Commentary

Pakistan’s Garrison State-IV: Military Mindset, Support Base and Legitimacy

June 21, 2023

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Pakistan’s Garrison State-IV: Military Mindset, Support Base and Legitimacy
By Adnan Qaiser
June 2023

Editor’s Note: In this nine-part study, Adnan Qaiser, a foreign affairs expert having had a distinguished career in the armed forces as well as international diplomacy examines:

Pakistan’s Garrison State-I: Courting East Pakistan Moment
Pakistan’s Garrison State-II: Societal Paradoxes and Political-Military Divide
Pakistan’s Garrison State-III: Reality of Politics, Elections and Democracy
Pakistan’s Garrison State-IV: Military Mindset, Support Base and Legitimacy
Pakistan’s Garrison State-V: Intelligence’s Preoccupation with National Security
Pakistan’s Garrison State-VI: General Musharraf’s Treason Trial and Civil-Military Divergence
Pakistan’s Garrison State-VII: From Religious Extremism to Radical Terrorism
Pakistan’s Garrison State-VIII: A Reluctant War on Terror Ally
Pakistan’s Garrison State-IX: From Water Scarcity to Water Starvation

George Orwell had famously written during World War-II, “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

‘The Guardian of the Nation’

Being part of the “colonial enforcement project,” historically, Pakistan’s military had never been involved in the subcontinent’s independence struggle or the movement for Pakistan. However, right from the onset the existential threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity from archrival India made the country a “national security state” – similar to Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel. Such a unique challenge constrained its military establishment to adopt a role of “guardian of the nation” quite similar to that of Turkish army (instituted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923).

The ineptitude of Pakistani political class further entrenched the military with the Indonesian culture of ‘Dwi Fungsi’ (dual functions) under presidents Sukarno and Suharto. As a protector of national interest, the Army found itself morally obligated to intervene whenever a political crisis occurred or the government machinery stalled.[1]

India’s first prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru, exonerated his rival military establishment by stating, “It is not the inordinate ambition or a special taste for the politics but the failure of political classes to govern effectively that the military intervention takes place in Pakistan.”[2]

Army’s intrusion in politics continues to be criticized: Domestically by political elite who want unrestrained power to loot and plunder state resources; and internationally by the West, romanticizing with a thriving democracy in Pakistan.

However, Pakistan’s political conspiracies, palace intrigues, and repeated constitutional crises convinced its military establishment very early that Western style democracy would never work in the country, leading to introduce a “guided or controlled model of democracy” in the country.[3]

In his address to the nation on March 1, 1959, President, General (later Field Marshal) Ayub Khan said, “The Westminster model did not suit the genius of the people of Pakistan.”[4]

Establishment’s Model of ‘Controlled Democracy’

Controlled democracy enabled the military establishment to manage aspects of national security, nuclear policy, defence and foreign affairs of the country. It forced the civilian players to follow its dictates by either “forming the desired governments” or “removing the non-compliant from office.”[5] Playing behind the scenes, the establishment exercised the constitutional powers of successive presidents while enjoying full support of the civilian bureaucracy and a pliant judiciary in steering the country.[6]

It had been quite common for the returning ambassadors on vacation or at the end of their tenures to report to the Headquarters of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) first, before debriefing the Foreign Office. Although not in their “rules of business,” federal secretaries in relevant government ministries have followed the practice of receiving their briefs from General Headquarters (GHQ) on matters of national importance.

‘Troika’

Wary of the establishment’s role, politicians vainly tried to confine the Army to its barracks. However, during civilian rule, the military participated in key policy making with its Chiefs of Army Staff (COAS) regularly interacting with the presidents and prime ministers through an important “extra-constitutional arrangement” called ‘Troika.’[7]

The practice continued during the 1990s when the presidents held the power of constitution’s Article 58(2) (b) to dismiss a sitting prime minister and dissolve the National Assembly (Parliament’s Lower House). With an intervening period of President General Pervez Musharraf’s rule (1999 to 2008); and when Troika became defunct after additional presidential powers were repealed under 18^th Constitutional Amendment, the practice continued during the government of Pakistan Peoples Party (2008 to 2013), in which President Asif Ali Zardari ruled the roost having symbolic prime ministers heading the government. The army chief’s presence at the highest decision making forum kept the civilian governments in check and prevented them from going against the national interest.

