Eight years ago, Pakistan’s ex President and former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf proudly claimed that “Military rule has always brought the country [Pakistan] back on track, whereas civilian governments have always derailed it.”
Though a very strong and equally contentious statement, this pompous declaration went largely unnoticed and there was a reason for this- after October 27, 1958, when Gen [Later Field Marshal] Ayub Khan seized power through a coup, Pakistan has never seen a true civilian government- a fact that Pakistan’s the army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa himself admitted.
Readers would recall that in his 2022 farewell speech, Gen Bajwa had broached the serious issue of burgeoning public criticism of Pakistan’s military, revealing that “the reason for this is the constant meddling by the army in politics for the last 70 years,” while acknowledging that this practice was “unconstitutional.”
But in June this year, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif during an interview given to Arab News accepted that Pakistan was following a “hybrid model” of democracy where the military and politicians share power. Arab News aptly termed this revelation “an open secret in political circles but a rare public admission by a serving [government] official.
While Asif accepted that Pakistan didn’t have “an ideal democratic government,” he nevertheless displayed his subservience to the military by defending this ludicrous undertaking as a practical necessity until Pakistan was “out of the woods as far as economic and governance problems are concerned.” The surprising part is that at a time when things on both these fronts are going from bad to worse, Asif, shamelessly contradicting ground realities like a besotted apologist, still claims that this arrangement is “doing wonders.”
By stealing the peoples’ mandate through indiscriminate rigging and brazenly targeting former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir has pushed Pakistan into the quagmire of political instability. However, he’s not perturbed because by orchestrating installation of the pliable Shehbaz Sharif government, just like a whimsical puppeteer, Field Marshal Munir can run the country the way he likes.
Pakistan’s economy too is suffering due to the prevailing political vacuum. Al Jazeera has aptly quoted Lahore University of Management Sciences economic professor Ali Hasnain saying, “The only way out of this dilemma for Pakistan is to undertake deep structural reforms of the sort which no government has shown a commitment to yet, so that both the economy and defence spending can stay robust over the medium and long terms.” But the ‘hybrid model’ government headed by Field Marshal Munir has shown no inclination for initiating meaningful structural reforms.
With due respect to his devout religious outlook, airing hostile views against citizens doesn’t behoove a Field Marshal who is running a country. Curbing legitimate dissent by declaring that political opponents are agents of foreign powers and citing existential incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims has further vitiated the already hostile environment in Pakistan. Use of excessive force against peaceful protesters in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir [PoJK] and in its hinterland also breeds public resentment and kick starts a cycle of violence.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [KP] and Balochistan are live examples of how the Pakistan army has precipitated a humongous crisis by denying locals their legitimate rights and using excessive force [including aerial strikes] against innocent civilians as well as subjecting them to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Most importantly, concealing lapses by blaming neighbours [India and Afghanistan] for all the woes in Pakistan further promotes public hatred towards the people of these countries. Resultantly, rather than mending fences through dialogue and living cordially like friendly neighbours, democratically elected governments in Pakistan cannot afford to do so as any such move is viewed by the public as outright treason.
But this is exactly what Rawalpindi wants.
The extra-constitutional powers that Rawalpindi enjoys spring from the delusion that it has successfully created over the years in the minds of the public by presenting the ever-looming threat of extinction ‘Islamic’ Pakistan faces from a ‘Hindu’ India. So, whenever things aren’t going too well for the army, it starts titling at the ‘Hindustan’ windmills, and Field Marshal Munir’s recent resurrection of the “Two Nation Theory” is an example.
Returning to the question of who’s in actual control in Pakistan. Just last month, in a TV interview, Aziz was asked, “In most countries, the head of the army answers to the defence minister. In your country, you, the defence minister, answer to the head of the army, don’t you? Rather than give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ reply, the Pakistani Defence Minister said, “No, it’s not like that… I’m a political appointee.” With Aziz choosing to use two disjointed sentences to answer instead of giving a one-word reply, it’s absolutely clear as to who’s in actual control in Pakistan!
Email:---------------------nileshkunwar.56@gmail.com
