How Pakistan has Failed? | Geopolitical Dialogues | India & Pakistan | Sushant Sareen

[Music] study IQ affordable Pakistan a fa State can it ever be a failed state it is about uh the Fanatics uh getting hold of nuclear weapons uh sometimes I say that the Pakistan Army is a fanatical organization anyways how much likely is it that one of the fanatic ulas or mulas are going to actually get hold of the nuclear weapon it's much more dangerous For these half educated 10th pass 12th pass Generals in the Pakistan Army uh most of them are utterly brainless there is this old saying of King Faruk of Egypt who said that

if you look at the pakistanis you would imagine that Islam was revealed only in 1947 is raw there you know the pakistanis are they are so dumb that it's some difficult to blood even you know talk to them rationally so the recent election milit selected someone but the selected person Did not come to power lack of legitimacy Army in crisis what is in fact the selected person came to power so Naas Sharif was na Shar was never nawas Sharif was a compulsion so he was brought back no no red carpet came and but under compulsion

you're very right they don't know are they Central Asian are they Arabs are they Persians are they Afghans or are they just normal Indians who converted hello And dial byq serin first of all sir welcome thank you so much for having me he is one of the best geopolitical experts on Pakistan and therefore on Afghanistan baluchistan and the whole drama he's currently a senior fellow at The Observer Research Foundation and he's also associated with the Vive Anand International Foundation but interesting he has qualified for upsc and then later decided to leave it yeah at a

time when Nobody would exactly sir and what made you take that decision it was very boring I okay Soul destroying boring so sorry to spoil no no it's absolutely fine sir uh so today we going to talk about Pakistan and first question sir is Pakistan a failed State can it ever be a failed State no no I think you know I it's kind of strange on on how people will describe what a failed state is but in terms of a state being able to manage its Affairs uh in Terms of a state being able to

correct revenues one of the fundamental duties of any state is to be able to correct revenues uh in terms of a state uh being able to take care of its citizens according to what it professes to be uh by those standards it's certainly a failed state but uh it has that the framework of a state remains intact act uh the state institutions are tattered uh uh they are dysfunctional but they there is that the edifice remains uh but I think the ability of the state to manage its Affairs is being paired down every single day

so in that sense uh you can call it a failed State you can call it a failing state but it's a definitely a state which is in very deep trouble but a nuclear State at the end of the day would a nuclear State actually collapse and I'm talking I'm referring to an article that has been written by you Look you know there is so far only one example of a nuclear State collapsing that was the Soviet Union right and we don't have too many other examples of that happening but even when the Soviet Union collapsed

uh there was some semblance of control which was finally you know which was which was ensured even in the way it collapsed in a sense you can say it was a controlled collapse it left a lot of instability in its wake look at the number of small and Dirty Wars that happened in the former Soviet republics uh between Russia and some of those republics and as we speak some of those Wars are happening uh within those countries Civil Wars a lot of political unrest in many of these places uh but even then the Fallout was

limited now in the case of Pakistan again you are faced with a spectre Somewhat similar that if this collapses then what happens the the uh big problem in terms of Pakistan is that it is seen as an Islamic extremist fundamentalist fanatical State um which has very close links with Terror groups which has been deeply involved uh in spreading Global terrorism around the world and a state like that armed with nuclear weapons if that goes under then what happens so I think one of the concerns is not so much about Pakistan per se it is about

uh the Fanatics uh getting hold of nuclear weapons uh sometimes I say that the Pakistan Army is a fanatical organization anyways uh and it already possesses nuclear weapon but there's still some degree of rationality in those guys what happens if some really mad mullah gets hold of these nuclear weapons then how does that work and starts using it as a currency of power for blackmail something which the pakistanis have been doing with us for Donkeys years now for at least four decades uh since they became first covertly nuclear then overtly nuclear they have been using

nuclear blackmail but what happens if that becomes even even more Brazen I think that is what the concern is then of course lose nukes uh since the pakistanis are manufacturing tactical nuclear weapons uh what happens if they start selling some of those weapon systems what happens if they start farming out that Technology which they have done incidentally uh that's that's a well recorded fact that you know there was a nuclear Walmart that was running uh about two decades back in Pakistan and there are reasons to believe that even now there will be many people in

the Pakistani nuclear establishment who would be inclined to sharing either technology no how what have you with some of the other U Islamic countries uh many of which are not Exactly uh you know stalwart members of the International Community so there are those serious concerns and then there are concerns about what happens in a country of$ 250 million people goes Belly Up how do you control the fall out of that uh and and this is a country which is poor this is a country uh which has extremism this is a country uh which has a

huge fault lines within it if this country folds up goes Belly Up who faces The Fallout of that uh the Europeans for example are terrified uh with the prospect that you know so far there have been a million maybe 2 million refugees who've gone from North Africa from the Middle East Syria and other War theaters uh into Europe and and created Havoc out there what happens if another 2 3 4 million people which is a fraction of Pakistan's population start making a beine for some of these countries right What happens to them so I think

those are the real concerns now so how much likely is it that one of the fanatic UMAS or mulas are going to actually get hold of the nuclear weapon you know uh frankly I'm not so worried about the mullah getting it you know uh because um there is a certain amount of pragmatism that have in my interactions again I could be wrong on it but even among the more fanatical characters there is a certain amount of u you know They might look like dinosaurs they might look like anti- Delian characters uh but in terms of

