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Pakistan Civil Military Relationship
Pakistan Civil Military Relationship
Pakistan Civil Military Relationship
This isn't the first time that the military establishment has been on the
receiving end of a public backlash. Will the outcome be different this
time?
It is the year 2007. General Pervez Musharraf is the Chief of Army Staff
(COAS) and previously unchallenged ruler-president of Pakistan. The
protests are triggered in March by Musharraf’s deposal of the Chief
Justice of Pakistan, carrying on well into the following year. He is
eventually forced to relinquish the post of army chief and then the
presidency.
I remember all of these events vividly, myself and many other progressives
at the forefront of the street protests. Our particular struggle was to
deepen the anti-Musharraf sentiment so as to trigger a transformative
historical moment in the age-old battle between democratic forces and
the military establishment.
The rebound
In the event, within a couple of years of Musharraf’s ouster, the military
establishment had rehabilitated its larger-than-life image within the
Punjabi heartland. The backdrop was the so-called ‘war on terror’, the
military prosecuting its age-old role of ‘saviour of the nation’.
Déjà vu
The parallels between what happened 15 years ago and the series of
events that began with the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in April
certainly appear stark — we are once again witness to a growing chorus
against the military top brass within the Punjabi heartland of power, which
has historically constituted the establishment’s primary support base.
Ever since, Imran Khan has proven to be a genuine thorn in the military’s
side, precisely because he is said to enjoy support within the ranks — and
as significantly, he has mobilised young people in Punjab and other
metropolitan regions who have always bought into the binary that the
establishment is incorruptible while politicians are to blame for all of
Pakistan’s woes.
Read more: How did Prime Minister Imran Khan end up here?
So will it be different this time? Will the slogans being raised by diehard
PTI supporters against the military top brass translate into a substantial
shift in civil-military relations?
Yes, the PTI is popular, but it does not even approximate the progressive
political alternative that is needed to undo military hegemony. Whether
the social base that the PTI has mobilised can metamorphose into a
genuinely pro-people political force is, however, a question that all
democratic and progressive forces should certainly ponder.
First, let me clarify why the divorce between the PTI and its erstwhile
patrons is itself not a sufficient condition for transformation.
Following last week’s sensational attack on Imran Khan in Gujranwala, the
PTI chief and his party have chosen to take on one particular major
general — the delay in the lodging of an FIR following the assassination
attempt on the PTI chairperson was largely believed to be due to an
impasse over the inclusion of the said major general’s name.
To return to the PTI, its secretary general Asad Umar has been at pains to
clarify that the party’s gripe is with individuals within the military and not
the institution itself. Imran Khan himself has also sounded a far more
conciliatory tone with COAS General Bajwa than he did in the recent past,
asking the latter to rehabilitate the image of the army in the public eye by
removing the handful of ‘black sheep’ that are bringing it into disrepute.
More generally, the PTI continues to train most of its guns on the Sharifs,
Bhuttos, and other mainstream parties. For their part, the PML-N, PPP and
other allied parties are increasingly content that it is now them, rather than
the PTI, that are now on the ‘same page’ as the establishment.
The quid pro quo approach
Which brings me to the crux of the matter. A big part of the explanation
for the repetitive cycle of Pakistani politics — and here I am referring to
why the military’s temporary fall from grace results in only a strategic
retreat rather than a comprehensive overhaul of military hegemony — is
the absence of an ideological-political formation that can actually
dismantle the foundations of the military’s economic, political and
ideological power.
Take, for example, the proverbial gated housing schemes, the most
prominent of which directly benefit serving and retired military personnel
as well as big tycoons like Malik Riaz. Is there any disagreement between
mainstream politicians and the military on the prevailing model of real
estate development in Pakistan, the fallouts of which are borne by
dispossessed villagers and squatters?
One could conceivably argue that the military’s other corporate concerns
— like the increasingly monopolistic NLC and FWO — do crowd out the
private sector. But beyond the occasional conflict of interest, the
neoliberal euphemism of ‘public-private partnership’ is deployed to justify
all forms of capital accumulation, in which domestic profiteers from across
the civil-military divide come together with Chinese, Arab and western
patrons to exploit natural resources and the wretched of the earth.
This then brings me to the ethnic peripheries, which bear the brunt of
violent accumulation [of power and resources], war and climate change to
a much greater degree than the Punjabi heartland.
As was the case in 2007-8, on this occasion too, the ruling class intrigue
is centred around GT Road, even as millions of Sindhis and Siraikis
continue to suffer the fallouts of this summer’s devastating floods, young
Baloch are disappeared without trace, right-wing militants ominously
regroup in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan remains an
invisibilised ‘disputed’ zone. The mainstream media and bourgeois
politicians take up such matters only when it suits them, rather than
demonstrating any serious commitment to redressing colonial statecraft
and the extractive capitalistic logics.
Finally, the military has always dictated Pakistan’s foreign and economic
policy — most notable in this regard is the perpetual enmity with India, the
on-again, off-again tension with Afghanistan, and the aid-dependent
rentier economy that sustains a huge national security apparatus.
In 2007, the digitalisation of media and politics was only just beginning.
The youth bulge — 65 per cent of Pakistan’s population that is now below
the age of 30 — was then in its infancy. In this sense alone, the current
moment is arguably distinct because political opinion in society at large is
being shaped by young, digitally connected people in ways that we have
never previously experienced.
How?
Only such political horizons can bring an end to military hegemony and
become the sufficient condition for a truly democratic and progressive
Pakistan.
Header image: Jahanzaib Naiyyer/ Shutterstock.com