© 2024 KGOU
News and Music for Oklahoma
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Understanding How Pakistan's 65-Year History Led To The Current 'Hybrid Regime'

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen reviews Pakistani troops during a ceremony honoring Mullen's arrival to Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 9, 2008.
Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy
/
Wikimedia Commons
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen reviews Pakistani troops during a ceremony honoring Mullen's arrival to Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 9, 2008.

In 1947, the Indian subcontinent gained independence from the United Kingdom and split into three states: the Muslim majority countries of East and West Pakistan and the Hindu majority country of India.

“This is very important for us to understand,” says University of Waterloo professor Mariam Mufti. “Because subsequently all of Pakistan's actions on the international community have been driven by this foreign policy that was very India-centric.”

Mufti is a native of Pakistan and finds that the country is often misunderstood by the west. In Mufti’s opinion, there are three essential elements that one must learn about to understand Pakistan.

The first is history.

After the division, territorial disputes created tension between the two countries, leading to several wars, particularly concerning the Kashmir region.

The second aspect of Pakistan that must be taken into account is its geography. Besides India, Pakistan also shares borders with China, Afghanistan and Iran as well as the Indian Ocean.

“Pakistan is geo-politically very important for the United States and for US foreign policy and national security interests,” Mufti says.

The United States has complex relations with all of Pakistan’s neighbors, which gives the country a fair amount of influence in global affairs.

Pakistan map
Credit Omer Wazir
Map of Pakistan

“Pakistan, which has a positive relationship with China and has tried to maintain a positive relationship with the United States, has very clearly put itself in a position where it can leverage these two countries against one another,” Mufti says. “It’s a very clever tactic, but a very important foreign policy plank of Pakistan.”

The third aspect of Pakistan is its faith. Islam, specifically moderate Islam, is central to its identity.

“Pakistan, since its inception, has been a moderately Islamic country,” Mufti says. “Yes, it refers to itself officially as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, but Islam and the way it was practiced or understood by its people in their daily lives is not at all fundamentalist.”

This is an important distinction because Pakistan is often lumped in the category of fundamentalists by the Americans due to small extremist pockets and its proximity to more fundamentalist countries.

“Culturally speaking Pakistan shares more with India than it does with its neighboring Islamic countries Iran or Afghanistan,” Mufti says.

These facets of Pakistan have all contributed to the way it’s government functions, which Mufti refers to as a hybrid regime. A hybrid regime in this context is a government that exhibits both authoritarian and democratic tendencies.

“There is a very vibrant party system operating in Pakistan--a competitive multi-party system operating in Pakistan and a functioning legislature and of course competitive elections,” Mufti says, “But there are authoritarian tendencies as well.”

These tendencies come in the form of military influence on and at times control of government. For example, the regime imposed martial law during the country’s last military coup in 1999. Although elections are held, all elected officials are in close and constant contact with military officials.

“The military actually carries out an election, puts in place a functioning parliament, elects a prime minister,” Mufti says. “The prime minister then becomes the head of government and is calling the shots and yet at the same time, the chief of army staff establishes himself as the President of Pakistan which is a symbolic leader in Pakistan.”

“Pakistan is a security state in the sense that it sees it existence consistently threatened by this hostile neighbor in the form of India,” Mufti says.

This means that the military can involve itself in foreign policy as well as in domestic politics on the grounds that it is necessary for the protection of sovereignty. Although this practice isn’t the most popular in the international community, the Pakistani military sees it as the best way for maintaining order.

“It scores very poorly within the United Nations,” Mufti says. “ Of course they're aware of that. But does it matter? No, because what the Pakistan military is actually doing is protecting the country both internally and externally and who else would do it?"

--------------------------------------------------

KGOU and World Views rely on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners to further its mission of public service with internationally focused reporting for Oklahoma and beyond. To contribute to our efforts, make your donation online, or contact our Membership department.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:

On the history of Pakistan

Pakistan came into being in 1947 and this was part of the Indian subcontinent that had been colonized by the British and upon attaining independence, Pakistan split off from the Indian subcontinent and that's when two countries were born: India and Pakistan. Pakistan of course at that point in time came into being with two separate wings separated by India in the middle. Pakistan, present day Pakistan, West Pakistan and East Pakistan which is present day Bangladesh and emerging into a country at that point in time with two separate wings separated by a hostile territory in the middle, that of India, basically put into place Pakistan's foreign policy which was always anti-India and seemed to see India as the major threat to its survival. This is very important for us to understand because subsequently all of Pakistan's actions on the international community have been driven by this foreign policy that was very India-centric. That's the one thing that we need to understand.

