To come up with a neat little theory about the anarchy, that is the politics of Pakistan, is in no way a mean accomplishment. Even the effort to discover a structure in the midst of what is seemingly a bizarre activity takes a lot of courage. The actions taken in the name of the state of Pakistan are often so perplexing that one can put forward an explanatory model at the peril of one’s own repute as an ostensibly sane person with some knowledge of the political structure.
How would one explain, for instance, the acquisition of unenviable status of the ‘most allied ally’, when the dangers of pitfalls were but imminent? Why would a country fight against the USSR at the behest of a power that gladly witnessed the breakup of the country not more than ten years ago? What will impel a state to put its survival at stake and participate in the ‘war on terror’, when even the political amateurs could foretell the state of affairs that the country has come to?
Confusing questions indeed. What do we do in such situations? We establish the motive. Who, in that case, benefits from such policies? Pakistan as a nation, clearly, does not. Pakistan has, in fact, suffered a lot as a result of them. The beneficiaries are the people acting on behalf of the country, the people who are supposed to keep the interests of the nation over and above any personal, factional or regional interests. The people we call the government.
States, without doubt, are the principal actors in international politics. Each state strives for what we term as the national interest. No matter how elusive the concept of national interest might be, there is no denying the fact that survival of the state is the foremost manifestation of the national interest of any state. Like any other entity the growth and development of the state is also conditioned upon its survival. If the state vanishes, there will be nothing to work for.
However, as we said, states act through their representatives in the international politics. What we call state’s actions are actually actions taken by individuals on behalf of the state. In normal circumstances, the individuals will do what is best for the state. In Pakistan, though, it is not always the case. The individuals and groups supposed to work on behalf of the state have personal or group interests as the primary motivating factors. The national interest, often, stands somewhere behind the personal gains and motivations in the queue.
Driven by the same instinct, the governments like all other species consider their survival to be the primary determining factor for a policy. The survival of the government is the yardstick against which the utility of an action taken on behalf of the state is evaluated. What is best for the government is best for the state. In a way, we are made to believe that a certain person is the government. Then, the actions suggest that the government is the state. At the end it comes down to the fact that the person in question is the state.
Such a realization makes it easier for us to understand the decisions that prove catastrophic for the country. Devoid of any domestic popularity, and resultantly legitimacy, the governments turn to external sources for legitimacy. Those who consider the internal opposition the chief threat to their rule would go to any extent to turn the external opposition into support. Legitimacy for their rule comes at a price, often at a heavy price, for the land of the pure.
Although the military governments are not the only ones to be blamed, they are the most fortunate – not to mention the fact that they need it more than the civilian governments. As soon as a military ruler steps into the power in Pakistan through a palace revolution, a regional or international conflict awaits our involvement. More often than not, Pakistan does not even to need to get involved into it. But the government does. Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf have all been examples of leaders that have been acceptable abroad while unpopular at home. Who would need to muster domestic support anyway, when you are backed by the superpower?
The honeymoon, as is the case with all honeymoons, does not last long. The courtship ends the moment the value of Pakistan fades away, at least for the time being. Paradoxically, the minute the civilian government enters the office, it finds itself presiding over a disaster. In most cases, such a disaster is not of its own making. It is one of the fringe benefits of tolerating an illegitimate and unpopular government, in no case for less than 9 years.
Today, Pakistan is fighting someone else’s war on the northwest border. It has to settle for the membership of committees when its soldiers, let alone the general population, is killed in numbers, not by the ‘enemy combatants’ but by the allies in the war on terror. It has to take upon itself the misdeeds of killing of innocent people when they are actually killed by the deadliest force in the human history. What for do we do this? The answer is simple but painful: to show that we have the guts to kill our people and therefore the utility to keep us in the good books.
The impression is not only made on the political policies. We are rewriting religious books to make them acceptable to our masters – actually, to the masters of our masters. We are enlightening the society on a borrowed model to escape the fears of being sent to the Stone Age. The models to be followed for enlightenment are more than enough: you can see them dancing all over the place. Amusing as it is, one only feels for them. What wouldn’t they give to be what they are? We have lost much of national integrity for our governments to survive. Still, they do not appreciate the fact that in the survival and development of Pakistan lies the survival of anything Pakistan – even that of the government of Pakistan.
To summarize: it is logically guaranteed that the very nature of the system that the domestic popularity is never considered to be the criteria for entrance in the government, the nation will suffer in the hands of unpopular governments. In such an unstable situation, such governments have neither the courage nor the inner justification needed for acts of deviation.                
The Pakistani nation is still awaiting an extraordinary departure from procedure, when for once the national interest of Pakistan will be supreme in the crafting of state policies, when the anomalies and riddles would be solved through their measurement against the national interest and not against the interest of the government. We are waiting for the time when our survival will be the primary concern of the governments, not in rhetoric but in something that understandably speaks louder.