Pakistan: A Mecca for Radical Islam

For decades, Washington has mistakenly believed that by funding Pakistan, it was propping up “Western-minded” leaders who would thoroughly oppose fanatical religious forces. Instead, since its creation, Pakistan has been a center for global Islamists.

This is the fourth installment in Kapil Komireddi's series on Pakistan.  Click here for the rest of the series.

In 1948, there was a state called Pakistan: all it lacked was Pakistanis. Within less than a year of Pakistan’s bloody creation, mass riots broke out in East Pakistan over the question of language: why was Urdu being forced upon Bengalis? Sindhis, Pathans and Baluchis openly expressed their resentment at being lorded over by Urdu-speaking bureaucrats and Punjabi army officers. An insurgency was taking grip in Baluchistan.

Two things could unite this nation divided against itself: adherence to Islam and opposition to India. The country would be a continuation of the movement that created it – its survival predicated on the presence of a permanent enemy. Jinnah had freed Muslims from “Hindu Raj”; his successors would defend Islam from “Hindu India”. Created as a home for the faithful, Pakistan would survive by becoming the guardian of the faith. But the Objectives Resolution, introduced in 1949 to invent a religious nationalism for Pakistan, disenfranchised non-Muslims, empowered the mullahs and opened up the sluice-gates to Islamists. Decades before the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, Pakistan became a mecca for global Islamists: senior figures from the Muslim Brotherhood started paying visits, and Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the one-time Grand Mufti of Jerusalem notorious for his association with the Nazis, was a regular.

Yet for all its evocations of Islamic glory, Pakistan was a mess, a country teetering toward extinction. It had no significant industry. It produced jute and cotton, but the processing mills lay in India. Partition had resulted in a massive flight of capital, with non-Muslim entrepreneurs fleeing the new dispensation for India. What saved Pakistan from imminent extinction was its location. Proximity to the Soviet Union offered rich possibilities. Wholly fabricated reports of Soviet plans to invade Pakistan were prepared and distributed in London and Washington. Pakistan’s finance minister, Ghulam Mohammed, was keen to sell the idea of an “Islamic barrier” to contain Moscow.

The offer to Washington was plain: Pakistan was prepared to offer its territory for anti-Soviet operations — so long as the U.S. provided economic and military aid, and guaranteed the Islamic state’s security against India. President Eisenhower was willing to offer aid, but he was not prepared to commit the U.S. to a security pact against India, nor was he willing to make Washington party to the Kashmir dispute. At this stage, Pakistan had few choices. It accepted Washington’s terms. Aid began flowing. The U.S. equipped Pakistan’s army, air force and a dozen navy ships. By 1957, U.S. assistance to Pakistan reached a staggering $500 million. But even as Washington armed Pakistan to fight Communism, it released a policy paper identifying Pakistan’s “religious leaders” as an equally potent threat. Washington’s only mistake was to believe that by funding Pakistan, it was propping up “Western-minded” leaders who would thoroughly oppose fanatical religious forces. It did not occur to President Eisenhower – and nor have his successors sufficiently appreciated the fact – that the cultivated appearance of Pakistani leaders merely cloaked the deep-seated resentment they felt for the west.