It had been army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, who compelled the president and the prime minister to reinstate former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, when the “Restoration of Judges Movement” started its “Long March” towards Islamabad on March 16, 2009. Upon imposing emergency in the country, President General Musharraf had sacked the incumbent chief justice, along with 64 other judges of the higher judiciary on November 3, 2007. Saving the country from ugly clash and serious law and order situation General Kiyani had reportedly declined to bring his Army in “aid of civil power” under Article 245 of the constitution.[8]

Corps Commanders’ Conference (Parallel Cabinet?)

COAS’s chairing of a monthly Corps Commanders’ Conference (CCC), comprising of formation commanders and Principal Staff Officers (PSOs) at the GHQ, to review domestic and external developments demonstrates the army chief’s authority and military’s internal cohesion. CCC’s observations and decisions leaked to the media or sometimes released through the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) make it look like a “parallel cabinet.”[9]

Such a public display of force and army chief’s authority demonstrates military’s discipline and unity of command on one side, while at the same time cautions the political forces against taking any missteps that could undermine the national security and state sovereignty.[10]

The Corps Commanders’ Conference under General Kayani gave a public rebuke to the government – and to the United States – on October 7, 2009, when ‘Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act’ attached some strict preconditions of “civilian oversight over the army” for the grant of US$7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan. The military shook the government again on a ‘Memo’ by dragging the government to the Supreme Court. The controversial Memo was sent to the U.S. authorities by government’s anti-establishment ambassador, Hussain Haqani, seeking American intervention against military’s pressure and possible coup in 2011.

Executive-Military Tussle

Considering politicians’ lack of commitment to the nation, their ineptness and corrupt practices, the military establishment never allowed the elected civilian representatives to infringe in its domain of:

1) National security;
2) Nuclear policy and ballistic missile program;
3) Foreign policy (especially relations with the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and China);
4) Kashmir issue, peace process, composite dialogue, and (free) trade with India;
5) Involvement in Afghanistan and relations with the Taliban;
6) Defence policy and budget, including procurement of military hardware;
7) ‘Milbus’ or military’s corporate activities;[11]
8) Relations with religious parties and jihadist elements (non-state actors/proxies);
9) Control of politicians, civil bureaucracy, judges and journalists (through coercion); and
10) Appointment of directors general ISI (officially a prime minister’s domain but remaining the army chief’s prerogative)[12]

The Contentious ‘National Security Council’ (NSC)

Considering the establishment’s deep involvement in the affairs of state, General Musharraf had always stressed military’s viewpoint: “If you want to keep the army out [of politics], you have to keep it in,” by giving the armed forces a proper constitutional role for proper checks and balances and governance of the country.

The concept of the National Security Council (NSC) acting as a consultative forum and governing body long exists. Headed by the prime minister the NSC comprises of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, chiefs of the army, navy and air force, along with ministers of defence, foreign affairs, finance and interior and chief ministers of the four provinces as its members. However, owing to its authority to remove any sitting government and dissolve the National Assembly, the NSC continues to be resisted by the politicians.[13]

Politicians strongly disapproved the idea when President General Zia ul Haq tried to introduce NSC in the constitution after installing his handpicked parliament in March 1985. Since Zia’s primary interest at that time was to get his martial law of July 1977 indemnified and his constitutional changes validated by the law makers, he sufficed with the induction of Article 58(2)(b) through ‘8^th Constitutional Amendment’ that granted the president powers to sack any incumbent prime minister and pack-up a democratic dispensation.[14]

NSC’s adoption has always unnerved the politicians. A mere suggestion to introduce the NSC by former army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, in view of Pakistan’s dire geopolitical and economic situation post nuclear tests, incensed then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to fire his COAS on October 6, 1998. Mr. Sharif’s haughty indiscretion acted as a precursor to the military coup on October 12, 1999. As revealed later by then Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt. Gen. Shahid Aziz, the military was prepared to move in and take control the next time a dim-witted prime minister (Nawaz) struck – which he did by clumsily trying to remove his next COAS, General Pervez Musharraf.[15]

