A Vision of United India

Chapter 5

Civilian rule in Pakistan and the role of the Army

After the death of Zia, there was civilian rule for 11 years. This period was one of the most corrupt in Pakistan's history as the two leading politicians, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, vied with each other for political control and were twice elected to office. Benazir doled out political franchises to the minor thug-rulers, including convicted murderers. She sanctioned corruption by refusing to act against, or even investigate, senior ministers and allies accused of stealing from the state. During his second tenure, Sharif was in power with an absolute majority in the National Assembly. He successfully fired the president and then the chief justice of the Supreme Court. His confrontational approach drove him to muzzle parliamentary dissent, repress civil liberties and bring the judiciary to heel. His exploitation of religion for political purposes opened up a Pandora's box and fostered the resurgence of orthodoxy and militancy. In May 1998, India exploded five nuclear devices at Pokran, less than a 100 miles from the border with Pakistan. Sharif successfully matched these explosions within two weeks, but these resulted in significant economic sanctions being imposed on Pakistan. As a result of the sanctions, the economic condition deteriorated and affected the professional and corporate interests of the military. The army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, proposed the establishment of a national security council.. .that was interpreted as an indictment of the civilian government. This caused friction between the army chief and Nawaz Sharif, and caused Karamat to step down three months prior to retirement. Subsequently, Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration of peace with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee.

The Kargil misadventure

Then came Pakistan's military adventure in Kargil, Kashmir. After initial successes, the Pakistanis were forced into a humiliating withdrawal that resulted in hundreds of casualties. Sharif tried to fix the blame for this affair to the new army chief, General Musharraf, and was in the process of firing him when the fourth army coup took place in October 1999. Musharraf gave his maiden speech at 3 am. To the people of Pakistan he stated boldly "the armed forces have never let you down," hoping that at that early hour, his listeners would not recall who was behind Pakistan's debacle in 1971. To some it bore an eerie resemblance to Yahya's boasting in March of 1971 that the armed forces were prepared to do everything to preserve the integrity of Pakistan, and that this was "a duty in which they have never failed." Musharraf's coup, in a "radical departure from past coups saw virtually no public resistance.. .Widely seen as the only institution that could help bring order and stability to a leaderless country in unprecedented economic, political and social disarray, the army reinforced its credentials as the ultimate arbiter and saviour". While Musharraf chose not to impose martial law, he rules by decree and is only accountable to the army corps commanders. Even the president is answerable to him. The cabinet is composed of military officers, bureaucrats, and technocrats who, regardless of their integrity and merits, are not accountable to the people of Pakistan. A national security council advises Musharraf. He has impaired the independence of the judiciary since the justices were asked to pledge their loyalty to him. Those who did not wish to make such a pledge had to resign. A whole crop of serving general officers is now responsible for a wide array of civilian functions in which they have no core competency. These range from management of the electric utility to running the airline to husbanding agricultural resources to managing the board for cricket. A very large number of ex-generals serve as diplomats. Musharraf has stated that Pakistan stands

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ready to meet any threat from India. This raises the issue of over staffing in the military, since a large number of senior military officers can attend to civilian duties without compromising security only if the military is overstaffed to begin with. With all the power that he now holds, Musharraf is now within the ambit of Lord Acton's adage-power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All prior military rulers have proved to be corrupt in the end. More tellingly, despite having absolute power, he has still not been able to move decisively in any sphere, and a year later, is still in the process of assembling a nationwide coalition to support him. This Sisyphean endeavour is similar to Zia's and shows the inherent impotence of military rule: As noted by a commentator, "Zia had been very quick to back down at the first marches of mass movement. When Shia Muslims began demonstrating against Islamic taxation based on Sunni Muslim interpretations, their demand was met within days. Further, because unelected governments could rarely trade on either the demonstrated support or the constituent pressures of their nations, they were notoriously weak in negotiations with outsiders. Dictators generally had no voting numbers and few cheers to demonstrate that great numbers of people would back their decisions. All they had was the power to impose their will on great numbers, but in that power there was inherent weakness". Musharraf knows that expectations are high for the new dispensation to deliver what inept and venal politicians have failed to. His proposal to devolve power at the local government level has been rejected by all political parties. His proposal to impose a general sales tax was met with strikes by the trading community and rioting in the streets. Finally, he has been unable to rein in the religious militias, and they are continuing to wage an unrequited jihad in Kashmir. Notes veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid, "it has been amazing how unlike previous military regimes people are no longer scared of taking on the army". Till the recent Supreme Court established a three-year time frame for a return to democracy, Musharraf had set no time limit for returning power to the people. It is fair to say that Pakistan's military rulers have even exceeded the powers that were accorded by ancient Rome to its dictators, since the latter were elected by the senate for a fixed term, usually to cope with a dire emergency. A serious problem with military rule is a lack of an exit strategy. Neither Ayub, nor Yahya, nor Zia left voluntarily. Musharraf, who was due to retire a year after he took over, has announced that he will not be retiring till the expiration of the three-year period. When Zia took over in 1977, he extended his term routinely from the sanctioned three years, and was still the army chief when he died 11 years later. The Pakistani economy would be bankrupt without IMF loans. Illiteracy is rampant, and poverty is widespread. Yet military spending continues to consume a very large portion of the budget, without any obvious contribution to national security. Excessive military spending is strategically myopic, and the cause of many of Pakistan's economic problems. Musharraf is aware of these problems, but blames them on India's hegemonic policies.