On the importance of Pakistan to the United States

Pakistan is geo-politically very important for the United States and for US foreign policy and national security interests. Pakistan is also geo-politically very important because it is a strategic point on the Indian Ocean, so for China and the United States that would like to retain control of the Indian Ocean, Pakistan would become a very important flashpoint for both. As a result, Pakistan, which has a positive relationship with China and has tried to maintain a positive relationship with the United States, has very clearly put itself in a position where it can leverage these two countries against one another. It’s a very clever tactic but a very important foreign policy plank of Pakistan.

[Proximity to] Afghanistan is also critical because Afghanistan is on the path to the new silk road that is now being established which would link south Asia to central Asia and actually the United States would want for this new silk road to emerge its just the United States would like Afghanistan to sign the bilateral security agreement before it can endorse such a move.

On Pakistan’s moderate Islam

The last thing that I would like to mention about Pakistan is Islam, which I think is very misunderstood. We seem to think of Pakistan as being a fundamentalist country. We think of Pakistan and Muslims as being very rabid and fundamentalist in their beliefs and that is certainly not the case. Pakistan, since its inception has been a moderately Islamic country, yes, it refers to itself officially as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but Islam and the way it was practiced or understood by its people in their daily lives is not at all fundamentalist and this is a shift that we are starting to see since 9/11- there are pockets of Pakistani society which are now gaining ground that are certainly fundamentalist and extremist in their tendencies but Pakistan as a whole is certainly not and I think that if you understand the social and cultural fabric of Pakistan this is something that very clearly needs to be understood. Pakistan as a country is not fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination, in fact its far more open that many other Islamic countries. Culturally speaking Pakistan shares more with India than it does with its neighboring Islamic countries Iran or Afghanistan and that is something we tend to forget as well.

On the military’s influence on government in Pakistan

The one thing that you need to understand about the Pakistani military is that it sees itself as not just the protector of Pakistan's state borders, it also sees itself as the guardian of Pakistan's ideology. It sees itself as the guardian of Islam in Pakistan and this is why I mentioned the history right at the beginning of this interview. Pakistan is a security state in the sense that it sees it existence consistently threatened by this hostile neighbor in the form of India. The Pakistan army can step into Pakistan's foreign policy making, not just foreign policymaking but Pakistan's domestic politics by claiming that because Pakistan's existence is threatened by India that it needs to be there, front and center helping Pakistan’s inept political leadership make decisions that are going to retain the sanctity of Pakistan.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

SUZETTE GRILLOT, HOST: Mariam Mufti welcome to World Views.

MARIAM MUFTI: Thank you for inviting me.

GRILLOT: It's such a pleasure to have you here. You've been on our faculty for a while but we've not had you here for an interview. Very interesting work that you're doing in Pakistan. Obviously you're from Pakistan originally. This is a country that we don't seem to understand very well. There's a lot of perception, or misperception maybe about Pakistan and so maybe you could just begin by giving us some insight into what it is we need to know about Pakistan to fundamentally have a better understanding of a country that kind of seems like a mystery to us, on a daily basis.

MUFTI: Sure Suzette, this is always the question. Explaining a very complicated country that is in a very complex neighborhood and region of the world. Let me break this down into three main points. The history of Pakistan, the geography and the religion that seems to be causing so many of us in the United States angst when we think about Pakistan. Let me start with the history. Pakistan came into being in 1947 and this was part of the Indian subcontinent that had been colonized by the British and upon attaining independence, Pakistan split off from the Indian subcontinent and that's when two countries were born: India and Pakistan. Pakistan of course at that point in time came into being with two separate wings separated by India in the middle. Pakistan, present day Pakistan, West Pakistan and East Pakistan which is present day Bangladesh and emerging into a country at that point in time with two separate wings separated by a hostile territory in the middle, that of India, basically put into place Pakistan's foreign policy which was always anti-India and seemed to see India as the major threat to its survival. This is very important for us to understand because subsequently all of Pakistan's actions on the international community have been driven by this foreign policy that was very India-centric. That's the one thing that we need to understand. The second thing we need to understand is Pakistan's neighborhood. Pakistan is surrounded in the northwest by Afghanistan which has been a major flashpoint for the United States since 2001, China, which is an emerging economic power, in fact a country that India has very problematic relations with, then of course India which Pakistan sees as a hostile neighbor, and Iran, also a country that the United States of America is at the moment trying to improve its relationship with but certainly having a lot of challenges. So Pakistan is geo-politically very important for the United States and for US foreign policy and national security interests. Pakistan is also geo-politically very important because it is a strategic point on the Indian Ocean, so for China and the United States that would like to retain control of the Indian Ocean, Pakistan would become a very important flashpoint for both. As a result, Pakistan, which has a positive relationship with China and has tried to maintain a positive relationship with the United States, has very clearly put itself in a position where it can leverage these two countries against one another. It’s a very clever tactic but a very important foreign policy plank of Pakistan.

