Voltaire, the renowned French polymath and champion of the Enlightenment, made a flippant yet incisive remark on the Royal Prussian Army: “Where some states have an army, the Prussian army has a state.” If any nation-state in modern history exemplifies the French thinker’s quote as a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is Pakistan. It holds a rare distinction as the first nation-state to be carved out on religious lines in the name of Islam.
Since its formation (by partitioning India in 1947), it remains a ‘national security state’ that patronises ultra-religious and extreme Islamist/Jihadi groups, which function as paramilitary groups that complement the defence system and foreign policies. This is a fact acknowledged by former President, General Pervez Musharraf. Such statecraft marks a significant ideological divergence from the vision of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the first president, Ayub Khan, both of whom were Western-educated liberals.
Copyright©Madras Courier, All Rights Reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from madrascourier.com and redistribute by email, post to the web, mobile phone or social media.Please send in your feed back and comments to [email protected]