The role of the Army in Pakistan

All countries have armies, but in Pakistan it will be more apt to say that the army has a country. Defence expenditures consume between one-third and one-half of the national budget. In recent decades, senior military officers have been transformed into powerful landlords through grants of choice agricultural lands and real estate. Retired officers head most public corporations. This garrison economy is increasingly unsustainable, as Pakistan's poor multiply and the economy falters. The army has been one of Pakistan's

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strongest institutions since the creation of the nation in 1947, and the events since September 11 have tested and reinforced its domestic and international position. Three factors stunted the growth of other institutions while encouraging the strengthening of the army. First, Pakistan was born with a chronic sense of insecurity, the product of the violent legacy of Partition and the resulting dislocation and law and order problems. Second, the India-Pakistan war over Kashmir encouraged the state to concentrate resources at the centre and, again, in the army. Finally, the death in 1948 of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of the nation, left a political and ideological vacuum. When the British partitioned and left the Indian sub-continent in 1947, Pakistan faced the formidable task of building a centre and defining a national identity from scratch, while trying to deal with these challenges. The administrative and ideological challenge was further exacerbated by the fact that the two wings of Pakistan, East and West, were separated by some 1000 miles of Indian Territory as well as by differences of language and political tradition. After the assassination of Jinnah's successor Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan's civil institutions, still very new, struggled to provide continuity of government and ultimately were bypassed and distorted, with the military coming in to clean things up. This scenario has been replayed with some differences on several occasions. While the army's stints at the helm of political power have been the subject of vigorous debate in Pakistan, the army still remains the most widely respected institution in the country. The army, in turn, views itself as the guarantor of Pakistan's internal and external stability. Pakistan's political institutions have never had the same vigour, and have been further weakened by this pattern of alternation between military and constitutional rule. Its other civil institutions - the civil service and a large network of public and private organizations - were once looked on as pillars of strength, but they too have weakened in the past three decades through a mixture of neglect and abuse by both military and civilian governments. Civil society in Pakistan has similarly been whittled down by decades of misrule by both the army and civilian governments. Pakistanis, however, are a politically aware people, and the periods of elected rule they have experienced have given them a desire for accountable and participatory government. While Pakistan's last decade of democratic governance was deeply flawed due to the monopoly and corruption of the ruling elite, it did strengthen the freedoms Pakistanis enjoy today, notably a vigorous free press. The chain of events set in motion in Pakistan after September 11 provided the impetus for President Pervez Musharraf's military government to try to unify the country behind his programme to reform the state. Challenges to Musharraf's authority, most notably from the Islamic right and militant organizations, remain and will continue to haunt him in the future also. However, entrenched institutional problems will make political reform the greatest challenge for Pakistan in coming years. It is a challenge that threatens the very existence of Pakistan as a nation State. The army believes that it represents the best and brightest talent in Pakistan, and has maintained a professionalism that has eluded political institutions. The army is generally united, and is loyal to its leadership. It is not a monolith, and renews its leadership on a regular basis. The primacy given to this detached and professional ethos is one reason many experts on the Pakistan army argue that officers do not actively seek a political role but prefer to remain in the background as overseers of political life, stepping in when leaders stray from a particular path, as a matter of duty. However, it also fosters a widely shared conviction that army officers are uniquely able to do any job the nation might entrust to them, including

