PAKISTAN PRIMER. Portland State University’s Institute for Asian Studies recently held a panel discussion on the political history and future of Pakistan. Pictured (L-R) are panellists Tahir Naqvi, Anita M. Weiss, and David Campion. (AR Photo/Ian Blazina)

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #12 (March 18, 2008), page 9 & 10.

By Ian Blazina

Portland State University’s Institute for Asian Studies recently hosted a panel discussion on the history and future of democracy in Pakistan. The panellists, all employees of Pacific Northwest universities, reviewed Pakistan’s tumultuous history and offered their insights into the current political situation in the South Asian nation.

David Campion, assistant professor of history at Lewis & Clark College, moderated the discussion and introduced the topic with a brief history of Pakistan from the founding of the All India Muslim League in 1906 to the series of military coups that began in 1958 and continues to the present. Campion focused on the failed alliances with the Indian National Congress in the 1920s and ’30s, which eventually led to the Pakistan Resolution of 1940 that called for Muslim autonomy in British India.

Following World War II, the weakened British could no longer control India, and it had become clear that no unification was possible between the All India Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. The British announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan in 1947, with the border being drawn by a London-based lawyer with virtually no experience of British India. The resulting border caused a massive migration, with as many as 14.5 million people crossing the border to the side of their religious majority and somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million people being slaughtered in the ensuing violence.

Anita M. Weiss, professor of international studies at the University of Oregon, spoke about the recent political happenings, including the 1999 coup that brought General Pervez Musharraf to power; the ultimatum given to Musharraf by the United States following the attacks on September 11, which caused domestic problems for Musharraf, who was largely perceived as bowing to the pressures of the West, and allowed an Islamic coalition to begin to gain power; Musharraf’s dismissal of the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in March 2007; the state of emergency declared in November; and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27.

Weiss discussed her experience of being in Pakistan during the state of emergency, and pointed to a positive result of the recent political turmoil — the relatively free and fair elections that took place in February in the face of international criticism.

Following the history and current-events primer given by Campion and Weiss, Reed College’s visiting assistant professor of anthropology Tahir Naqvi examined the state of democracy in Pakistan, trying to tease apart the reasons why India is one of the world’s most vibrant democracies while Pakistan has been mired in a cycle of military coups since the late 1950s.

Naqvi noted that there have always been strong democratic tendencies in Pakistan because of the inherited parliamentary system and the desire for representation among the various ethnic groups, including the Punjabi, Kashmiri, Pashtun, and Bengali people. According to Naqvi, the unresolved question of Pakistani democracy centers around the degree to which the government should be centralized and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches.

"[The future of Pakistani democracy] is a question of regionalism, ethnicity, and national integration," he said.

Finally, Keith Snodgrass, associate director and outreach coordinator of the University of Washington’s South Asia Center, discussed the on-again, off-again relationship between Pakistan and the United States, situating the relationship in the context of America’s War on Terror and the conflict between the desire to maintain Pakistan as a strong ally in the region and to encourage the democratic process.

Due to the perennial uncertainties of Pakistan politics, which last week saw a power-sharing agreement materialize between the opposition parties and the release from detention of a prominent lawyer who is campaigning for the reinstatement of the Supreme Court, the panel offered many more questions than answers. Nonetheless, it was a valuable introduction to a fascinating and crucial political experiment.

For more information on Portland State University’s Institute for Asian Studies, including upcoming lectures and seminars, visit <www.ias.pdx.edu>.