U in terms of their ability to understand the world I think they are much better than some of the half educated people in the Pakistan Army um so I would be less concerned with you know a mullah was to get hold of a nuclear weapon he probably does not understand what exactly it's all about but it doesn't take much for him to understand it they will definitely use It as a currency of power but for me the biggest concern is when the uniformed guys in Pakistan Army already have these weapons and there are enough reasons

to be concerned because look when a three star general uh who was a former chairman uh sorry chief of general staff which is essentially like the PS2 PM is to a prime minister he's like the PS to the Pakistan Army Chief uh a man holding a very ital position this is a man um Who's been a core Commander he's been a CGS you name it he's handled those positions and then he writes an article in a national newspaper in Pakistan says that you know we need to send a signal to India and the rest of

the world so we should fire a nuclear TI missile across the land MK of India into the Bay of Bengal as a kind of a sign to everybody to not mess with us okay the man has now disappeared apparently it is believed that he went either joined the TTP or he After retirement much after retirement either joined the TTP or the ISP it's not really known who uh and he seems to have either died while fighting or disappeared U and nobody has heard of him ever since I'm talking about a man by the name of

Shahed aiz wow I can name a couple of other generals so this narrative is actually there yeah yeah yeah so that is what I'm saying so it's much more dangerous for these half educated 10th pass 12th pass Generals in The Pakistan Army U most of them are utterly brainless uh so I think the possession of nuclear weapons in their hands is should be of Greater concern to people like us uh than maybe you know Malana F ran or one of these kind of characters getting hold of these weapons uh you'll be surprised to know that

there have been uh some jamaat islami again I'm hold no brief for the jamaat islami or any of these fanatical organizations uh in fact jamaat islami Has been a Mothership of terrorism in many ways provided the ideological ballast for terrorism uh but a former Chief of the jamaat islami for example said that we think nuclear weapons are un Islamic that using nuclear weapons against civilians uh is not something which is permitted again it could be pure virtue signaling but I'm saying that at least they said something like this you know uh you will not hear

these half educated uh generals or their the Politicians who are their Lackey like shik rashed of the quarter pound uh bomb PA P nuclear bomb P kilo nuclear bomb type characters they utterly brainless so in that sense I think we need to be careful when we speak about a mad Mulla getting it but that's the fear see that's the general fear that's the general concern what happens if these guys get it and the concern really is of them using it as a currency of power a currency for blackmail so in that light Then why do

you think that IMF keeps funding when the money is going to these terrorist camps and it's a vicious cycle at the end of the day no but look again the presumption is wrong the IMF money is not necessarily going to terrorist tramps okay and most of these terrorist groups are now pretty much financially autonomous I don't think they depend upon the Pakistan government uh for money so where does it come from money comes from other sources Charities People's donations they run some of their own operations illegal many of them uh gun running drug running extortion

networks protection networks U smuggling is a big uh business so they collect money uh from many of those sources and uh bank deques for example there was a time when there was a sudden sped of bank deques and invariably they found that the TTP and some of these other groups were involved in some of these uh acts So they managed their own U sources of funding they don't depend upon the Pakistani State the Pakistani State really doesn't have money for it what the Pakistani state does do is facilitate it so in a sense they'll turn

a blind eye if somebody gets caught they'll release him they will allow smuggling to happen now you know I don't know if people have seen images of oil smuggling which happens along the borders with Iran and there are Estimates which run from anywhere between 1 to 2 to 3 billion dollar worth of oil which is smuggled every year and uh it's you know that smuggling is not happening sciously it's happening in your face there are hundreds of tankers and trucks going to the Border reaching the Border filling up with the oil and coming back in

you can't do this you know like a normal gold Smuggler pocket you know people doing that kind Of this is not that this is in your face smuggling right now this cannot happen unless the authorities are allowing it to happen which means they're turning a blind eye and they're taking a cut out of it some of it personally so a core commander in qua for example uh ends up as one of the richest men in Pakistan uh some of the generals who are in uh baluchistan because they are part of the extortion protection rackets they're

