Af-Pak spillover conundrum
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 23rd Feb. 2019
The ‘failure’ of people in Af-Pak to liberate themselves, continues to simmer the region, of which sections in India remains to be a victim. The fancy thing is that a small cross-section of political class continues to engage with the ‘il-liberalism’ failing to talk to liberate, thereby continuing the saga of ‘poverty’, ‘corruption’, ‘mis-fortune’ rather than ‘development’, ‘health’, ‘better future’ etc. The failure is apparent as the Netas in the geo are seldom seen seeking ‘trade’ with other regions but are seeking ‘aid or loans (which has no hope for being returned)’. It is well-known that such ‘aid’ comes with political entrapping, be such entrapments have an impact within the geo or outside of it. The Islamisization of a competitive electoral politics, and a subservient news media which doesn’t discuss ‘all news or all aspects of news’, allows for confusion and ruckus. No wonder ‘people’ are seen yearning to run away from the region rather than ‘participate in liberating/ liberalizing the region’. In fact, this often leads to continued persecution as such run-aways are seldom in a position to contribute meaningfully to the geo they manage to reach. Very few people from the region are well-regarded ‘outside’ and many would look for the ‘markets’ of the other countries in the region, rather than their ‘own’ basis which they can ‘obtain some respect’.
One of the key challenges for the region is inability of the people, politico-intellects to be able to decide any ideology for the so called ‘liberal Muslim’. The challenge is very simple rather. They need to decide if the ‘liberal’ comes first in liberal Muslim or is it that the Muslim comes first and the ‘form’ of governing structure like democracy, autocracy or theocracy etc. The fact is that Netas with a view on Muslim coming first manage to get ‘alms’ with the result that they tend to sideline those with the belief that ‘liberal’ comes first and the ensuing government then is heavily influenced even if it apparently is a democratic set up. Once such ‘Netas’ rise to come close to power, continuance of such politics leads to financial debacles with ‘some friendly’ strategic powers footing the bill. There is now some element of susceptibility coming in now that ‘cheap funds’ is becoming unavailable as people don’t want to fund wars that they don’t consider their own. The fact is those with ‘cheap funds’ are now becoming more and more nervous and this is visible even in the largest economy. This then tends to get mixed up with ‘energy politico-economy’, ‘selective theocratic doctrines’ and ‘political self-interest’ confusing the mille further. As the importance of ‘oil’ reduces, the ability of the Netas to fund themselves to power is likely to decline. However the ‘liberals’ in the region will need to ‘up’ their ‘Game’ further or else remain in political hibernation for even longer period.
The challenge is that rather than asking for the powers that be, for what would they bring to the region and how; what the powers outside would discuss –who is stronger, often on the back of guns. Quite often this is because many of the outside powers are susceptible to internal pulls & pressures, many of which have their own interests. In fact many such forces just want to prove that ‘electoral democracy’ is a ‘phoren idea’ not culturally suited to the region and of course other similar area. Some other are concerned over geo-politics while others over geo-strategic impact. The lack of focus on development and trade but on aid/survival ability etc. suits such ‘forces’. The ‘changes’ happening in ‘politics’ as well as ‘economics’ elsewhere is seldom analyzed by politico-intellects who are in any case tied too much to seeking aid for survival and in fact will ensure that other nation-states are hampered rather than facilitated in their quest for ‘trade and progress’, by all possible mechanism. This would then spill into the vicious cycle of ‘others’ seeking ‘aid’ and participate in ‘blockages’ for ‘trade & development’ for ‘others’. Rather than ‘actively’ looking for ‘solutions’ of this aspect, political focus remains on ‘different areas’ and management of the problem with ‘tokenism’.
The ‘solutions’ to the ‘issues’ could possibly emanate if Indian, Chinese or Russian currency based external trading is adopted for the Indo-Central Asia/SCO region and such ‘trade currency’ rising on its own economic/ regulatory merits alongside the trade-routes. Even the ‘Euro’ or ‘Yen’ or an ‘ACU dollar-type mechanism’ may also be allowed to jostle in the fray subject to merits but that should be basis political readiness as well. However often selective focus on ‘strategic forces and their actions’ in the region, rather than ‘larger people’ and why & how are they being ‘manipulated’, ‘competitive self-adulatory positioning of these strategic forces’- leads to little ‘discussions’ and more of ‘self-congratulations’ often over nothing much. One of the pre-requisites for such a ‘possibility’ would be that ‘politics’ in the region become ‘internal development’ focused rather than say ‘Umma-focused’, which has not yielded anything much in any case, other than continued dependency on ‘aid’. In fact for now the Chinese ‘aid’ seem to be complicating the situation as it is masking the chimera and making it look like something sustainable which isn’t. In fact that it has been ‘allowed’ to ‘happen’ may also have much to do with ‘it’s not looking to alter the on-going politics’, rather than ‘change’ which might be the need. The position of ‘political forces’ may come out if such ‘change’ is discussed and therefore the news media may have a play, but remain subjugated. Let the ‘Game’ evolve…..