A New Low in India–Pakistan Relations

By M.M. Ali

Last summer’s fighting at Kargil in Kashmir put India-Pakistan relations into a nosedive. It also led indirectly to the military takeover of the Pakistani government when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reportedly blamed the Pakistani army for inserting itself into the Kashmir fighting, and the army blamed the prime minister for ordering Pakistan’s military to disengage.

This may have prompted Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to complain that Pakistan’s foreign policy is “Indo-centric.” Then on Dec. 24, an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked.

By the time the week-long hijacking ordeal ended, fortunately with the loss of only one life, an Indian passenger killed by the hijackers, Indian Prime Minister Attal Bihari Vajpayee had asked that Pakistan be declared a “terrorist state” and affirmed that his government will “work systematically toward this objective.” The events favored another likely Indian goal, to cause President Bill Clinton to drop Pakistan from his planned visit to the subcontinent early this year.

Meanwhile the government of Pakistan rejected the terrorist charge and charged that India had staged the hijacking itself in order to malign Pakistan. Hopefully the downward cycle in Indian-Pakistani relations has bottomed out, before leading the two nuclear-armed countries to a fourth war since both received their independence in 1947.

Interpretation of the Shariah

The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in a landmark decision, declared on Dec. 30, 1999 that “riba,” or interest, was un-Islamic and against the Qur’anic injunctions. The court called upon the government to bring about necessary changes within a year in the financial and economic system of the country to make it compatible with the requirements of the shariah.

Ulema , the scholars of Islam, have grappled with the issues of riba for centuries and there are hundreds of treatises written on the subject. The matter has attained increased significance in the past century with the pervasiveness of capitalist national and international markets where “interest” remains the driving force.

Even most of the Muslim countries that today describe themselves as “Islamic states” do not answer the requirements of Islamic lawin all respects. Through interaction with or under domination of non-Islamic countries, these “Islamic states” have absorbed some fundamental principles of capitalism in their economic and financial institutions that may be in conflict with the rules of shariah.

The issue of interest is one of the most obvious of such conflicts. The Supreme Court’s ruling categorically states: “any amount, big or small, [paid] over the principal in a contract of loan or debt is riba and hence prohibited by the holy Qur’an, regardless whether the loan is taken for the purpose of consumption or for some production activity…Similarly, any interest stipulated in the government borrowings, acquired from domestic or foreign sources is riba...”

The court’s order will be difficult for any contemporary government to meet, particularly since many Muslims feel that since shariah cannot be tampered with, the country’s institutions must be adjusted accordingly.

But radical changes in functioning systems cannot be undertaken without risking major disasters. In this case, the Court ruling will keep the Ulema, the economists and financial wizards busy for the next 12 months. If there is nothing new about the problem, what’s new is the imposition of a deadline for significant changes in a country that simultaneously is beset with overwhelming political and financial challenges.

Dr. Maleeha Lodhi Appointed Pakistan’s Envoy to Washington for Second Time

Pakistan’s military government has appointed prominent journalist Dr. Maleeha Lodhi as its ambassador to the United States. The appointment marks her second such assignment to Washington. She previously interrupted her journalistic career to serve Benazir Bhutto’s government in the early ’90s as its highly visible ambassador in Washington.

Although she had to conduct her previous assignment against the background of Indian-Israeli efforts to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state, Ambassador Lodhi was remarkably successful in initiating a thaw in U.S.-Pakistani relations, which had been frozen by the Pressler Amendment halting U.S. aid. This time she not only has to help her country ward off a similar lobbying effort by India and Israel, she also has to defend a military government at home and explain the rationale for its takeover from the Muslim League government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

In Lodhi’s words, “The job has never been easy. It is all the more challenging this time.”

Since President Bill Clinton has been only mildly critical of the takeover, although he has called upon General Pervez Musharraf to set a date for democratic elections, it is on Capitol Hill, territory she already knows well, that Ambassador Lodhi may have to work the hardest.

Prof. M.M. Ali is a consultant and a senior fellow with the Center for Planning and Policy Studies based in the Washington, DC area.