Involved in the gold u oil uh drug smuggling networks they facilitate all of them they involved in the smuggling of uh cars from Europe and other places stolen cars which are then smuggled across the borders into Pakistan they're involved in all those nefarious activities so they end up as very rich men but some of the money also goes to some of these Terror groups and others so you know it's a it's a kind of a witches brew between many of these Groups they are Smugglers also they are terrorists also they're all kinds of people so

one so the way the state becomes involved is that it facilitates that it turns a blind eye to that activity uh but the IMF loan goes to Pakistan simply because Pakistan is a member of the IMF and it is the job of the IMF that if a member state is in trouble then the IMF does come for a rescue package what the IMF of course does is that it looks at the economy it Looks at the economic structure it looks at the financial structure and then puts certain conditionalities conditionalities which become progressively difficult uh as

you keep going back to the IMF and Pakistan has already been to the imf2 three times they all set to go for a 24th time correct sir Now 23 times or 24 times in the last 75 years means roughly about every 2 years 3 years you're going back to the IMF okay and that means that by The time you come out of one program you're going back into another assuming you finished the program they've only finished one program till now normally they would take a program take one or two tranches and then that was the

end of it things would stabilize some they would go back to their normal old ways of running the economy which was basically running it into the ground now they've successfully done it and they've reached a point where the IMF is Imposing some really stiff conditions on them now of course there's a lot of cribbing in Pakistan that why is the IMF turning the screws on us but the IMF says that look you have to make your ends meet which means that you need to generate revenues you can't expect the rest of the world to pay

for your expenses which is what been which is what has been happening so far uh so I think that is where matters lie right now um but I think with the IMF Funding is concerned and that is a matter which the Americans have raised with some degree of seriousness it is that over the last decade or so the pakistanis have gone very deep in the hawk to the Chinese they owe a lot of money to the Chinese and they have no way of paying it back and the Americans have expressed uh the concern that if

the IMF was to come and bail out the pakistanis again and it's not just the amount of money which the IMF gives them The IMF gives money and then takes them under their umbrella so that gives a lot of comfort to International financial markets that gives a lot of comfort to um multilateral financial institution so a lot of other funding is unlocked because you've gone to the IMF now what the fear is that once this happens the pakistanis would take all that money and then start paying paying back the Chinese okay sir and they don't

want that to happen so the IMF has now been Insisting on seeing what the pakistanis actually owe to the Chinese uh many of the contracts which the pakistanis signed with the Chinese on the China Pakistan economic Corridor uh they were never transparent they were never made public but finally the pakistanis had to open it up uh for scrutiny to the IMF uh so the IMF is certainly going to insist that you know it cannot be that you take money from us and you are paying off the Chinese that is where They put the foot down

but on this whole terrorism thing not so much so then is there a sense that China is getting tired of Pakistan or is it the vice versa because so much of investment or money has gone into it cek is not yet kick started a lot of things are happening at the Pakistan and because of the failure of the government and the militancy is rising up all everywhere do you think China is getting frustrated now especially baluchistan area look There are again concerns within China I think the Chinese assessment that they will be able to give

uh a kind of an economic underpinning to the largest strategic relationship I think that has gone out of the window that the Chinese probably have come to the conclusion that there is no political purchase in Pakistan that all the money which they have which they have sunk in Pakistan is sunk basically and in fact even at the time When the cek projects were being unveiled there were reports that some Chinese analysts had warn that China will end up losing almost 80% of the Investments they're making in Pakistan uh a lot of people scoffed at those

reports but clearly that seems to be coming true now uh and what the what the Pakistan is owe to the Chinese in terms of even meeting the normal running costs you know of those Chinese power plants for example that's been escalating uh And I think by latest count it's something between $ 1.5 to2 billion is what they owe through these private companies so I think that that economic angle the Chinese have realized that there's nothing much to be got out of this uh but I think the Chinese will not forsake Pakistan in so far as

the political and diplomatic and strategic side of the relationship is concerned I think that remains fairly robust we shouldn't fool ourselves that that has Changed um and to maintain that relationship the Chinese will keep stringing the pakistanis along on the economic front so as of now as far as I can remember over the last 2 years or three years I don't I can't remember any new money having been given to Pakistan but what has happened is that uh some of the old loans are constantly rolled over uh sometimes at new rate sometimes at Old rates

uh it's basically that old uh money lender thing you know that as long As I keep getting my interest the principle I can you know I can forget for some time so I think that's the game the Chinese playing right now so no new money is really being sunk in yeah every day you will hear of these very fabulous M us being signed correct and ifus was to pull Pakistan out of trouble Pakistan would have become Switzerland Square by now right they've signed so many M us with so many people that it would have become

the most hip and happening place In the world but those M don't fructify because the underlying conditions don't change so I don't think there was any real chinesee appetite to put in any more money in Pakistan on the economic side but they will keep putting in money to maintain the Strategic and the political side of the relationship nothing more than that all right sir so what about because if you look at the media reports constantly it says that Umadi Pakistan balistan kak is it really there or is it just the media narrative look I think

uh both these provinces are very restive bologan in particular uh very very restive and there is a substantial body of opinion uh in baluchistan at least in the Balo areas uh who don't want any truck with the Pakistani state they're completely alienated and disillusioned With the Pakistani State uh and they would want out if they were given a chance uh some of them are fighting for it others are just Sullen uh but the resentment against Pakistan is at a peak so that is undeniable uh in the pashun areas both of baluchistan as well as the