General Musharraf had although institutionalized NSC during his eight-year rule but the next government of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) removed the provisions of NSC and Article 58(2)(b) from the constitution through 18^th Constitutional Amendment. However, the threat of military intervention keeps hanging over the civilians like the ‘Sword of Damocles.’[16]

President’s Discretionary Powers to Dismiss Prime Minister – Article 58 (2) (b)

Since its induction by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1985, four elected governments fell at the altar of constitutional article 58 (2) (b). While President Zia used the power at his own discretion, removing Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo from office on May 29, 1988, his successors, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari exercised their powers at the behest of the military establishment, dismissing the governments of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif during the 1990s.[17]

It is argued that the president’s discretionary power, which has twice been repealed, has acted as a safety valve against the imposition of martial laws in the country by constitutionally sacking inept and corrupt civilian governments. The argument cannot be lightly dismissed in light of Pakistan’s chequered history as Article 58 (2) (b) provided a constant check against the abuse of power and plundering of national wealth and resources by the so-called democratically elected politicians – who consider “corruption as their right” after winning the elections.[18]

Military Rule Legitimacy through Feudal System

As discussed in previous parts of this study, in Pakistan’s feudalized political structure where societal loyalties are split on caste or clan basis, the military – comprising of middle-class officers having no electoral or grassroots support base – has always banked on feudal landlords and tribal Sardars to give legitimacy to military rule and subsequently instituted democratic set-ups. Although the nation took a sigh of relief every time the ‘elected kleptocrats’ were removed from office, the military leaders sought to govern through “faithful feudals” and “transitory technocrats” with a veneer of democracy.[19]

An authority on Pakistan, author Christine C. Fair notes in her scholarship, ‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War’: “Thus, within a few years of the coup the army chief, with the help of the intelligence agencies, cobbles together a “king’s party,” which draws from established mainstream political parties and new entrants seeking to take advantage of the military regime’s patronage.”[20]

Owing to its make-up and composition, the military establishment could never understand the dynamics of “constituent politics,” nor could its discipline tolerate the noise of “democratic dissent” dependent on which the masses suffered. On one hand, people remained disconnected with the Army; while on the other hand, the military’s handpicked political representatives felt no obligation to serve the population.

Obliging the military’s standard narrative of grassroots democracy, the feudal and tribal chiefs – said to be the product of Army in the politics – maximized their political gains and financial interests[21] under:

1) General Ayub Khan’s ‘Basic Democracies’ (BDs) of 1959;[22]

2) General Yahya Khan’s ‘East Pakistan’s mandate denial by the West wing’ in 1970-71;[23]

3) General Zia-ul-Haq’s ‘party-less elections’ of 1985;[24] and

4) General Pervez Musharraf’s ‘Devolution Plan 2000’[25]

Industrialists’ Support

Some fifteen richest families generally believed to have run Pakistan since its creation supported successive military regimes for their smooth functioning, domestic and foreign investment and economic growth of the country. The number has certainly risen as over the years the politicians and feudal landlords became industrialists by getting government permits to establish mega-profiteering ventures like textile units, cement manufacturing plants and sugar mills.

However, making cartels to collude, hoard and fix prices, even the superior judiciary, until recently, could not stop the industrialists from fleecing the masses. Having being part of successive governments, the industrialists continue to formulate policies and receive subsidies for their own financial benefit. Pakistan’s biggest curse remains the SRO (special regulatory ordinance) – a onetime waiver against the rules of business to a favourite beneficiary granting massive state concessions either to import machinery, export critical commodity, or establish a tax-free industrial unit in the country.

Exploiting the economic and commercial constraints of military regimes business tycoons and their corporate empires readily offered their services because for them it was convenient to please one master rather than bribing all and sundry in a democratic dispensation.[26]

Legitimacy through Superior Judiciary

Required to take oath under ‘Provisional Constitutional Orders’ (PCO) after the constitutions were abrogated or “held in abeyance” (suspended) by martial laws, the superior judiciary kept receiving dictation from the military establishment in the past. As highlighted in Part-I of this study,[27] a corroded judiciary surviving on colonial era’s penal code and statutory laws continued granting legitimacy to the military take-overs on the basis of Brocton’s ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ and ‘larger national interest.’

