Within The ISI: Plumbing The Deepest Point Of A State

The ISI is today a household name in India; it is etched in the minds of its citizens. To millions of Indians, it symbolises the venality of the Pak­istani military mindset. People in Punjab still remember the years of militancy in the 1980s, when Sikh pilgrims to shrines like Nankana Sahib in Pakistan were incited to resort to violence, by agents provocateurs. Across Jammu and Kas­h­mir, everyone knows how misguided and disillusioned Kashmiri youth were motivated to take to arms and made to play second fiddle to hardcore terrorists from ISI-backed groups, like the Lashkar e-Taiba and the Jaish e-Mohammed. People in Mumbai and indeed, across India, will never forget the horrors of the 26/11 attack and the bomb blasts in 1993, whose mastermind, Dawood Ibrahim, lives comfortably in the elite Clifton suburb of Karachi.

Very few authoritative books have been written about the wide range of subversive, coercive and terrorist act­ivities of the ISI, both domestically and beyond Pakistan’s borders. These activities have affected not just countries like India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar. They have also extended across the Islamic world and beyond. Money has always been available for such activities, not just from the Pakistan military, but also from dubious pursuits like drug smuggling. While Americans like Bruce Reidel have written about some facets of ISI activities, Faith, Unity and Discipline—The ISI of Pakistan, written by German scholar Hein G. Kiessling, provides a comprehensive account of how the tentacles of the ISI extend from the Pakistan military, to virtually every aspect of national life in Pakistan. Kiessling also dwells on the various pursuits of the ISI, ranging from interfering in domestic politics, manipulating the media and mortally threatening individuals who come in its way, while even eliminating those found to be ‘inconvenient’.

While a British officer established the ISI during the Kashmir conflict in 1947-48, the organisation became a rea­­lly powerful force over the decade of 1977-1988. This was the period when General Zia-ul-Haq, with his Islamist propensities and changes in national law, set the stage for converting a relatively moderate Islamic country into a country increasingly afflicted by fundamentalist Wahabi influence, in virtually every walk of life. President Zia himself largely depended on a powerful former ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ghulam Gilani Khan, whom he appointed as governor in Punjab, to change the political dynamics of Pakistan. It was Gilani Khan who was tasked with undermining Bhutto’s nominally secular Pakistan People’s Party, using the muscle of the fundamentalist cadres of the Jamat e-Islami and by creating and patronising a new Muslim League Party, from which the likes of Nawaz Sharif emerged into politics in Pakistan. It was thanks to the support and patronage of the ISI and the army that Sharif was able to establish his political base and, thereafter, rise to power.

The book contains fascinating details of intrigues within the ISI and the tussles between successive prime ministers and army chiefs on who should appoint the ISI chief. The ISI chiefs appointed by politicians seldom lasted long and even ended up in jail. Lt Gen Khawaja Ziauddin, who was appointed ISI chief by Nawaz Sharif, was totally distrusted by Musharraf. He was not even kept informed of the Kargil intrusions by the Pakistan army. Ziauddin was appointed army chief when Nawaz rather ham-handedly attempted to sack Musharraf after the Kargil fiasco. Other ISI chiefs, like Gen Asad Durrani, landed in trouble when they were found to have attempted to rig national elections by funding Islamist groups. Then there was the case of the most bombastic ISI chief, Lt Gen Hamid Gul, who rose to fame by being one of the founders of Imran Khan’s Tehriq-e-Insaaf Party. Hamid Gul’s incompetence led to a military fiasco, when his attempts to defeat the army of the pro-Soviet Afghan leader Najibullah in a battle in Jalalabad failed and the ISI-backed Mujahideen suffered severe reverses.

Kiessling dwells at length on what were really the formative years of the present day ISI during and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was then, during the long military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, that the stage was set for Pakistan becoming, what is now referred to as a ‘garrison state’. Pakistan, as Kiessling establishes, is now a country where the nation’s policies are largely determined by the national security perspectives, both internal and external, set by military. The military sets its own agenda, disregarding what Pakistan’s elected leaders, or parliament, want. It is precisely this development that enabled Gen Raheel Sharif to commence massive military operations across Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, without obtaining the prior permission of the elected government and parliament.

Kiessling dwells in some detail about the ISI role in fomenting vio­lence and terrorism in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. He draws att­ention to US concern even in 1992 at the ISI supporting armed militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India. The US then warned that Pakistan risked losing American assistance if it proceeded on this path. There is considerable focus on Nawaz Sharif’s appointment of the fundamentalist Lt Gen Javed Nasir as his ISI chief in his first term. The book, however, does not dwell adequately on the role of Nawaz and his hand-picked ISI chief during the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, which led to the US threatening to act against Pakistan. This was one of the factors that led to Nawaz being sacked by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Moreover, Kiessling tends to overlook the fact that it was the US that encouraged Saudi Arabia to pour in millions for the Afghan jehad against the Soviet Union. It was this unholy alliance of the US, Saudi Arabia and the Pakistan military that led to the propagation and strengthening of ‘radical Islam’ in Pakistan.

The author covers ISI activity in India over the past three decades. He spells out details of ISI involvement across India, but places relatively little emphasis on ISI attempts to promote Islamic radicalism within India, through groups like the SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen. There is little mention of the activities of Dawood Ibrahim and the sort of support he has received from Pakistan. This is surprising, because Dawood figures in watchlists put out by both the FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Moreover, the coverage of the 26/11 terrorist attacks makes no reference to the evidence that emerged during the trial in Chicago of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana. There is also an important fact, which is missing in the account of developments leading to the establishment of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. There is no reference to the fact what the Taliban was not a creation of the ISI, but of Benazir Bhutto and her interior minister Gen Nasrullah Babar. It was Gen Babar who pulled the Taliban out of seminaries in Pakistan, to take over southern Afghanistan. The ISI got into the act only later. Thus, if Nawaz Sharif patronised Khalistani groups worldwide and Ahl-e-Hadees groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, Benazir was one of the founding patrons of the Taliban.

While missing out on some of these details, Kiessling’s The ISI of Pakistan makes interesting reading. The book provides a holistic perspective on how the policies and priorities of the ISI and the inclinations of sections of the country’s political leadership, have led Pakistan into a situation where radicalism and terrorism have become integral parts of Pakistan’s polity. The United States and Saudi Arabia are the external players primarily responsible for this situation. Those who expect overnight changes in Pakistan’s approach to terrorism dir­ected against India, should realise that the Pakistani military establishment and even sections of the political elite are not going to change their approach ever, till the political, diplomatic and financial costs become unacceptable and the terrorist groups they have raised, turn increasingly against them.

(The author is a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan and a former spokesperson of the MEA)