More predictable engagement from Pak likely

ON February 25, 2009, Shehbaz Sharif, the new Pakistani Prime Minister, during a protest against the Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify him and his brother from being candidates in election, recited a popular poem of Habib Jalib, Dastoor, which was a clarion call of defiance against a political system based on authoritarianism. The irony was obvious as Jalib, a popular leftist poet, died in penury. He lived in the same city (Lahore) as the Sharifs, arguably one of the richest families of Pakistan, courtesy their business empire, who owe their entry into politics to General Zia-ul-Haq. Jalandhar-born General Zia became the Pakistan President after declaring martial law in 1977 and under his regime, a democratically elected PM was hanged.

Like other post-colonial countries struggling with faultlines of class, ethnicity and geopolitics, the story of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country with a 22-crore population whose geography stands at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, is laden with ironies.

Imran Khan’s four-year-long tenure as Pakistan Prime Minister is no exception to this trend. Some of the ironies need to be studied to make sense of what happened during this period.

First, Imran’s political rise may possibly have come with the support of the Pakistani army, the most important institutional force in the country, and it seems that he no longer enjoys the protection of the institution. Covertly, the differences may have arisen in the past but came out in the open on the issue of the PM’s direct interference in the appointment of the ISI chief. His rule has proven once again that the perpetual tussle on the issue of civilian supremacy exists.

Second, Imran may have lost the majority in the parliament but he is not extinguished politically. He retains a cult-like popularity and he has cleverly employed the lexicon of decolonialisation and Islam that is popular among the young and the middle-aged, both in the rural and urban areas. A country that has continuously slackened in economic progress, courtesy the lack of a social cohesion brought by religious extremism, and national obsession with Kashmir, is perpetually looking for punching bags. For Imran and his cohorts, it is the entire political class whom they call corrupt and blame them for looting Pakistan.

Imran’s exit is set to introduce potential changes. In this connection, it requires a mention that notwithstanding Imran’s rhetoric to present himself as one of the leaders of the Islamic world and his recent visit to Russia, coinciding with the Ukrainian invasion, the external priorities of Pakistan remain the Middle East, China, Europe, the US and India.

Within the Middle East, Imran angered the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Pakistan’s most important financial benefactor in the region. The then Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, surprised many in 2020 when he publicly admonished the KSA leadership for its failure to convene a foreign ministers’ meeting of the KSA-led 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The KSA’s desire to remain equidistant from the Indo-Pak rivalry seemed to be the trigger behind Qureshi’s outburst. Additionally, Pakistan’s foreign policy has put itself in the crosshairs of the renewed rivalry between the KSA and Turkey. Imran had lavished praise on the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and encouraged Pakistan’s State media to broadcast famous Turkish show Ertugrul and dub it in Urdu.

The KSA is important for the Sharif family as it was on its intervention that former PM Nawaz Sharif was allowed to leave Pakistan by Pervez Musharraf a year after the general had deposed Sharif in a military coup. The early years of the Musharraf-era eight-year exile of the Sharif family was spent in the KSA. The political change, going by the statement of the new PM, Shehbaz Sharif, will aim to repair its relationship with the KSA. This is good for stability in South Asia as the KSA has a good equation with India and had constructively intervened during the post-Pulwama crisis.

The US is seen as a short-term maximiser in Pakistan. Imran has accused the US of being instrumental in the regime change. Because a large segment of the valuable Pakistani military’s hardware is from the US, as acknowledged recently by Pakistani army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa in a public speech, the Pakistani army was not comfortable with the aggressive anti-US position adopted by Imran.

On this issue, the Pakistani civilian-military set-up will aim to stabilise the relationship with the US by damage control. Pakistan has cleverly cultivated its ties for more than six decades with China by leveraging its geostrategic location and there will be a return to public balancing between China and the US, a skill that the Pakistan military and diplomatic elite have mastered for several decades now.

The European Union (EU) was particularly peeved with Imran’s visit to Russia the same day invasion was announced. The EU urged him to oppose the Russian invasion at the UN, like it did with many countries in the global south. Rather than managing the situation diplomatically, Imran openly called out the Europeans hypocrites. The new PM, Shehbaz Sharif, accused Imran of sacrificing Pakistani economic interests by such claims as Europe imports 50 per cent of Pakistan’s textile exports.

On India, the political change is expected to be subtle. Given the structural constraints and, to be fair to the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N), now coalition partners, both parties have made some bold efforts to reach out to India in the last two-and-a-half decades. Various acts of terrorism by outfits with footprints in Pakistan, and the Pakistan military misadventure in Kargil derailed the process.

One of the main impediments is the perennial obsession with Kashmir which has created a situation that no party can be seen as diluting its commitment towards the issue. In contrast to his brother, the younger Sharif has cleverly positioned himself as not crossing the redlines of the Pakistani army.

On the positive side, the February 25, 2021, ceasefire along the Line of Control is continuing. Like his brother Nawaz Sharif, the new PM is expected to build a narrative centred on improving economic ties to create a positive atmosphere. However, no significant breakthrough can be expected, given the short timeframe the new PM has, with the national elections scheduled for next year.

Imran’s adventurous foreign policy that rankled the feathers of many in his country, including the army, will make way for a more predictable and risk-averse Pakistani engagement with the world.