K Province again uh I think something has snapped I wouldn't say that it is a at least in these areas I don't think it is A call for Independence or separation as of now but it is certainly uh a kind of alienation with the uh with the Pakistani establishment and what we are seeing in some of these areas is something that has not been seen before which is the amount of anger which is mounting against the Pakistan Army the Pakistani establishment as such against Punjab the number of voices that are being raised Uh I don't

think I remember seeing them in at least the last quarter Century maybe in the' 60s '70s it was there but now it's reached at at a different level now um there are three sections of people who are completely alienated one is of course uh the the islamist lot you know the the ttps and that Bunch the second is the Nationalist lot which is now being represented in large measure by groups like The PTM uh the and one of its political Affiliates not really Affiliate that's the wrong word but a similar organization which is called the

national Democratic movement which is a kind it has kind of sprung out of PTM itself that's the second these are nationalists young many of them middle class types uh educated very passionate uh and they are really pissed off if I can use that word uh with the Pakistani State that's the second the third element is of uh what you might call the Imran Khan C that has really Turned off you know they they're very angry uh and if you put all of these together that's about 75 80% of the population in KP in in many

of the pashun areas so I think there uh you seeing that phenomena how that finally crystallizes is difficult to say right now but you can be rest assured on the per blindness of the Pakistan Army of the generals from Punjab uh who will leave no stone unturned to alienate these people further so I think we can Depend upon them for doing to make it worse yeah okay sir but I'm going to come back to baluchistan again Mariam baluch is she going to be a major voice she's already but mahang baluch mahang si do you think

she's going to be no I think she has proved to be a very Intrepid lady and look in baluchistan we've seen a number of such uh women leaders emerge there was one Karima Balo who was killed in Canada and the Justin Trudeau government covered it up it was very clearly a targeted killing operation they covered it up called it a suicide U there have been other Bach ladies who have been very very strong about this U so I think mahang Balo uh is is part of that Continuum of these Balo women who are coming out

and leading from the front now baluchistan is a very secular society and yet a very conservative and Orthodox Society right it's secular in The sense that you know they don't wear their religion on on the shoulder like most of the Punjabi do uh the punjabis are the most fake islamist you can ever come across but nevertheless they were that you know they they try and pretend that they that Prophet Muhammad only discovered them as the first Muslims and and in fact there is this old saying of King Faruk of Egypt which said that if you

look at the pakistanis you would imagine that Islam was Revealed only in 1947 so that is the Pakistani Punjabi but the Balo is that way is very relaxed about his religion and his faith he does he doesn't need to shove it in somebody else's fa face but in that Society socially they've been very conservative you know women would generally be at home they were not treated like chattle no but they were generally at home it was not that you know it was not the done thing For women to be out on the streets and stuff

like that that has changed that has changed over the last 20 25 years uh with the kind of brutality with which the Pakistan Army has repressed uh the political aspirations of the people in beluchistan so as a result what has happened is that U you know their fathers have been kidnapped their brothers have been kidnapped their husbands have been killed their sons have been taken away from them and so What do women do they come out on the streets they protest uh and that's what they've started doing so now they suddenly at the Forefront of

political agitation and mahang Balo of course turns out to be an extremely articulate uh woman uh so yeah hats off to her uh for for you know and and very very politically Savvy you know they see for example just about 3 weeks back uh there have been massive rainfall in guad and some other areas of baluchistan and Massive floods flooding has happened uh the state as usual was slow to respond uh even though they had uh two members of the military establishment one was the caretaker prime minister anara kakar U and the other was a

man who was involved with debt squads involved with the most heinous crimes who's now the chief minister of baluchistan saraz bukti was then the interior Minister actually he was not the interior Minister when the floods Happened because he' already put in his papers and was fighting the election but among the First Responders were the Belo nationalists who went out there tried to organize a try to organize relief and rescue so you know they they they quick they are marshalling support they're winning over the people uh people are identifying with them when mahang Balo goes back

after her agitation in Islamabad the kind of crowds uh that came out To to meet her I can't think of such big crowds anytime in baluchistan in the near in the last couple of decades so clearly they finding a lot of traction question is how do they manage to um to to turn that traction into something much more potent that'll be the trick uh and then uh turn it potent in a way that they can take on uh the ferocity and the brutality and the savagery that the Pakistan Army is going to visit upon them