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political ones. When the Pakistan army was created out of the British Indian army, its leaders emphasized Islam as a unifying force, along with other values of military life derived from the British colonial period, such as discipline, internal cohesion, efficiency, professionalism and esprit de corps. The pragmatic requirement to integrate a diverse military force drove this melding of religious and secular values, but the ideology of the Pakistani army remained largely secular. Religion was invoked largely in times of war with India. While Islamic history and principles were part of the training curriculum before Zia, the interpretation of Islam that was popularised in the army at that time was moderate and liberal, and any kind of extremism was frowned upon. This changed when General Zia-ul-Haq took over as Chief of Army Staff in 1976. He launched an "Islamization" program to consolidate his support in an ethnically fragmented society and give his regime legitimacy. To the existing mission of the Pakistan army, he added a new element: supporting the "ideology of Pakistan", which he defined to include personal religious devotion. This fitted in well with his declared intention to strengthen Pakistan's Islamic identity: In 1977, Zia-ul-Haq, said: "Pakistan, which was created in the name of Islam, will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of an Islamic system as an essential prerequisite for the country." Contrast that with the oft-quoted statement of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, "You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of state." While the army has always been the most powerful political force in Pakistan, it has undergone important changes in the decades since independence. The army's British colonial traditions were slowly Americanised during the Cold War. With his coup in 1977, General Zia- ul -Haq injected a messianic zeal to redefine Pakistan as an Islamic state governed by the Shariah (Islamic Law). "Islam, Pakistan, Jihad" became emblazoned on banners at Pakistani army recruitment, centres, beards proliferated, promotions went with piety, and few could be seen to miss Friday prayers. A new ethos was created; this was to be an army not just for Pakistan, but also for the greater glory of Islam. It was, after all, a different historical epoch. The global jihad industry, financed by the US and Saudi Arabia, welcomed it.

Political Role and Attitudes

The Pakistan army has four key interests that it will always want to protect:

• Absolute control over its own institution, including over promotions, recruitment, assignments, and discipline.

• Decisive say in security policy, and in those aspects of foreign policy that relate to security. The military elite makes foreign policy in Pakistan, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs playing a secondary role. It is concerned not only about relations with India, but also about ties with Pakistan's major foreign friends and sources of military equipment (the United States, China, and occasionally the major Muslim countries).

• Maintaining an adequate budget. A large part of Pakistan's annual budget has traditionally gone to defence expenditure. At present, defence accounts for 24% of the government budget, and 3.9 percent of GDP. Both these figures represent a reduction from previous levels; both apparently reflect a decision to place military pensions outside the "military" category. The government's ability to shift resources away from defence toward the badly under- funded social sectors in practice rests on its ability to persuade the military that social progress is important to national security.

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• Preservation of the army's core economic interests, including those run by organizations of retired military or by offshoots of the military. These have become, by some estimates, the largest industrial concern in Pakistan today. Retired military officers are a large talent pool, and have become accustomed to being approached for senior positions in the government and in business. Ideally, the institutional preference of the military is to protect these interests indirectly, from the sidelines, rather than by taking the whole responsibility for running the government.

However, when the army believes that these interests are threatened - especially the first two interests - it has stepped in. The military leadership has taken over the Pakistan government on four occasions: October 1958, July 1969, July 1977, and finally October 1999, and military rulers have governed Pakistan for nearly half the country's independent existence. On each occasion, the army chief moved against the civilian government at a time when policy-making was drifting, political institutions were faltering, and the army either feared or was responding to decisions it believed harmed the country's - and the army's - interests. In 1958, a succession of revolving door governments had paralysed policymaking, and Field Marshal Ayub Khan took over. In 1977, widespread popular unrest following an election that Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had manipulated compounded the mistrust stemming from Bhutto's already difficult relationship with the army, and General Zia- ul-Haq took over the government. In 1999, the precipitating event in General Musharraf's coup was an effort by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to fire the army chief, following a series of actions that infringed on the institutional integrity of the army.

Summary

Out of the nine general elections held so far in the country over the last 56 years, army generals have held four. Every time that happened, transfer of power from the army to the elected civilians in its true sense did not take place. In the first one, General Ayub Khan managed to transfer power from the commander-in-chief of the army to the 'elected' president - that is, from himself to himself. In the second one, General Yahya Khan refused to transfer power to the parliament that he had brought into being through an election but had finally to hand over the baton to a civilian martial law administrator. In the third one, General Zia-ul- Haq, too, initially refused to transfer power to the 1985 elected parliament. But when he realised that power was slipping out of his hands, he dissolved the assembly and the government shortly before his death in an air crash. As for the fourth one, General Musharraf, who held an election in October in 2003, is still holding out against a real transfer of power to the elected parliament on the plea that the checks and balances needed to establish 'true' democracy in the country are not yet in place. General Musharraf believes that elections alone do not usher in 'true democracy,' and as long as such a democracy does not come about, he should not transfer power to the elected parliament. 'True democracy' as conceived by him, requires a president with powers to dismiss elected assemblies in consultation (not binding) with the proposed National Security Council, comprising the prime minister, the Senate chairman, the leader of the opposition, the four provincial chief ministers, the three armed forces chiefs, joint chiefs of staff chairman and he himself presiding over the meetings.

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