Book Review: Pakistan: A Hard Country by Anatol Lieven

I bought this book a few weeks ago just because I saw it in a bookshop. To be fair the purchase was not entirely arbitrary because I had definitely seen people talk about it on Instagram. So I got the book along with a few others and began reading it the very same day. And I was pleasantly surprised because, as the name suggests, the book seems to be quite a daunting one, one that treats Pakistan as a land of darkness and horrors. However, by the time I was done reading the introduction I had realized that it turned out to be the exact opposite of my expectations. The introductory chapter, which may be taken as the crux of the entire book, gives a wholesome picture of Pakistan as a country and sheds light upon various different problems it has to deal with due to its geopolitic location. As the author points out that the book discusses "Pakistan's internal problems" as well as "the sources of [its] internal resilience. 

The book was published in 2011 and is divided into four main parts and further subdivided into little portions. Its first part, Land, People and History, discusses the geography, history and nature of the people of Pakistan and shows how different issues in Pakistan are in fact deeply tied with these things. Lieven points out that Pakistan's military strategy towards India and and its security policies towards Afghanistan mainly dominate the state's policies in general and seem to have an adverse effect on the domestic progression of the country. He refers to Pakistan as 'Janus-faced' because he believes that the factors that keep the situation of terrorism/extremism in check also prove to be the ones that inhibit the country from developing socially, economically and politically. Lieven also argues that, contrary to the popular belief in the West, most Pakistanis do not sympathize with the Islamist extremism of Taleban and other such groups. However, the terrorist attacks on India or the American military in Afghanistan "enjoy a degree of instinctive, gut sympathy from a majority of Pakistanis" because of "Muslim nationalism and bitter hostility to the US role in the Muslim world in general and Pakistan's region in particular".      

The writer also discusses how the State of Pakistan is much weaker in its strength as compared to the powerful groups in society which highly influence the workings of the government to extract benefits and patronages out of it. Moreover, the Pakistani society hugely depends on the kinship networks. Most people prefer to solve the matters of justice through these networks instead of consulting the state. Lieven also discusses the concept of 'feudals' in Pakistan and how they influence its society and particularly the politics of its rural areas. Among other problems that Pakistan faces, Lieven considers climate change as well its ever growing population to be the most dangerous ones. He points out that Pakistan's lack of control on its population seems to reflect "state weakness, social conservatism, lack of education (above all among women) and the ability of the religious parties to play on popular prejudices". He believes that the issue of population is directly related the water crisis that Pakistan seems bound to face in near future. He argues that the various governments of Pakistan largely seem to be completely oblivious to the lurking danger of climate change and the water crisis that it seems to inevitably bring with it. 

In the first part, the writer also gives a brief history of Pakistan and how it came into being. He explains how Islam and, especially, the endangered Muslim identity in the Subcontinent played an important role in its formation. He also highlights the reasons for the sanguinary separation of the East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971. Lieven believes that despite the birth of Pakistan as an ideal Muslim homeland, it proved itself to be nowhere near as ideal for its inhabitants mainly because of the early deaths of its main leaders such Jinnah and others as well as the incompetence of the future politicians.

In part two, Structures, of the book Lieven discusses the major institutions in Pakistani society such as justice, religion, the military and politics. He again stresses the nature of the Pakistani state as weak and ineffective when it comes to its judicial system. There is also a little portion on the police of Pakistan which discusses the failure of police as a state institution as well as its corruption in detail. The chapter that I found to be very informative is on religion. The writer explains how Pakistani people follow different versions of Islam instead of just one uniform system of beliefs. He considers that precisely because of the presence of different 'Islams', it is impossible for Pakistan to fall completely into the clutches of extremism. He also believes that because of the variety of Islamic belief systems that are prevalent across Pakistan, it impossible for any internal or external force to bring out a purely Islamic revolution in the country as the one experienced by Iran during its revolution. 

I particularly enjoyed reading the chapter dedicated to the military of Pakistan where the author describes why it is the most effective and powerful institution in Pakistan. Lieven believes that one of the reasons for the strength of the military seems to be that it still follows the basic structure the British left behind after the colonial period. He basically implies that the discipline and organization that Pakistan army displays is in fact inherited from its previous colonial masters. He points out that "The Pakistani armed forces could well be called the only element of a great society that has ever existed in Pakistan". The author attributes the great success of the Pakistani army to the large portion of budget allocated to it, which is 17.5% of the whole budget, by the government of Pakistan. Nevertheless, the author also points out that amount of budget set aside for the army may be considered fair due to the many challenges, internal as well as external, that it has to deal with in the country like Pakistan. 

I have included below some of the pictures given right amidst this chapter on the military for you to look at. 

 
In part three of the book, Lieven discusses the major features of the four provinces in Pakistan and how they are similar to and different from each other. I didn't particularly enjoy these chapters and found to be boring and repetitive. I feel like he only drags all the things that he has previously discussed in the chapters before. At the end, there is a chapter on the Taleban but that too appeared too dull to me as the writer had already discussed different aspects of terrorist elements in Pakistani society in the previous chapter named, The Pathans. Nevertheless, the chapter on Taleban makes an interesting and informative read and probably should not be judged too harshly.

That's all from me today. Hope you liked reading this review. I'll soon be back with another post. Until then, goodbye!