how do they Manage to do that and I think that is going to be the real Challenge and at a time when they get no support from anywhere in the world all these these uh human rights entrepreneurs the Human Rights Watch The Amnesty International uh the greater Thurs of the world uh all these people you know these these perfumed people who whose heart bleed for human rights and other stuff all those people free Palestine Posters and all of that not a word you will hear about the brutalities which are being visited upon the Balo at

least almost for 75 years but certainly over the last 25 when the fifth Insurgency started you don't hear anything it's like everybody's gone deaf dumb silent Human Rights Council of the United Nations un HRC you know all those jordanians and other Jokers who come and pontificate about uh internet shutdown in Kashmir not a peep out of them on What's happening in baluchistan you will not hear anything from the EU which is the quickest when it comes to sermonizing and their sanctimony is like next level when it comes to baluchistan not a word even we we

keep quiet we have been using the baluch card yeah but what that hardly that is just mentioning something just mention the word baluchistan that's not good enough uh if we we actually feel very strongly about it then we should be saying a lot more Than what we have said so far and I don't know why we are so mely mouthed about it but sir there government of India policy is raw there lot ofs keep coming in look if Roy is there is not going to tell me right okay they're not going to be taking me

into confidence certainly not uh but a lot of reports keep coming and even Pakistan keeps blaming us that there is look the point is they can keep BL I wish raw was involved I wish and they were involved Much more than if they are involved already than what they are but you know the fact that we don't even talk about it we are not even ready to issue a statement of condemnation to you know the kind of brutalities that are being done out there we don't even talk about it so what kind of people are

we so I I don't think uh I look I can understand that if there is some kind of laser right that that is the job of intelligence agencies if some lines of Communication are open some contacts have been established that I would't put past you know happening but beyond that to say they are involved they are involved I have not seen any evidence so far where is the evidence okay for evidence the Pakistani but exactly you know the pakistanis are they are so dumb that it's some difficult to bloody even you know talk to them

rationally and the problem is that in in Kushan J's case the guy was living in uh in in um this place uh um zahan I think he was kidnapped from was it in chabahar I'm even forgetting that and he was kidnapped from there now the point the simple fact of the matter is um and there is within the Pakistani media there have been some insinuations that there have been these um criminal gangs which are part and parcel of the Pakistani State they work as auxiliaries of the Pakistani state That includes people like a guy by

the name of oer Balo who was heading uh one of the criminal Mafia in Karachi U and involved in the Karachi gang wars and stuff like that uh there there have been reports inside Pakistan that he and his men were involved uh were at the Forefront of this kidnapping operation which was launched to get hold of jadav this is in Pakistani media I'm not making it up uh and uh and then if you look at how the uzer Balo case has been Handled he was then finally arrested by the Pakistani authorities and U he had

something like 150 cases against him of the most heinous crimes he has gotten away scot-free in virtually all of them how is that happening you know to there are like I said that region is a witches brew inv impossible to say and certainly nobody is going to tell me my sources of information are basically what is there in the public domain corre so I don't have any any other source of information Right sir so let's come to me KP area K uh rise of TTP is it because of what Pakistan did first supporting the Taliban

making them the holy Warriors and then selling them to you know giving information about them to the US I think the TTP phenomena goes much beyond that what the pakistanis have done and the double games they have played has only contributed to it uh but this whole region Goes Up in Flames way back in 1979 80 actually even before that in the early '70s When U the Afghans start raising the Spectre of pashtunistan Bangladesh has already been made within um Pakistan baluchistan is very restive as is the then Northwestern Frontier Province where you have people

like balik Khan and others and there is this this movement for pistan or pashun rights or what have you which raises the Spectre of another Bangladesh in the Mind of the Punjabi rulers of Pakistan Pakistan is basically Punjab occupied Pakistan right so so whatever the punjabis there fears are expressed now that is the setting in which the Soviet uh the the Afghan regime under daud who has carried out a coup against the king uh he's his brother-in-law but he's carried out a Aku he's become the president and he raises the Spectre of pashtunistan so to

counter him the Pakistani start Sponsoring uh people like gulbin hikmat and others who are students in the University but they are leaning towards Islam that includes Ahmed sha masud that includes a whole lot of other guys so the patronization of the islamists in Pakistan starts from around 1973 or thereabouts you come to 1979 or you know small small things are happening but you come to 1979 and the Soviets move in to Afghanistan and then the first Afghan Jihad starts and the pakistanis already have prepared this this crop of people who they then say that we

can use them and then of course a whole lot of other people join these were like the O you know the the high culture islamist right uh the educated University going but then there were a whole lot of others you know that the lot from which the mullah Omar and others came there were a whole lot of other islamists who also jump on the bandwagon U and that happens In 7980 now this and then this whole Jihad Factory starts you know this whole Jihad industry starts they start imposing uh importing these characters from around the