However, Supreme Court’s former Chief Justice Maulvi Munir, who had first legalized a civilian government’s overthrow on March 21, 1955, retrospectively regretted his verdict “as the starting point of the misfortunes of this country,” in his memoir ‘Highways and Byways of Life,’ years later.

A Religious Army’s Alignment with an Islamized Nation

Pakistan Army remained moderately-liberal until 1974, when former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto introduced “Islamic measures” in the country.[28] However, aligning itself with the Islamic fabric of the nation, GHQ had very early adopted the holy number of ‘786’ representing the Quranic verse of Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ir-Rahim (in the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most benevolent), as its symbol. The formation sign was also chosen to symbolise Islamic faith, with two crossed swords holding up a rising crescent and five-pointed star against a green background.[29]

General Kayani – former army chief and the last Pakistani officer among the present military leadership to have attended United States’ ‘International Military Education and Training Program’ (IMET) at Fort Benning – had highlighted the establishment’s religious leaning by stating on April 20, 2013: “Let me remind you that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never ever be taken out of Pakistan. However, Islam should always remain a unifying force. I assure you that regardless of odds, Pakistan Army will keep on doing its best towards our common dream for a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan envisioned by the Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal.”

The establishment’s alignment with a largely conservative populace – 84% of which prefer Sharia (as came out in PEW research survey of April 2013)[30] – necessitated from its Islamic support base and volunteer recruitment from the masses. For a country in which a paltry 29% of its youth carries faith in democracy, with 32% favouring military rule, and 38% desiring Sharia (according to April 2013’s British Council Survey),[31] the military finds it imperative to stand with the national Islamic ethos.[32]

Highlighting leadership requirements in Pakistan, General Musharraf deplored former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto as “very unpopular with the military. Very unpopular … [for] you shouldn’t be seen by the entire religious lobby to be alien – a nonreligious person … [and] don’t be seen as an extension of the United States.”

The military slogan of ‘Iman, Taqwa, Jihad-fe-Sabeel-Allah’ (faith, piety and jihad in the name of God) that was introduced by General Zia transformed the Army in many ways. Inspired by General S.K. Malik’s ‘The Quranic Concept of War,’ Zia Islamised the Army and brought “jihad against perceived enemies of the faith – whether hostile or not” – into the national policy. The ‘Islamic tilt’ that we see in Pakistan’s defence and foreign policy today – especially an anti-American sentiment in Army’s rank and file – manifests a transformed outlook from moderation to rigidity and fundamentalist righteousness.[33]

Use of Religious Forces and Non-State Actors

Inheriting a weak army at the time of subcontinent’s partition, patronizing ultra-religious and right-wing conservative forces as an extension of defence and foreign policies of Pakistan,[34] thus, became a necessity for the Army.[35]

In an interview to Spiegel International, General Musharraf candidly admitted the state ‘poisoning [the] Pakistani society for 10 years and training underground Kashmiri militant groups to fight against India.’[36]

From the Kashmir War of 1948 to the wars of 1965 and 1971 against India, and from the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union to the Kashmir Intifada during 1990s, followed by 1999’s Kargil conflict,[37] these Mujahedeen were used as a second line of defence and force multiplier – of course with plausible deniability.[38] How such a misplaced policy played its menacing role in transforming Pakistan’s moderate society into religious radicalization, extremist fundamentalism and mindless terrorism is another story.[39]

According to some accounts, the brutal killings of Bengali nationalists and intelligentsia by Jamaat-e-Islami’s ‘Al-Badr’ and ‘Al-Shams’ militant wings during riots and civil-war in East Pakistan, (before the break-up of the country and emergence of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971), were sanctioned by the Army. These religious militant outfits were blamed for brutally targeting and killing Bengali educated middle class, viewed as traitors by West Pakistan’s civil and military leadership.

