DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM AND MUMBAI CARNAGE

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador of Bangladesh)

Pakistan is counted among those developing countries of the world where most of the people have insufficient income to provide for minimum standard of living further compounded by appreciable increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty that Manuel Castells would call misery. In Marxian analysis poverty stricken great majority of people have nothing to sell but themselves as opposed to the wealth of the few that increases constantly. Inevitably the process of accumulation of wealth is corruption-ridden. Yves Menay(La corruption de la Republique) has ascribed four invariant characteristics of corruption;- (a) violation of social rules and norms; (b) secret exchange among political, social and economic markets; (c) illegal access given to individuals and groups to the process of political and administrative decision making; and (d) resultant tangible benefits to the parties involved in the transaction. By any definition corruption is illegal and in the first instance results from collusion between political and money elites—the first party abuses public position of trust for private gains of both parties. Corruption inevitably leads to loss in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a loss that should be seen in the context of global interpersonal inequality in which the rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. 

Mumbai carnage and the global meltdown have brought forth the question of morality in judging both the national and international behavior of states and the evaluation of the code of conduct, more or less uniform in character, prescribed to be followed by the civilized nations. The Brookings Institution has been developing the concept of “sovereignty as responsibility”. In other words sovereignty imposed abiding obligations towards one’s own people as well as certain privileges internationally. In 1992 Butros Butros Ghali had said that “the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty has passed; its theory was never matched with reality”. Even Michael Walzer’s legalist paradigm would sanction war of self-defense by the victim or war of law enforcement by the victim and the international community and the punishment of the aggressor. This notion assumes that developing countries cannot hide under the cloak of underdevelopment as an excuse of their aberrant behavior.

 Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of decolonization has been the imperceptible regression of presumptions relating to “racial superiority and civilized mode of behavior” of the metropolitan people vis-à-vis those living in the periphery and the gradual metropolitan recognition that the subalterns, and many among them, are no less qualified than they are. Though  the world is divided  into First, Second and the Third( or even Fourth) worlds due in part to  social stratification or societal division based on wealth, power and status that  has been a defining characteristic of civilizations   taking global shape with the advent of colonization, embedded with  bizarre aspect of colonization being the self-assumed patriarchal attitude of the colonizers towards the colonized.  In effect both in their own lands and in the conquered territories the colonizers were subscribing to the FIRST PRINCIPLES of Scottish socialist philosopher Robert Owen that it was necessary for a large part of mankind to exist in ignorance and poverty to secure for the remaining part such degree of happiness as they now enjoyed. During and after the process of decolonization the newly and aspirant independent countries began to question the hypothesis inherent in the modernization theory which explained underdevelopment in terms of lack of certain qualities in the “underdeveloped” societies such as drive, entrepreneurial skill, creativity and problem solving ability. The decolonized  people rebelling against intellectual dystrophy and sanitized academic orthodoxy by and large put their faith in the dependency theory which explained that the continued impoverishment of the Third World was not internally generated but was a structural condition of global domination in which the dominant forced the dominated to be producers of raw materials and food stuff for the industrialized metropolitan center.

The question that can be asked of the Pakistani authorities is whether they would advance dependency theory of development as an excuse for their inability to further socio-economic development of the country and ethno-centric fracture of society providing space to terrorists. Even the Americans who consider Pakistan as a front line state in its “war on terror” and have given the country the status of a Major Non-NATO country providing facilities for purchase of weapons at concessional rate insist these days that all countries practice good governance,   multi-party democracy, respect for human rights and rule of law, government with the consent of the governed, accountability, equity and poverty eradication. The point in question is the limit put on sovereignty if a country is unable to function as a responsible member of the international community. Should we seriously consider Kindelberger’s theory of hegemonic stability despite global apprehension over doctrine of preemption? Or should the West heed   Professor Nial Ferguson’s exhortation that the US should take up the call of history and behave like an empire because otherwise the power vacuum would be filled with “anarchic new Dark Age, an era of waning empire and religious fanaticism... and civilization’s retreat to a few fortified enclaves”? The relentless erosion of Westphalian sovereignty continues to frighten, particularly Gunar Myardal’s “soft states” which should include Pakistan. On December 9^th President Bush on his last visit to the West Point warned the cadets that “one of the most important challenges that we will face, in the years ahead, is helping our partners assert control over ungoverned spaces. This problem is most pronounced in Pakistan, where areas along the Afghanistan border are home to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters”. He added that it has been made clear to Pakistan that “we will do what is necessary to protect American troops and American lives... We have made clear that governments that sponsor terror are as guilty as the terrorists and will be held to account”. But then one cannot dismiss totally President Asif Ali Zardari’s unequivocal statement that “Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root. … Not only are the terrorists not linked with the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims”. The question as to how the Indian government should respond that would satisfy the grief and anger of the people, however, remains to be answered. In the foreseeable future various terrorist groups, described by Ashley Tellis( of Carnegie Endowment) as sectarian ( Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba & Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria), anti-Indian( ISI, LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkatul Mujahedeen etc), Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda and its affiliates,  Pakistani Taliban( Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)  are expected to continue their terrorist activities in India and in other countries. Steve Coll, President of New America Foundation finds the Pakistani Taliban of younger generation as of more violent and radical disposition who have no patience with compromise with the state. Coll had warned in a piece in the New Yorker that there was evidence to suggest that “some current and former Pakistani military and intelligence officers sympathize with the Islamist insurgents with whom they are notionally at war”. Christine Fair of Rand Corporation echoed similar views to the US House of Representatives early this year. These terrorists have to be faced with multi-pronged strategy—annihilation militarily of the hard core and cooption of the groups that are in the margins and draw them in the mainstream politics and create opportunities for them. Meanwhile the Muslim world has to consider whether madrasa education that breeds terrorists in large number in this age of globalization  demanding technical and scientific education should not be radically revised to meet the demands of time.

 

 

 

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