If Pakistani authorities have the will and resources, their declaration that all illegal foreign migrants and refugees must leave the country or be deported by November 1 will set off one of the largest human movements in South Asia's troubled modern history to take. The vast majority of illegal settlers in Pakistan are Afghans: approximately 1.7 million of the 4.4 million Afghans in Pakistan are said to not have the correct papers. Driven from Afghanistan by decades of war and chaos, they will return to a broken country. Earthquakes have just paralyzed parts of the western province of Herat. Afghans who fled the Soviet invasion in 1979 have been away so long that they have no connections. Others were born in Pakistan. Many of the 600,000 people estimated to have fled Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in August 2021 will have reason to fear for their lives.
How the decision to order the evictions was made and how it will be implemented remains as unclear as the overall functioning of the country's government. There is an interim civilian government in Islamabad, awaiting elections that may or may not take place soon. Meanwhile, the army chief, General Asim Munir, and his cronies pull the strings they choose. The deportation policy will first be implemented in Islamabad and Karachi, the commercial center of Pakistan.
Amir Rana of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a think tank in Islamabad, says the capital's police have long been concerned about rising crime linked to Afghans, especially smuggling. With the economy in trouble, the statement is popular among ordinary Pakistanis, who curse Afghans for “stealing” jobs. In Karachi, Pakistanis are buying property from distressed Afghan sellers, forced to leave in a hurry, at brutally low prices.
General Munir has other motives for supporting the deportations. Chief among these is the resurgence of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban: an umbrella group of Islamists vowed to overthrow the state. They have ties to al-Qaeda and are loyal to the Afghan Taliban, who, even though they deny it, offer them sanctuary. (Most members of both Taliban come from ethnic Pashtun clans.)
For almost a decade, the TTP was suspended, crushed by army offensives. But the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in TTP violence in Pakistan, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, provinces bordering Afghanistan. Late last month, suicide bombers killed 60 people in two separate attacks on mosques that took place on the same day. The government says the TTP has increasing numbers of Afghan members. According to the report, Afghans have carried out more than half of the 20 suicide bombings this year.
General Munir, who often sees the world in black and white, may think that excluding Afghans will eliminate the problem of recruiting Afghans into the TTP. He may also think that dealing with the influx of returning people will bring the Taliban government in Kabul to its senses and make it more cooperative in its relations with Pakistan.
If he does, it would be just the latest strategic blunder by the military. The biggest one yet, for decades, has been feeding and financing the Taliban. The hope was that the Taliban's willingness would give Pakistan regional influence over major powers, especially America, and also deny its arch-enemy, India, access to Afghanistan. But now that they are back in power, the Taliban show no sign of gratitude or respect. In a perfect example of trolling following the recent protests in Pakistan in support of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry even made open-mouthed calls for political stability: that would be good for both Pakistan and the region.
The Taliban, who oversee a threadbare state, are now furious with Pakistan for the added burden of dealing with large numbers of displaced people. So the chances of the Taliban agreeing to work with Pakistan to curb the TTP have shrunk to almost zero. Yet the TTP challenge is now serious for the Pakistani military, which is seriously short of resources due to tight budgets. Meanwhile, international consternation over the deportations could complicate Pakistan's efforts to secure new financing from the IMF when the deal expires in April.
It remains unclear how many Afghans will ultimately have to return. The price they will pay will be high. But there will also be costs for Pakistan, in terms of status and effectiveness. The decision to attempt mass deportation speaks more of a weakened state than an assured one.
Read more from Banyan, our columnist about Asia:
MS Swaminathan, the man who fed India (October 3)
China's claim to the South China Sea is getting even weirder (21st of September)
How unite India, Bollywood style (September 14)
© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. Original content can be found at www.economist.com
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Published: Dec 11, 2023 3:10 PM IST