While excellently nullifying the propagandist theories of Bangladeshi ‘victimhood’ that portrayed West Pakistan as a ‘villain,’ Sarmila Bose has put to rest quite many myths of atrocities and genocide at the hands of West Pakistan’s Army in her scholarship ‘Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War.’ Busting the “dominant narrative” of Pakistan Army’s excesses in the East Pakistan, Sarmila chronicled, “Many facts had been exaggerated, fabricated, distorted or concealed.” [40]

However, the “controversial political trials” of leaders of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-i-Islami and their subsequent hangings for their role against the Bangladesh’s liberation struggle suggest “some excesses” – did take place – though not officially sanctioned – during East Pakistan’s civil war in 1971. (In my various writings on Afghanistan war, I have always highlighted the “fog of war” during an insurgency, in which it becomes almost impossible to differentiate between one’s “friend and foe.”)[41]

Later, as the Pakistani military establishment got entrenched in the Afghan Jihad against Soviet Union during the 1980s, eminent religious parties such as ‘Jamaat-i-Islami,’ ‘Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan,’ and ‘Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam’ (Samiul Haq and Fazlur Rehman groups) were well-funded to establish hundreds of ‘Madrassas’ (religious seminaries) to churn out highly radicalized Mujahedeen to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had noted madrassas “do nothing but prepare youngsters to be fundamentalists and terrorists.”

Pakistan’s religious parties – monopolizing extremism and political and militant Islam – not only grew in strength in the country but also established their reverence among the Afghan Taliban with their leaders regularly invited to attend Afghan jirgas (congregations).[42]

Moreover, since Pakistan Army has remained at the service of what it calls ‘brotherly Arab states,’ President General Zia ul Haq developed his misplaced notion of ‘saviour of Muslim Ummah,’ while serving as a brigadier in Jordan, where he had ruthlessly crushed a Palestinian uprising against King Hussein during ‘Black September’ in 1970.[43] Middle East’s geopolitics and polarization (read: Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979) led General Zia to create violent sectarian and jihadist armed groups like ‘Sipah-e-Sahaba,’ ‘Lashkar-e-Jhangavi,’ ‘Jaish-e-Muhammad,’ ‘Lashkar-e-Tayyaba,’ ‘Hizbul Mujahedeen’ and several others. These fanatic militant groups further fractured Pakistani society with their mindless sectarian Shia-Sunni killings in the country.[44]

Pakistan took an about face on its cross-border jihad policy when its non-state actors/proxies went out of its control, carrying out terrorist attacks in India, ostensibly without state approval. In the backdrop of Indo-Pakistan “Twin-Peak Crisis” when the two nuclear-armed armies stood eyeball to eyeball for ten months at the border, General Musharraf pledged to end infiltration into India under intense U.S. pressure on January 12, 2002.

Concurrently, Pakistan’s own vulnerabilities in the ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan led to the sapping of its troops’ morale (by killing brethren Muslims) and failed tribal areas operations [45] – making jihad untenable.[46]

In my August 2017’s paper titled ‘Pakistan’s Jihadist Cauldron: Between National Interest and Liability,’ I had tried to examine how in a classic case of Frankenstein’s Monster, Pakistan’s jihadists became a national millstone after serving as strategic asset.[47]

However, such an abrupt policy shift on jihadists (taken between January 2002 and November 2005) made the militant groups turn their guns towards the state of Pakistan. Joining Pakistan’s bête noire, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in December 2007, these ‘Punjabi Taliban,’ not only gave rise to sectarianism and extremism in the country but also spread carnage and mayhem on the streets of Pakistan by way of bombings and suicide attacks.[48] According to ‘Pakistan Security Report 2014’ by Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), 253 innocent people were killed, leaving 297 injured in 141 sectarian-related terrorist attacks in 2014.[49] The next year’s (2015) report is equally damning: Pakistan saw a total of 220 sectarian attacks killing 687 innocent people and injuring 1,319 others.[50] Pakistan further lost 48,994 precious lives including 5,272 law-enforcement personnel in 13,721 terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2013.[51]

This is another thing that despite banning some 95 jihadist outfits and putting 4,582 suspects on terror watch-list under a revised strategy of abandoning jihad as an extension of defence and foreign policies, Pakistan kept overlooking their business as usual under new names.[52]

Fearing backlash from the militants, the civil-military leadership kept dithering to take them on kinetically. While the military establishment baulked, the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) kept appeasing proscribed sectarian and militant groups considering them as its vote-bank. The Long War Journal’s damning report on former Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif seeking to strike a peace-deal with al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban in July 2010 to spare his province from terrorism indicated a policy of condoning jihadism and terrorism.

