CSS 2019 Solved Current Affairs Past Papers | Neutralizing Threats to Internal Security of Pakistan
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Question Breakdown
This question has one part that requires an analysis of how Pakistan’s governing structure can neutralize threats to its internal security.
Outline
1-Introduction
2-Elaborating the term Security Threat
3-Current internal Security Threats to Pakistan
- ✓Religious extremism
- ✓Extremism and Militancy
- ✓Insurgencies and Separatist Movements
- ✓Provincial Deprivation of Resources
- ✓Narcotics and Organized Crimes
4-How can Pakistan’s Governing Structure neutralize Threats
- ✓Empowering Democratic Institutions
- ✓Dialogue over Force
- ✓Military to stop meddling in Civil Government
- ✓Equal Distribution of Resources
- ✓Equality among all Cultural and ethnic Groups
- ✓Activeness of ANF
5-Critical Analysis
6-Conclusion
Answer to the Question
Introduction
Pakistan, situated in a sensitive cleavage of Central and South Asia with its perplexed geography and strategic position, has numerous threats to its external and internal security. Pakistan’s diversified array of different clusters, including ethnic and religious sects, insurgent movements, discrimination and deprivation over natural resources, add up to the factors in internal challenges to be faced by the government. However, the governing system of Pakistan, with its law enforcement institutions and parliament, can balance the security threats to guard its citizens. Despite being able to neutralize its internal conditions, the country keeps facing hindrances in deploying its National Security Policy. On the other hand, with its supportive wings, the government is constantly working on developing a robust framework to ensure the country’s internal security.
Elaborating the term Security Threat
Security threats refer to any malicious activity that may involve armed hostility towards an organization, institution, or state, causing damage to its internal security. These are commonly referred to as traditional threats. However, there could also be non-traditional threats, which may involve some non-state actors such as terrorism, anti-state conspiracies, militancy, and armed separation movements.
Pakistan, for the last two decades, has been facing severe security threats like civil war and the armed struggle from jihadists and other militancy groups in the name of terrorism after the collapse of the USSR. Apart from this, Pakistan, being a land of diversified ethnic and linguistic identities, remains on the verge of an identity crisis to protect its ethnic community. On the third, we can count the separatist movement that called themselves the nationalists. They collide with the state and its governing structure as a byproduct of ethnic conflicts.
Current Internal Security Threats to Pakistan
Pakistan is facing severe traditional and untraditional threats to its internal safety and development, which has adversely affected economic stability and social harmony and continues to instill a sense of insecurity among the masses such as;
- Religious Extremism
Religious intolerance and extremism in Pakistan are deeply entrenched in the country’s social fabric and political dynamics. These issues often manifest in the form of tensions between different religious sects and discrimination towards religious minorities in both social and political spheres. Historic sectarian differences, exacerbated by geopolitical events, have led to tensions between Sunni-Shia conflicts. The bloodshed in Parachinar, which led to 40 Shia casualties and riots among the masses, is the consequence of deep-routed sectarian intolerance.
Moreover, the misuse of blasphemy law against minorities and the innocent public is another after-shoot of religious intolerance in Pakistan. According to the Amnesty International report, the significant reported cases of minority killing in the name of blasphemy are more than seven hundred. The alive, burnt cases in Swat, Sargodha and Sialkot in recent two years are the leading reported cases. Additionally, forced conversion of Hindu teen girls to Islam has also been faced in the rural areas of Sindh, according to the report.
- Terrorism and Militancy
Pakistan has remained the most vulnerable state in the war against terrorism for the last three decades. Pakistan’s coercive policy against the USSR, in the camp of NATO and its alliance, fostered the jihadists in the Afghan war during the 1980s, in which a few madrassas also promoted the content to bring jihadists for terror activities. According to Pakistan’s armed forces spokespersons, Pakistan faced more than 83,000 casualties in the war against terrorism and an economic loss of more than US$ 126 billion, including the destruction of infrastructure, the issue of IDP displacement and military operations against terrorism. Though the country is heading towards the normalization of militant-based terror attacks, the chunk of the jihadist mindset is still a challenge to the internal security of Pakistan.
- Insurgencies and Separatists Movement
Constant sub-national insurgencies and separatist movements are other contemporary challenges to the country’s security and stability in which other non-state actors and centrifugal forces are playing their active part in terror activities against the country’s stability. Sub-national leaders such as Manzoor Pashteen in KPK, Muhajir Quomi movement in Sindh and Mahrang Baloch in Baluchistan, with their nationalist concerns, when remain unaddressed by the state then the space of riots are filled by a terrorist organization such as BLA, Black Water, CIA, RAW, NDS and other security agencies of difference states to destabilize the country with their anti-state propaganda.