world when the Soviets withdraw and Civil War breaks out and that is when the first Taliban movement emerges this is around 9293 or 94 really around 94 92 that you know the the naib government has fallen banin Rabani and Ahmed sha masud have taken over Afghanistan and uh by 94 and you know there are Warlords all over the place U and by 94 the Taliban movement starts by 96 they have captured Kabul now you have to understand these guys are basically pashun they are what you might call at some level the low Church uh these

are also people with links across the Duran line into Pakistan and the day these people take over Kabul from then on you will see if you look at the Pakistani media reports Of those days you will see that in some obscure part of uh the tribal areas in Pakistan four five young people would suddenly get up and Proclaim we are the local Taliban right they were inspired by the Taliban victories they were inspired by what the Taliban stood for they were basically from that same social background they were from that same low Church background all

of that right and some of them had the same madrasa connections stuff like that so That is where these local Taliban start emerging many of them keep crossing the border fight on the side of the Taliban come back set up their own you know little shops inside Pakistan and this movement continues to expand inside Pakistan and and what happens is a lot of these guys also start working for the Taliban government so they they attach themselves to some Taliban leaders secretary driver you know that kind of a thing then you have the so the Americans

Moving in post 9911 and the Taliban government is devastated most of these guys uh run into Pakistan for refuge and who are the people who give them the Refuge the very same local Taliban characters or who have proclaimed themselves to be local Taliban the names are very different but they've said that we are makami or local Taliban so they start giving them Refuge uh they facilitate them you know they accommodate them all of that and then The fighting starts inside Pakistan now this goes on for a couple of years and then the L Masjid operation

happens which is when all these small disparate local Taliban groups combined together Under the Umbrella of the TTP the Taliban Pakistan so that's the way this movement has evolved as you go along then the TTP becomes fa strong then it's defeated it's suffers major setbacks from around 2014 or thereabouts they are pushed back into Afghanistan uh and they also split there are at least major splits within the TTP their top leadership is decapitated and uh and I think at that point of time the Taliban also because now there's an organic link which ties them together

but I think around 2017 28 the Taliban also sense that the end game is coming so they also asked the TTP to to pipe down and focus more on Afghanistan at that point in time which is why you'll suddenly see a massive Drop in Terror attacks part of it was the operations of the Pakistani forces but part of it was also that their focus had turned into Afghanistan but by around 2019 the old tal TTP leadership has been destroyed and a new leader emerges in this guy n mud and what NW mud does is he

reestablishes those old networks he rebuilds the umbrella brings in a whole lot of the factions back into the main thing and uh starts expanding the Footprint of TTP once again but the expanding footprint actually becomes clear after the Taliban victory in Kabul because now that that flank has been secured now you can reopen this flank right and that is what has been happening now and this movement is only gaining strength it's not becoming weaker uh and unlike the past when the Afghan Republic before the Taliban before 20 2021 the Afghan Republic um always clamed down

on TTP activities to The extent that they could because there were a lot of areas where they were simply not in control but the areas where they were in control they did clam down on TTP activities which is why you had 5,000 TTP people in Afghan jails all of whom were released the day the Taliban took over so suddenly the TTP is the most hip and happening group they have and but they've also developed a lot of Savvy on how to carry out their attacks so unlike the past uh from Around 2007 to about 2014

when they were attacking markets they were attacking malls they were attacking all kinds of Civilian targets now they're very particular about the targets so they're only attacking military installations Security Forces uh yeah some government offices civilians are collateral damage they're not the main target uh and that seems to have kind of made people somewhat ambivalent towards them that okay you know we don't like these Foggies anyways these are guys are targeting the foggies the forgies have been hand in glove with these fellows why should we get into it so I think that is what is

happening now so the recent election yeah military selected someone but the selected person did not come to power lack of legitimacy Army in crisis what is it in fact the selected person came to power so Naas Sharif was na Shar was never Naas Sharif was a compulsion so he Was brought back no no red carpet came and but under compulsion under compulsion he was never a favorite of the army the person who has been a favorite of the army who the most obsequious character is shabash Sharif but he's really not someone who can run the

government he's nuts of course but no but that's not the point Shabah Sharif had had established a reputation for himself as a very good administrator a as the chief minister of Punjab now good administrator in Pakistan means that you know you issue orders like you are Muhammad bin tlak right U or you sack people summarily you know that kind of a thing but nevertheless he did have some to show for his tenures as chief minister in Punjab but he was never a popular guy and you need to take one look at him to understand why

he'll never be popular he'll vag his finger he'll throw the mics all over the place he'll make these Exaggerated gestures he'll pretend he's a revolutionary poet uh and it all falls flat right uh he'll make the most grandio statements which he has no hope you know for example he said that I will sell all the clothes on my body if I cannot feed people he has not sold off anything so you know he's that kind of a bit of a fraud he's not a popular figure he he can't win a dog catchers vote kind of

