Nawaz Sharif: Visionary, or Fool Trying to Win Public Favour?

Nawaz Sharif is once again extending his hand in friendship with India while democratising his own society at home.

(Photo: Lijumol Joseph/The Quint)

A churning is afoot in Pakistan, with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif determined to once more attempt to tilt the balance in favour of his elected civilian government. Sharif has done this several times before, during the last four years he has been in power – elections will take place in Pakistan a year from now – as well as 18 years ago, when he received Atal Behari Vajpayee in Lahore.

The latest manifestation of Sharif’s assertiveness was the announcement – around the time of the bomb blast in the heart of Lahore, in front of the National Assembly on Mall Road on Monday – that the new foreign secretary would be a woman. Tehmina Janjua is Pakistan’s permanent representative at the UN in Geneva and has also served as a spokeswoman of her Foreign Office.

What is significant is that Janjua was way down in the race for the top job, especially as the rumour mill in Rawalpindi – where the Pakistan army’s headquarters are located – had virtually handed over the game to Pakistan’s high commissioner to India, Abdul Basit. A story along those lines was even leaked to pro-Army journalists recently.

The Story Behind the Story

So here’s the story behind the story. As Nawaz Sharif held his nerve, Pakistani officials insisted to this reporter that Janjua “will bring a soft face to Pakistan’s dealings with the international community.” Another pointed out that Janjua’s appointment is proof that the all-powerful army wants to, at least, change its image.

Pakistan’s new army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa wants the Army to get out of direct political interference. That’s why he supported Nawaz Sharif in this matter.

An Official Speaking on The Condition of Anonymity

The Aftereffects of Not Appointing Basit

Certainly, the appointment has created ripples in the heart of the Pakistani establishment. Basit was said to be not only the Army’s man in Delhi, but he was supposed to be a shoe-in for the job. The Pakistani high commissioner was believed to be all set to leave for home on completion of three years in early March.

Abdul Basit, Pakistan High Commissioner to India. (Photo: PTI)

Basit’s comeuppance has been received with quiet celebration inside Delhi. Certainly no one will say anything on the record, but the stories don’t stop pouring out.

It all started when Basit invited separatist Kashmiri leaders to meet him before foreign secretary-level talks were to be held in August 2014, soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power. The PM was so furious that the talks were cancelled. No amount of dissembling or explanation – “the Pakistanis always meet the Kashmiris before any meeting with the Indian side” assuaged Delhi’s anger.

Last year on Pakistan’s independence day, which falls one day before India’s on August 15, Basit poured salt in India’s wounds by dedicating Pakistan’s independence day to “the independence of Kashmir.”

With pellet gun injuries on the civilian population in Jammu and Kashmir seriously damaging India’s credibility, Basit’s action certainly won him kudos with the Pakistani establishment. But it irritated the powers in Delhi, who saw it as deeply insensitive to the country he was accredited to. With Basit poised to take the top job, it will be clear who is in the ascendant. Question is, will Nawaz Sharif allow that to happen?

Nawaz Sharif - Visionary or Fool?

Certainly, Nawaz Sharif must feel quietly vindicated today. He has rolled the dice so often, on the home political front as well as on mending the relationship with India, that observers believe he is either “a very foolish man,” as he refuses to fully kowtow to his all-powerful army and intelligence agencies, or “a stubborn visionary” who refuses to give up even when the going is quite bad.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the United Nations General Assembly. (Photo Courtesy: PTI altered by The Quint)

Right now, Pakistan is on the cusp of one of those moments when the political class, civil society and the judiciary are sizing each other up. There is no eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation here – that would be too crass and too obvious for a nation that has been seared by the Zia-ul Haq years and scorched by the convenient distinction between “good” and “bad” jihadis its deep state happily adopted.

Instead, Pakistan – or at least parts of its political class, civil society and judiciary - learnt how to throw a curve ball, side-step, feint and manoeuvre its confrontations. Journalists refused to stop writing critical stories. Human rights activists kept bringing uncomfortable petitions to the judiciary. And some judges continued to ask pro-jihadi petitioners for “proof of blasphemy” (against the Prophet), which is punishable by death.

Also Read: Trump Effect: Pak Abandons Good Jihadi Excuse to Hold Hafiz Saeed

Has the Army, ISI Had a Change of Heart?

Two other examples in recent days serve up this old-new struggle for Pakistan. The first is the house arrest of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief and Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. To be sure, Saeed abandoned the LeT when it was proscribed by the UN, oversaw its transformation to a charity called the Jamaat-ud Dawa and just before his house-arrest, renamed the outfit the Tehreek-i-Azadi-i- Kashmir.

Hafiz Saeed’s house-arrest is a direct outcome of US President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. (Photo: Harsh Sahani/The Quint)

Of course, Hafiz Saeed’s house-arrest is a direct outcome of US President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban against seven countries, which also put Pakistan and Afghanistan on an “extreme vetting” list. But the interesting part of this story is the alacrity with which the intelligence agencies, which have protected Saeed since the Mumbai attacks, followed through on the advice of the PM. An army spokesperson even insisted that the arrest was a “policy decision”, and not a mere momentary happening.

So does this mean that Pakistan’s new army and ISI chiefs, Qamar Javed Bajwa and Naveed Mukhtar, are undergoing a change of heart under the direction of Nawaz Sharif?

General Qamar Javed Bajwa. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@nadeemshakirUK)

Also Read: India, Pakistan and How the Surgical Strike May Have Averted War

The third example of the ongoing struggle are charges of blasphemy and sedition being brought on Pakistan’s well-known journalists Imtiaz Alam and Najam Sethi, respectively, and accusations that several other journalists are “Indian agents.” Amir Liaqiat, anchor at ‘Bol’ TV who made up these scurrilous charges on air sounds unrepentant, but was forced to back off when he was criticized by civil society activists. It’s an open secret in Pakistan that ‘Bol’s deadly rhetoric is sponsored by the deep state.

One explanation for this struggle is that Nawaz Sharif and his newly enlisted ISI and Army chiefs are battling the old order -- led by previous Army chief Raheel Sharif, who has taken charge of leading the Saudi army after retirement, and previous ISI chief Zaheer-ul Islam – and other corps commanders wedded to the idea of supreme power.

Pak’s Struggle Between the New and Old State

What’s interesting is that today’s struggle is not the usual one between the elected civilian government and Pakistan’s security establishment, but between the new and old deep state. As for the wily old Nawaz, he is clearly looking for gaps to push his cause. A recent story that leaked details about the amount of land gifted by the Army to Raheel Sharif was hugely criticised in the Pakistani press – another straw that change may be in the air. Meanwhile, the army insists that Hafiz Saeed’s house arrest is a “policy decision”.

Of course the jury is out on whether this is a “new army” or not. Moreover, Nawaz Sharif may lose this battle as well. But at least he would have tried, once again, both in extending his hand in friendship with India as well as democratising his own society at home. As Pakistan’s “iron brothers”, the Chinese, will say, we are certainly living in interesting times.

(The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi and writes on the overlap between domestic politics and foreign affairs. She can be reached @jomalhotra. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)