- Provincial Deprivation of Resources
Unequal distribution of resources and wealth and allocation of a major chunk of the national Budget has always been a bone of contention among all the provinces. Balochis consider themselves as the deprived nation of their resources and seem to accuse Punjab of their exploitation. Other provinces share the same thought with Baluchistan against Punjab, which is that the allocation of resources and federal budget based on population is unjustified. This ultimately fosters resentment among the ethnic groups and is another lingering challenge upon the head of state, which may convert to civil war.
- Narcotics and Organized Crimes
Narco-trafficking is another security threat that poses a serious concern to Pakistan’s international standing. Pakistan’s geographical location next to Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of illicit opium, places Pakistan in a vulnerable position in terms of drug trafficking. Organized crime and its nexus with politics, business and violence threaten the safety of metropolitan cities. The region has a history of drug trade and production. The sensitivity of the Durand line and the Pak-Iran border of Chaman has been a vulnerable route of the narcotics trade for which the government keeps track of the seize-border policy, which ultimately boosts the illegal smuggling of drugs and narcotics.
How can Pakistan’s Governing Structure neutralize these Security Threats?
Pakistan, being a federal Republic, can bring several reforms to overcome challenges to its internal security;
- Empowering Democratic Institutions
A country’s internal rifts and destabilization cannot be encountered unless the governing institutions can serve the nation without internal or external pressure. Strengthening the democratic institutions where judiciary, bureaucracy and parliament should be made accountable without any discrimination of wealth, nepotism and power influences if they don’t come to perform their duty fully. Law enforcement institutions and agencies such as NAB, FIA and Intelligence Bureau should remain free with the power of authority to counter corruption cases against the aristocrats. Then, it lies upon the judiciary to act to demolish corruption, lawlessness and unjust societal norms.
- Dialogue over Force
Oppression can never be the solution to implementing national policy and law. The resentments of separatists can be addressed with dialogue instead of using military force to submerge their concerns. Federal and provincial spokespersons have to arrange the back-channelled dialogue to overcome the anger of separatists. The aggrieved party should be listened to with all its genuine concerns, and a win-win strategy needs to be crafted so that the terror-based and anti-state factors can’t get space for their vulnerable activities.
- Military to stop meddling in Civil Government
Pakistan, since its inception, has consistently been under the influencing spheres of military regimes in the form of martial laws and presidential governments, which have cast their dismissive impacts on the political and economic disability of the country. The military is designed to address the external matters of the state. Once it starts meddling in the country’s internal affairs, the general public problems won’t be addressed, and how should they be solved? Civilian supremacy is the need of the hour for Pakistan, which should have the supreme authority to make impactful decisions without any external or internal intervention.
- Equal Distribution of Resources
Pakistan is a vast landscape of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, which have their concerns regarding unequal distribution of resource allocation and basic human rights necessities. Major reforms are required to be made by the federal and provincial governments in the administrative structure of each region. The allocation of the federal budget, the balance of power among the allocated officials and the writ of bureaucracy are required to be deployed, who can directly approach the public and address their problems with equal means of resources. Ethnic conflicts have existed in the country for decades and can turn into a civil war if they remain unaddressed.
- Equality among all Cultural and Religious Groups
A nation’s harmony, integrity, and unity can only flourish when all minority groups of any caste, creed, religion, or ethnic group have equal rights to live with the majority. Pakistan’s governing system must enact the constitutional legitimacy of fundamental human rights to avoid civil conflict and an unfavourable environment.
- Activeness of Anti-Narcotics Force
Pakistan promulgates different laws from time to time to control drug trading over and across borders. Still, a more effective action plan must be drafted, for which the ANF (Anti-Narcotics Force) has to enforce its activeness to gauge passengers’ outgoing and incoming flow over the borders.
Critical analysis
Let’s critically analyze the country’s internal security concerns. Pakistan’s new National Security Policy (NSP) seemingly has a paradigm shift in the state’s preferences for safeguarding its citizens. Since the global shift from geopolitics to geo-economics, Pakistan also needed to pay heed to its socio-economic indicators and poverty alleviation. National Security Policy is crystal clear about its present and potential security threat, for which human capital development is considered a key indicator of the country’s economic and social stability. Every citizen, government institution and official is an equal stakeholder in the country’s security, irrespective of any influential affiliation. Pakistan’s present threats of political instability and ethnic conflicts are considered to be predicted as the battleground for another civil war if not addressed at the time. The country, being at the brink of external security threats over and across borders, wouldn’t be in a position to absorb another civil attack on the sovereignty of the country.
Conclusion
Summing up the above-elucidated discussion, it can be concluded that internal security threats are often caused by state mistreatment towards its citizens regardless of any specific community. Pakistan’s governing system possesses the capacity to draft effective security policies, keeping in view the potential threats to the country. If one comes to work freely without any pressure, the constitution and law enforcement agencies can mitigate the stranded situation of disunity and anarchy in the nation.
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