ABSTRACT
Pakistan's development into a highly Islamised society today can be divided into five periods. From the time of independence till 1971 when it was a search for a non-India identity and a desire to be India's equal, and if not, then to reduce India to its own size. The 1970s was a period of reflection and recuperation, marked by the brutal repression of the Balochs and the arrival of Zia. The 1980s were the heady days of the Afghan jihad where Afghanistan helped in acquiring jihadi skills and the Indian Punjab theatre was for testing the enemy. The jihad had reaffirmed the power of the faith. In the 1990s, having acquired nuclear technology under the benign neglect of its Western allies, having tested the bomb, with the kind courtesy of the Chinese, in Lop Nor in 1990, and confident that it could now cut India asunder, Pakistan launched its Kashmir jihad. Not satisfied with this, it also felt strong enough to open a second jihad front by mentoring the Taliban. It was this arrogance that led to the Kargil misadventure in 1999. We are today witnessing the fifth period of Pakistan's Islamisation in the post-September 2001 era, where the Pakistani establishment is having to battle its own surrogates. Jihad had become a foreign policy instrument, a force equaliser with India, and a means to seek strategic depth in Afghanistan; today it is also a means to acquire financial and military assistance from an anxious West.
