The new political movements do not seek secession. They demand a nation ruled not by generals, but by its constitution. Their grievances have not made them enemies of Pakistan. Nationalism continues to be a powerful force… A genuinely democratic Pakistan, however, would be one where the generals’ jihadist proxies no longer enjoy state patronage and impunity. India must avoid hostile ultra-nationalist polemic and existential threats—moves that will only push Pakistan’s new democrats to rally around the military.
Away from LoC, General Munir is losing a far more fateful war within Pakistan
Tin chests, charpais, bundles of blankets, almirahs: their lives piled up on ageing Toyota pick-up trucks, the villagers of Lakki Marwat’s Sarkatti Michan Khel last week began a long journey to outrun the searing heat of war. The week before, after a battle that claimed the lives of eight Pakistani Special Forces personnel, the villagers were ordered to cut down trees and brush around the village and ensure jihadists could no longer enter the mosque. The villagers decided their best chance of survival was to leave.
Late on Tuesday night, Indian missiles rained down on nine jihadist-linked infrastructure targets across Pakistan, in revenge for the massacre of 25 tourists and one local citizen in Kashmir’s Pahalgam. International media, citing Pakistan military sources, said five Indian jets were shot down during the course of the operation, allowing Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir to claim victory. India has denied Pakistan’s claims.
General Asim Munir, though, is fighting a far more significant battle on a second front in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where soldiers of the Peshawar-headquartered XI Corps are engaged in a grim war within. Few figures are available, but at one stage, the campaign drew in tens of thousands of soldiers. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) jihadists, streaming south from Afghanistan, have carved out small emirates across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, coexisting uneasily with both the state and its enemies.
Azm-i-Ishtekham—the military operation launched in 2024—was named ‘A Resolve For Stability’. So far, it has mainly succeeded in grinding down ordinary people, not the terrorists it is targeting. For Indian strategists planning their next steps, the state of Azm-i-Ishtekham holds out an important lesson: Forcing Pakistan to commit more troops to holding the Line of Control would bleed it of resources far more effectively than flamboyant air strikes….
***
Pakistan glorifies terrorism in the name of Islam: Author Arif Jamal
How the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Built a Virtual Resistance
Arif Jamal: Shadow war: the untold story of Jihad in Kashmir
Ishtiaq Ahmed; Pakistan the Garrison State: Origins, Evolution, Consequences 1947–2011
This study seeks to solve the following puzzle: In 1947, the Pakistan military was poorly trained and poorly armed. It also inherited highly vulnerable territory vis-à-vis the much bigger India, aggravated because of serious disputes with Afghanistan. Defence and Security were therefore issues that no Pakistan government, civil or military, could ignore. The military did not take part in politics directly until 1958, although it was called upon to restore order in 1953 in the Punjab province. Over the years, the Pakistan Army, continued to grow in power and influence and progressively became the most powerful institution. Moreover, it became an institution with de facto veto powers at its disposal to overrule other actors within society, including elected governments. Simultaneously, it began to acquire foreign patrons and donors willing to arm it as part of the Cold War competition (the United States), regional balance-of-power concerns (China) and ideological contestants for leadership over the Muslim world (Saudi Arabia, to contain Iranian influence). A perennial concern with defining the Islamic identity of Pakistan exacerbated by the Afghan jihad, resulted in the convergence of internal and external factors to produce the ‘fortress of Islam’ self-description that became current in the early twenty-first century.\
Over time, Pakistan succumbed to extremism and terrorism within and was accused of being involved in similar activities within the South Asian region and beyond. Such developments have been ruinous to Pakistan’s economic and democratic development. The following questions are posed to shed further light: What is the relationship between the internal and external factors in explaining the rise of the military as the most powerful institution in Pakistan? What have been the consequences of such politics for the political and economic development in Pakistan? What are the future prospects for Pakistan? A conceptual and theoretical framework combining the notion of a post-colonial state and Harald Lasswell’s concept of a garrison state is propounded to analyse the evolution of Pakistan as a fortress of Islam.
Steve Coll: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden (2004)
(Coll’s book won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It is time for Punjabis to atone for the sins of 1947
Seventy-five Years After Indian Partition
Pakistan’s First Law & Labour Minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal’s Resignation Letter, October 1950
Extracts from B. R. Ambedkar’s book on Pakistan (1940, 1945)
Akhtar Balouch: Why did Qurratulain Hyder leave Pakistan for India?
After the truth-shower 