship was being challenged by an equally secular and left-leaning civilian opposition (the National Awami Party. during the democratically-elected government of Z. although electorally weak. One must remember that all this remained to be a social experiment during the Bhutto regime and Pakistan’s society remained largely secular until about 1975. the military and eventually the society in general. A. Bhutto wanted to strike a balance between secular. until the late 1960s. Bhutto (1972-77). and I overheard many of them (both the hijabis and the non-hijabis). and many senior officers began introducing ‘Islamic practices’ in the barracks. In fact. So what was going on? The experiment The Pakistan Army was once a staunchly secular beast. What was even more surreal was the presence of some hijab-clad ladies among the army wives. Believing that populist Islamic symbolism to be compatible with his regime’s staunchly nationalistic and progressive posturing. Bhutto also thought that by bolstering Islamic symbolism and myths in school textbooks. Pakistani military men were asked to keep religion a private matter and religious exhibitionism was scorned at as well as reprimanded – mostly during Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s dictatorship (1959-69). the fact was that the kind of Islamisation which began engulfing the Pakistani society from the 1980s onwards. All across the 1950s and 1960s it was steeped in secular (albeit conservative) traditions and so were its sociological aspects.chatting away. Nevertheless. Often. had a large nuisance value. actually began taking root within the barracks of the Pakistan Army. This experiment was first performed in the military. it would help him keep Pakistan intact after the failure of the Two-Nation Theory in 1971 when the country’s eastern wing broke away to become Bangladesh. and this experiment soon began seeping into the society through revised school textbooks and the state-owned media. Abul Ala Maududi. many officers also began introducing writings of the conservative Islamic scholar. Apart from also introducing enforced prayers and Islamiyat courses. an event in which disgruntled Muslims as well as Hindus played leading roles.’ Also. The Islamisation experiment seemed to have worked well in an army demoralised by the 1971 defeat against India. and in fact. being the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in Pakistan. the last Mughal. Such narratives and revised history would soon become mainstream thought by the time Ziaul Haq took over. with each episode more revisions came to light when Muslim characters hardly ever hark back to great proto-secular Mughals like Akbar and Jahangir. began handing out books authored by Maududi to soldiers along with medals. In fact. his party had actually held demonstrations in the 1960s against popular Arab nationalist leaders like Gamal Nasser whose government had hanged a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt.For example. It was based on the history of the Muslims of India from 1857 until the birth of Pakistan in 1947. . A big-budget historical melodrama (produced by young TV director Mohsin Ali) called Tabeer (Reality) was televised. This was also the first time when Pakistanis in general were fully introduced to a completely revised history of the region in which Muslims were seen as being completely separate and different from rest of the people of the subcontinent. Also. to the soldiers. State-owned TV (PTV) and the film industry (Lollywood) were hitting a peak in the 1970s and many of its creations at the time were largely progressive and liberal. alcohol in Pakistan was first banned in the barracks of the Pakistan Army (1973). However. his books almost became mandatory reading when men like General Ziaul Haq (before he toppled Bhutto in 1977). in 1975 PTV conducted its first experiment in constructing a popular serial based on the newly conceived Islamised narrative being developed in the military. the weak and spineless Bahdar Shah Zafar. allusions are constantly made to the Muslim roots lying in Arab nations and lands and India being a land that was conquered by the Muslims but had become a ‘darul harb’ for them after the fall of the Muslim empire. the TV series begins during the end of the Indian Mutiny against the British in 1857. For example. As the series continued. a good four years before it was banned across the country (in April 1977). in the serial we only see the Muslims leading the revolt and Hindus are nowhere to be seen. However. Maududi was a puritan who believed in jihad and his writings had already influenced a number of extremist outfits like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria. is shown using words like ‘jihad. Interestingly. Thus the schizophrenic happenings at the ‘party’ were a modern. The Tableeghi Jamaat which was formed in 1929 had. until the 1980s. Much of the funding for these came from Saudi Arabia. spouting Islamist rhetoric. upper-middle-class expression of the said process. A process that saw a secular army going through an experiment in political Islam that then was dissipated across the society and consolidated itself as a mainstream phenomenon. In the early 1990s. As more and more soldiers and officers became radicalised. and the revised historicity first introduced in the late 1970s became the new mainstream historical narrative in Pakistan. The army’s influence on the Pakistani society and politics meant that the Jamaat not only began to bag recruits from well-to-do urban classes. sectarian outfits and madrassas that were then used as recruiting grounds for the US-backed ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan. the Tableeghi Jamaat. this radicalisation was then introduced (by the ISI) into the society through a number of militant Islamist groups. its entry into the barracks produced a surreal mix when it came into contact with the highly political philosophy of Maududi that had by then deeply entrenched itself in the army. . this episode was another example of how an Islamic experiment that was first conducted in the Pakistani army soon seeped out to become a phenomenon in the society in general as well. and this was achieved when various senior Pakistan Army officers joined the Jamaat. been more associated with working/peasant-class Muslims from the Deobandi sect and (in the 1980s) became popular with the trader classes.The Islamisation experiment in the military too became a mainstay. while religion had begun to play a major role in the soldiers’ lives. Though an apolitical movement that emphasised on ‘correct’ Islamic ritualism and attire. one now saw senior officers with even the most liberal and secular habits. What I saw at that ‘party’ was actually the socio-political outcome of the above elaborated process. But this too was about to give in to even more Puritanism. but for the first time it also managed to attract a number of celebrities such as TV actors. A move was seen by the Jamaat from the early 1990s onwards in which a conscious attempt was made to attract upper-middle and middle-class Muslims. This phenomenon was then fused (in the army) with ritual Puritanism of the Tableeghi Jamaat and this fusion too became a mainstream sociological mainstay amongst various urban classes. The mutation By the late 1980s. began making its way into the military. the influential Islamic evangelical movement. It especially began consolidating itself during the military’s involvement in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad in Afghanistan. pop musicians and cricketers. but at the same time. anti-West. these classes whose politics are a fusion of classical political Islam. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.Interestingly it is the mindset emerging from this fusion and process that also dictates the choice of the kind of political leaders that the classes embroiled in this phenomenon would like to see. urban in outlook. The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group. good to look at. educated. For example. .com. Tableeghi Jamaat ritualism and modern-day consumerist capitalism want their leaders to be professional white-collared men. The choices too have increasingly become equally schizophrenic. Nadeem F. anti-India and highly tolerant of Islamic exhibitionism. even sometimes to the point of being apologetic about those who take this exhibitionism to a more violent levels. religious.