GRILLOT: And you don't even mention Afghanistan. It's even a more complicated and complex region than we even think in terms of great powers that surround it and the very important smaller powers around it as well.

MUFTI: Of course, and Afghanistan is also critical because Afghanistan is on the path to the new Silk Road that is now being established which would link south Asia to central Asia and actually the United States would want for this new silk road to emerge its just the United States would like Afghanistan to sign the bilateral security agreement before it can endorse such a move. The last thing that I would like to mention about Pakistan is Islam, which I think is very misunderstood. We seem to think of Pakistan as being a fundamentalist country. We think of Pakistan and Muslims as being very rabid and fundamentalist in their beliefs and that is certainly not the case. Pakistan, since its inception has been a moderately Islamic country, yes, it refers to itself officially as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but Islam and the way it was practiced or understood by its people in their daily lives is not at all fundamentalist and this is a shift that we are starting to see since 9/11- there are pockets of Pakistani society which are now gaining ground that are certainly fundamentalist and extremist in their tendencies but Pakistan as a whole is certainly not and I think that if you understand the social and cultural fabric of Pakistan this is something that very clearly needs to be understood. Pakistan as a country is not fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination, in fact its far more open that many other Islamic countries. Culturally speaking Pakistan shares more with India than it does with its neighboring Islamic countries Iran or Afghanistan and that is something we tend to forget as well.

GRILLOT: Speaking about the internal dynamics of Pakistan, we've talked about their region, their neighborhood but as you referred to the importance of religion, in particularly the Islamic religion in Pakistan, let's talk a little bit about politics in Pakistan, particularly from the perspective of--you've referred to Pakistan as a hybrid regime, and you've studied in particular how that has an impact on political participation and how that regime changes over time. Could you tell us a little bit about what you mean by that and how Pakistan is characterized as a hybrid regime and what that means for political participation in the country.

MUFTI: Right, when I refer to Pakistan as a hybrid regime, I am basically talking about a country where you can see both authoritarian and democratic tendencies at play. When I say authoritarian and democratic tendencies, I mean there is a very vibrant party system operating in Pakistan--a competitive multi-party system operating in Pakistan and a functioning legislature and of course competitive elections. Pakistan has had elections consistently since at least 2002, but there are authoritarian tendencies as well. When I say authoritarian tendencies I mean the military plays a very strong role in determining Pakistan's foreign policy. I'm talking about a military that carried out the last coup in the country in 1999 and placed martial law in the country which basically mean the aggregation of the constitution of Pakistan for three years from 1999 to 2002, but then in 2002 the military held an election and this is very interesting. How this blend of democratic and authoritarian tendencies comes to be. The military actually carries out an election, puts in place a functioning parliament, elects a prime minister--this is a parliamentary political system, the prime minister then becomes the head of government and is calling the shots and yet at the same time, the chief of army staff, general Pervez Musharraf establishes himself as the President of Pakistan which is a symbolic leader in 

Pakistan but at the same time you can well imagine how the President prevails on the Prime 

Minister to make certain political decisions. So, this is what I mean when I say Pakistan is a hybrid regime and we've seen this consistently since 1947. There’s all these numbers that are usually thrown around that in the 65 years of independence, Pakistan has been a military regime for more than 50% of that time. Yes it has been a military regime, but a very open military regime, not the kind that we see in Latin America. We still had elections, we still had a functioning parliament in place, we still had an elected Prime Minister and yet the military seemed to be controlling the strings at all times and that's what I mean by hybrid when I've referred to Pakistan. 