a deal but uh he was a good sidekick to his brother who was actually the man With the vote back but the Army never really liked naash Shar because he's always had a tiff with them he wants to be his own boss uh shabash Shar is very happy if he has a boss now he has a boss in Aim munir so he's going to be happy for as long as it last but he also has another boss who's the political boss in naah Sharif so they he will now have to balance balance between those two

bosses but I think from the Pakistan Army's point of view in a sense in a way This result is not so bad it's a terrible result okay it's a terrible because all the plans which they had made have fallen flat exactly yes sir but they have managed to retrieve something out of this result and what what I mean by that is that once you've been dealt your hand they seen okay fine these are really cards but what's important is the fact that I might be able to play a winning hand even with this thing which

means that okay fine I've the the PTI would have won the election it would have swept the election I have ensured that they cannot form the government in the center I have given them the province of kyber Ponka so they are out there they can't too much because they've got some share of the pie ideally I would have wanted uh that in Punjab instead of the PTI getting so many seats this new party which I had created would have got the seats the Isam Pakistan party right Jangir Tarin and others they've all lost they got

two seats one of which was also through ringing so instead of that now you have you are forced to uh do a shotgun marriage between the Pakistan people's party and the Muslim League so you have this this cohabitation between these two parties uh which kind of works well for the Pakistan Army you have a small smattering of other smaller parties the MQM and others whom we all club together And brought into this Coalition so in terms of numbers you have plus 200 which means a fairly comfortable majority something which Imran Khan never had uh So

to that extent things seem to have worked out for you you've got a government you've got a puppet prime minister you've got a government which is you know a coalition which you will only control you will only manage uh so in in that sense you manage to get what you want but actually if you look at the Performance of the PTI and again I keep telling people that look it does not mean that you have to be in love with Imran Khan to see reality for what it is and the reality is that Imran Khan

has won this election hands down right uh and in fact he's won this election with his legs tied and his hands tied behind his back he could not even run in the race and yet he's won the race uh and anybody who tells you that look but the people who are not voting for Imran Khan Have got two-thirds of the vote is utter nonsense this was a stolen mandate by any and every stretch of imagination and that is a matter of some concern because uh for the army that means that all this propaganda campaigns that

we've done all this setting field setting that we had done everything has gone to seed right and that is a matter of some concern they still think they can Brazen it out uh and maybe for some time they can But frankly this government does not have uh does not have any degree of political legitimacy and its popularity will become even more uh problematic uh when they start implementing some of the very difficult decisions that they'll have to take to to kind try and rescue the economy which I find very difficult so in all of this

where is belaval BTO or he's just like a dynastic Prince who's kept aside no he Is a dynastic Prince he's not kept aside he tried he tried very hard to expand the Pakistan People's Party support base Beyond synth so yeah I think you can give him some marks for effort but you know what it is there there are some kids who will put in very hard effort and still not be able to scool right right so which is what has happened because if you look at the PPP uh they won about five or six I

don't have the Exact number right now on my fingertips but they won about six seven seats in Punjab uh most of them from South Punjab and again these are traditional SE that they would have probably won big landlords big feudal Lords that kind of a thing but if you look at with all the effort which baval BTO made to try and raise his voting percentage in Punjab at the end of the day the PPP still had the same number which they got in 2018 which is 6% of the vote in Punjab so where Does that

leave him they're non-existent in KP right they manage bistan but bistan they managed by a slate of hand not because there are a popular party out there so the only the only basan is sin and it remains sin there again there has been a lot of rigging a lot of arm twisting a lot of U you know uh vote robbing all kinds of things which have happened they would have won anyways uh or at least they were best place to win but I think they've overplayed their Hand and won much more than what they would

have otherwise won but that is where they're limited too of course in now in the larger scheme of things the fact that they manag to get about 50 53 54 odd seats that is the directly elected ones means that they become a very important player in the current setup because without them you cannot form a government in the center So to that extent yes I think it's they've done well but otherwise nothing to show For it so the recent judgment on the zulfikar Ali neither here or it's virtue signaling of the worst kind I don't

think anybody in Pakistan ever took that judgment seriously I think there was a in any case there was always a consensus that it was a Judicial murder so so I don't know what unless of course you wanted you know that that stamp that final stamp of approval other than that I don't see what purpose that whole judgment serves and I the way the entire Case was also carried out it first started then everybody went to sleep on it for many many months and uh then suddenly you know this new chief justice after he got a

lot of hollering on the on the issue of Imran Khan and his Party symbol and all of that I think he suddenly revived this buto thing held these four or five days and in four or five days you decided the whole case which everybody knew that that was a completely botched up you know uh Judicial system that kind of gave that verdict take but it doesn't really change anything how does it change anything it's not going to make PPP more popular in Punjab that's not happening okay uh so I and I don't think the pmln