Furthermore, since India blamed the ISI and ‘Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’ (LeT/Jamaat-ud-Daawa) for carrying-out ‘Mumbai attacks’ of November 26, 2008, the placement of a US$10 million bounty by the United States on LeT’s head, Hafiz Saeed on April 3, 2012 was viewed as LeT’s links with the military establishment.[53]

Bringing in a wave of violence on the streets of Pakistan, the Islamist parties and jihadist groups were continuously used by the military establishment to destabilise the elected governments during the so-called ‘democratic decade’ in the 1990s, facilitating their removal on the pretext of the poor law and order situation in the country.[54]

Religious parties and jihadist outfits coming out in aid of military during troubled times saw its manifestation in the shape of ‘Difa-e-Pakistan Council’ in 2012. The ‘Pakistan Defence Council’ had been an amalgamation of some forty odd religious parties and militant groups that were huddled together to whip-up anti-American sentiments in the country and put public pressure on the government as well as the United States after NATO forces in Afghanistan attacked a Pakistani border check-post at Salala on November 26, 2011. Resultantly, Pakistan got an excuse to block NATO’s Ground Lines of Communication (G-LOC) through its territory for good seven months – reopened only after U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton apologized for the incident on July 3, 2012. Interestingly, the convener of the council was none other than Lt. Gen. (Ret’d) Hameed Gul, former director general, ISI.

An editorial in The New York Times on May 18, 2012 observed, the “West has yet to figure out how to get Pakistan’s military to cut ties to the extremists … The cost for Pakistan’s fragile democracy could be even higher.”

Pakistan’s Political Circus and the Army as Ringmaster

In view of Pakistan’s political infirmity, its elites’ disloyalty, ethnic and linguistic dissensions, judicial apartheid and social fragility, the Army cannot be held liable for using heavy-handedness, at times, to keep the country integrated and unified.

The political circus between 1947 and 1958 saw Pakistan’s first prime minister assassinated and six others dismissed, resigned or removed one after another. The ensuing political chaos led General Ayub Khan, the commander-in-chief, to impose the first martial law.

The cracks between the politicians and military establishment, however, started to appear immediately after Pakistan’s independence.

The first conflict occurred during the first ‘Kashmir War’ in 1948. While Pakistani troops believed victory was at hand in getting Jammu and Kashmir liberated from the Indian stranglehold, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan arbitrarily ordered a ceasefire without consulting with his army commanders on the ground, causing great resentment.

Later, the ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy case’ in which Major General Akbar Khan and other officers were caught planning a coup d’état in March 1951, followed by prime minister’s assassination in October the same year, carry strong linkages.[55]

Military researcher Shuja Nawaz chronicles in his book Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within: “[T]he unfinished war contributed to the political instability of Pakistan. The unhappiness with the … decision-making of the politicians led to tensions … between the military and the politicians.”[56]

Moreover, as posited in earlier parts of this study, while the military establishment tried to use religion as a cohesive force to bind an ethnically fragmented nation-state together, the religious clergy turned into a mafia.

Even a liberal President General Ayub Khan who always believed “Pakistan was not achieved to create a priest-ridden culture but it was created to evolve an enlightened society” failed in curbing the ‘power of pulpit.’ The religious forces provided fuel to the protest movement of 1968 causing such an ugly unrest in the country that President Ayub had to hand over the reins of power to General Yahya Khan, who imposed Pakistan’s second martial law in March 1969 stating, “I simply cannot throw the country to the wolves.”[57]

On the other hand, the politicians in the East Pakistan – alienated from the step-motherly treatment by West Pakistan’s feudal landlords and the military – kept hatching conspiracies for the creation of Bangladesh with India’s help. Although released under public protests and anarchy, Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, the leader of Awami League and founder of Bangladesh, was arrested and tried for treason in 1968’s ‘Agartala Conspiracy.’ On his visit to Bangladesh in June 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proudly acknowledged India’s conspiratorial role against Pakistan for the creation of Bangladesh.