GRILLOT:  So, what is the impact that that has had on its stability and its long term growth and acceptance in not only its local community but globally. Does this not play into in some way shape or form the mysterious perceptions that we have? We just don't quite get why they do that.

MUFTI: Right, the one thing that you need to understand about the Pakistani military is that it sees itself as not just the protector of Pakistan's state borders, it also sees itself as the guardian of Pakistan's ideology. It sees itself as the guardian of Islam in Pakistan and this is why I mentioned the history right at the beginning of this interview. Pakistan is a security state in the sense that it sees it existence consistently threatened by this hostile neighbor in the form of India. The Pakistan army can step into Pakistan's foreign policy making, not just foreign policymaking but Pakistan's domestic politics by claiming that because Pakistan's existence is threatened by India that it needs to be there, front and center helping Pakistan’s inept political leadership make decisions that are going to retain the sanctity of Pakistan. So this is a military that is not just functioning as a way to protect the country's external borders, this is a military that actually functions to protect the country not only from itself internally, but also from its external neighbors so this is very important to bear in mind. Then you have to take into account the Kashmir, which is this longstanding issue between Pakistan and India and the fact that the Pakistani military through its intelligence agencies has consistently supported the militant insurgency against the Indian armed forces in Kashmir. All of that has basically come to pass with 9/11 where the Mujahedeen formed the USSR invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s were basically then funneled across the Pakistani border into Kashmir by the Pakistani army in order to pursue this kind of foreign policy. What does it mean for Pakistan? Of course the Pakistan military is aware of the fact it is not seen as being a positive force inside Pakistan. Of course the Pakistan military is aware that every time it comes to power or takes power from the political leadership that Pakistan gets thrown out of the commonwealth, it scores very poorly within the United Nations, of course they're aware of that. But does it matter? No, because what the Pakistan military is actually doing is protecting the country both internally and externally and who else would do it? The civilian leadership in Pakistan has also been making tremendous mistakes and strategically not performed as well as it should have. 

GRILLOT: You've mentioned its role in its neighborhood and how it's being very strategic or at least its using these tactics of playing off certain players against another, but the United States and Pakistan have a rather close relationship despite all of these insecurities in the country and the fact that they have declared nuclear weapons status as did India, in response to India, but this has not been an easy friendship the United States and Pakistan. What is it we need to know about that relationship?

MUFTI: What we need to know about that relationship is the Cold War, essentially. Both Pakistan and India being developing countries during the Cold War period were operating as pawns of the two superpowers. India fell into the lap of the USSR while Pakistan retained its relationship with the United States of America which is why the United States of America has always seen Pakistan as its foothold in this very important region, especially keep a check on china and keeping a check on India's growth and also Iran and that is why Pakistan is absolutely imperative for the United States of America and what I was actually going to mention about the US-Pakistan relationship in particular was that because of this friendship that Pakistan has had with the United States, in order to defend itself against India, Pakistan’s civilian political leadership has been unable to develop policies that would be sustainable and actually be long term strategies for making sure that Pakistan cans stand on its own two feet. Instead the United States has come to Pakistan’s rescue whenever Pakistan was going to become bankrupt or go through any kind of economic problems. The United States of American has also supported all of Pakistan’s military regimes so why is there distrust on both sides? Well, Pakistan has carried out a foreign policy which has been very detrimental to US national security interests, what with supporting militant organizations but moreover the United States of America has protected Pakistan's military regimes which makes Pakistan think that the United States of America is not really in support of democracy in the country.

GRILLOT:  Fascinating Information Mariam. Thank you so much for joining us today and for all you've done here at the University of Oklahoma, we wish you the best, unfortunately this reminds us how much we're going to miss you as you move on to another position elsewhere. Thank you so much for all you've done for us and thank you for being here today.

MUFTI: Thank You.

Copyright © 2014 KGOU Radio. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to KGOU Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only. Any other use requires KGOU's prior permission.

KGOU transcripts are created on a rush deadline by our staff, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of KGOU's programming is the audio.

Sarah Hurd has worn many hats at KGOU. She worked as Development Assistant, entering pledges and payments. She served as intern for World Views for the Fall 2014 semester, transcribing and webifying interviews. She was also a student in the Radio News class that fall. When Sarah isn’t camping out at the KGOU headquarters she can be found biking around Norman, supporting her favorite local bands and studying for her classes at the OU College of International Studies and Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
More News
Support nonprofit, public service journalism you trust. Give now.