is going to end up being very popular in Punjab after what it's going to be doing over the next few months right sir so last two questions one PO is there any chance that can be resolved because there's so much of narrative on that Especially when the recent protests that happened no I don't think it can be resolved I don't see how P first I think we need to be clear on what we mean by resolution you know and I don't know what is there in this Indian mind that we always trying to find resolutions

to problems why there are some problems which have no resolutions so you learn to live with them and then you wait until a Time presents itself when a resolution presents itself and then you Grab it so I don't know why we keep looking for Resolutions I find that a little strange secondly uh I think to talk about a resolution of Po at this stage yeah you know if if you're prone to dreaming and delusions yeah you can do it but I don't think it's likely of course look what might happen 2 years 5 years 10

years from now is a different matter right U so for example if the economic crisis in Pakistan Deepens then you can be uh you can be faced with a situation where and and we've seen certain recent protests especially uh in in po uh Pakistan occupied ladak region gilg bstan uh where you know some of the old subsidies and other things that were being given to people were being withdrawn and there were massive protests simply because uh people said you can't do this to us you know you have to give us political rights you Have to

give us Civic rights all sorts of other things and if the political situation and the economic situation deteriorates then what happens and I think that is where uh opportunities could present themselves but to say resolution is going to come I I'm a little skeptical on that count right sir so the last question and going back to the first question that is a fail Statea does Pakistan have an identity crisis it's not an Islamic country by the Islamic country's definition nor is it have you know it does has the Indian history part or the civilizational state

and there's a lack of legitimacy for the Army especially with this election no I think they've always had a very confused sense of identity uh there is a sense of a Pakistani identity but there is no clear idea of what exactly that means means You know there's a very clear sense of an Indian identity and we all know what an Indian means right uh so there is a very clear sense of a Pakistani identity but I don't think anybody in Pakistan can really Define who what a Pakistani is and I think one of the best

definitions is that we are not indians which means that it comes out of negativity these are the same people whenever they go out somewhere they're basically unfortunately lumped with us Or they lump themselves as South Asian which which trials Indians no end we are not South Asian we are Indians you are South Asians we don't give a damn about you right U no Indian is a South Asian anybody else can be he welcome to be a South Asian and all these guys you know they lump themselves with us I don't know why so they stick

to us like leeches and um and and frankly I don't think any Indian really likes that I don't right so so one is That the other is again you're very right they don't know are they Central Asian are they Arabs are they Persians are they Afghans or are they just normal Indians who've converted they don't know that they they'll manufacture all kinds of things about how most of them are descendants of some Arab Invader I don't know why anybody wants to be identified with an Invader but that's what they want to do right so they

will see some they will reel in the uh in the Accomplishments of the Turks Dam the Turks came and raped and paged and plundered the Turks were exactly are not exactly you know Paragons of virtue neither were the central Asians who came and if you look at what the central Asians did uh Timur and others when they came and they massacred people or what the Persians did under Nar sha and they came and massacred people by the thousands hundreds of thousands in fact you take Pride in that I so I don't know what to say

about these people they take pride in mugal most of them okay I don't want to say certain thing I'll be I'll be accused of you know saying forget it because these are dangerous times I don't want to go to jail but but there's a lot more I could have said about the pakistanis but but yeah they but but the fact of the matter remains they have a very serious uh crisis of identity uh and they don't Know how to get around it and basically I think their biggest problem is the lack of intellect uh there

is a serious intellectual crisis in Pakistan but what do you expect when a 12th pass General acts prances about as the intellectual genius in Pakistan you know then there are there's not much that F the much future that that country has uh generals are good for Leading Armies generals are good for fighting Wars generals are good for military planning uh generals are Not intellectual genus yeah there'll be exceptions one or two right maybe a dozen uh and there are some very very bright generals who retired from the Indian army very audite people but by and

large that's not your training that's not what you're supposed to be you're not an intellectual genius you are a military analyst that's what you should remain you know at best and even there uh you know it is one thing to decide you know which fighting arm to be Placed where etc etc you know orats and stuff like that and quite another to decide on foreign policy issues that's not a general's liit and I don't see why generals should get into it yeah security is your domain yes your your advice is very valuable but what do

you know about modern economics what do you know about you know High econometrics and Financial restructuring of privatization and stuff like that what do you know about it nothing zil zip L Pretend as that you know there God's gift to mankind now if that is your your intellectual Capital so as to speak and the only organization which functions in that country then I can assure you that country is not coming out of trouble anytime soon so with the that I'm going to end today's podcast this was one of the most amazing entertaining podcast thank you

so much for joining me today Sir and to all the viewers thank you so much for joining me on this geopolitical dialogue see you in the next one study IQ is Affordable