While Sheikh Mujeeb was assassinated by his own military in August 1975, Mr. Bhutto wrote his fate to the gallows for his unremitting political ambitions. Bhutto, not only rigged the elections of 1977 but also brutally suppressed his opponents (Pakistan National Alliance Movement) – throwing them in jail on fabricated sedition charges in ‘Hyderabad Conspiracy case’ in 1975. Military establishment’s disillusionment and suspicion can be gauged from the fact that after his hanging on April 4, 1979,[58] Mr. Bhutto was unclothed and photographed (to ascertain if he was a proper Muslim with circumcision).[59]

The resultant anarchy on the streets of Pakistan had compelled Army Chief General Zia ul Haq to step in and impose Pakistan’s third martial law in the country on July 5, 1977.

Politicians’ role in destabilizing each other’s governments in the so-called democratic era of 1990s was also blamed on the army. The military establishment, however, remained preoccupied with a few considerations, such as:

1) Having adequate ‘opposing political forces’ in the country to establish a system of checks and balance against financial misappropriation (corruption), and misuse of government authority;

2) Deny any political party to gain two-third majority in the parliament to fiddle with the constitution for its self-interest that undermines national interest; and

3) To avoid disturbing the status quo that could threaten national security

Thus, the military establishment had ‘genuine political trepidations’ behind the creation of Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI) and other operations like ‘Mehrangate scandal’ (dishing out slush-funds to select politicians for their election success in 1990) and ‘Operation Midnight Jackal’ (to overthrow Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government)

Army as the Saviour of Last Resort

Notwithstanding military’s little ability to control white-collar crimes, the nation keeps looking towards the Army for civilian accountability seeing the pathetic state of a ‘politically compromised’ National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and a ‘subservient’ Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). Moreover, in the backdrop of the abject state of Pakistan’s judicial system – even acknowledged by one its former chief justices of the Supreme Court – all accountability efforts come to a naught.

Although, the ISI had been restraining the erring civilians in the past, the lust of power, greed and personal weaknesses of some of the recent army chiefs rendered the ISI ineffective. Moreover, General Musharraf further weakened – and alienated – the ISI as a premier intelligence institution by granting unrestrained powers to the military intelligence (MI) due to his family relations with then director-general MI.

Under a “hybrid system of governance” the former army chief, General Raheel Sharif, although introduced a novel concept of ‘Apex Committees’ in the four provinces in 2015, the respective chief ministers didn’t let the Corps Commanders infringe into their domains of governance, rendering the whole exercise futile.

The Army further obtained wide-ranging powers through Protection of Pakistan Act (PPA), which allowed the trial of civilians connected to financial corruption in the military courts in July 2014. However, fearing to get caught by the same law, the shrewd politicians let PPA quietly expire and die its death in August 2016. With the exit of General Sharif from the scene in November 2016, the military courts also dissolved on January 7, 2017.

Political deceit, betrayal and treachery against Pakistan remind us the words of Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

Conclusion

The military, however, finding itself in a bind, continues to exercise restraint. Neither can it impose martial law (due to international pressure, a free media and public’s political awakening through social media), nor hold its dishonest politicians accountable (due to political expediencies, weak and corrupt state institutions and a decayed judicial system).

As I had analysed military’s debility and lack of options vis à vis India in my December 2022’s paper titled ‘Talking the Talk of Pakistan’s Military Might: Indo-Pakistan New Normal,’ first of all, Pakistan Army has weakened itself politically, losing considerable political space to the civilians as well as to the media and civil society over the years.[60]

Secondly, despite having the two models in front of us: the ‘Egypt’s coup of July 3, 2013’ and Myanmar’s military takeover on February 1, 2021, the international community is loath to accept another military putsch in another fragile Islamic country – which happens to be nuclear armed too.

Finally, the military seems to have reckoned that Pakistan’s plethora of problems (as discussed in Part-I, II, and III) can only be addressed politically.

The military establishment’s inaction against the insidious and ravenously corrupt politicians – aggravated by a new phenomenon of incited middle class with anti-Army sentiments – speaks volumes about Army’s shrunken political space and limits to its political power and authority in the country. However, choosing between the constitution and the state, the military will have to decide sooner rather than later like Brutus [in Julius Caesar] saying, “Not that I loved Caesar less; I loved Rome more.”

Adnan Qaiser can be reached at: adnanqaiser1@yahoo.com and Tweets @adnanqaiser01. Views are personal and do not represent any institutional thought.

Notes

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