“About 4,50,000 civilians fled North Waziristan, a tribal area of  Pakistan, to escape a planned offensive by the army against extremist groups, including the Pakistan Taliban. Meanwhile, gunmen opened fire on an airlines from Saudi Arabia as it came in  to land at Peshawar, killing a passenger. The attack sparked alarm about security around Pakistani airports”

— The Economist, The World This Week: Politics, June 28th, 2014

After reading through TV Paul’s seminal work ‘The  Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World’ brought out by Random House India,  this leaves a bitter taste as a continuum of what Fathima Bhutto drew in her ‘Song Blood and Sword’, a Daughter’s Memoir’ by Penguin Books. It is as bitter as what a reviewer called “the story of imperfections of democratic impulses in a lost country”.

TV Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations at McGill University, Canada. Prolific writer that he is, this is Paul’s 16th book  produced as a writer or editor and stands perhaps as the best from a mature and free thinking political analyst. Born and educated in Kerala and now a Canadian Indian carrying a PIO card, Paul is apprehensive about how the world will take him as an independent observer as he could be mis-construed as an Indian looking down at Pakistan. Well, he is not.

The capture and killing of Obama bin Laden, founder and head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011 gives a dramatic beginning for the book under the opening chapter ‘War and Development’ The book is divided into 8 chapters that gives an idea of how the author go about his task. The Causes, A Turbulent History, The Garrison State, The Geostrategic Urge, Religion and Politics, Comparing Pakistan, The Warrior State Today are the other divisions in the 260-page beautifully produced in the United States by Oxford University Press.

“Despite having devoted considerable energy and resources to its national security over the last 65 years, Pakistan remains a hotbed of international terrorism, religious extremism and nuclear proliferation, the world’s most dangerous powder keg,” avers Paul. “In many states across the developing world, military-led regimes have experienced impressive and stable economic growth and over time have evolved into at least partially democratic states. Yet Pakistan, a state in which the military has outsized power, has been a conspicuous failure.”

“What explains Pakistan’s unique inability to progress? While there are many factors, the “geostrategic curse” looms large. Since its founding, the country has been at the centre of  series of major geopolitical struggles—US-Soviet rivalry, the India-Pakistan struggle, and—most recently—the the post 9/11 wars. No matter how ineffective the regimes, it always ends up being the recipient of massive amounts of aid. Moreover, given the constant state of geopolitical crisis, the state always prioritizes the military at the expense of political and economic development.”

Incorporating a rich theoretical explanation into a swift narrative, drawing insights from history, international relations, sociology, religious studies, political science and comparative development, the Warrior State presents a deep multidimensional, and readable account of how such an acutely troubled and unstable country became the way it is, as well as the forces that keep it mired in instability,” argues Paul. Paul compares the development strategies that benefitted a diverse and religiously fervent society like Indonesia while Pakistan went down the drain.

Prof. Paul warns that unless and until Pakistan changes its military–driven gear towards a more democratically inclined rule, it will not last long as cohesive, developing nation. Did he mean the end of history for Pakistan as Francis Fukuyama would have thought of many nations? Not precisely. Paul has been clinically detached and pathologically inclined towards his subject.

The Indian edition of the book was released  at a function organised by the KPS Menon Chair for Diplomatic Studies under the School of International Relations and Politics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Director K.M.Seeethi introduced the book and the author.

KT Thomas,  former judge of the Supreme Court of India who released the book by presenting the first copy to Prof. AM Thomas, pointed out that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, father of Pakistan, started as an Indian nationalist to the core but ended up a ‘divisionist’ as desired and manipulated by the colonial power. The very idea of Pakistan is built on hatred for India. While India’s constitutional guarantee as a secular and diverse society survived the onslaught of many odds, Pakistan disintegrated on the weight of its own contradictions.” he argued.