Imran Khan’s decision to push back against Bajwa and to ensure General Hameed’s appointment as army chief in November, when the top job falls vacant crossed a fundamental red line. The removal of prime ministers who sought to intervene in the military domain has been a leitmotif in Pakistan’s post-Zia politics.
The military’s entrenched role in all the affairs has been a fact of Pakistan’s political life for years. But the military establishment has never been criticized so directly and openly as it is being now by opposition politicians, particularly former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
It took 22 years for the Supreme Court to recognize that the 1990 election had indeed been subject to military interference — then-army chief General Aslam Beg was hand-in-gloves in manipulating the polls where some politicians were funded through an “Election Cell” to thwart Benazir Bhutto’s chances.
Nawaz Sharif has a unique insight into the army establishment’s mindset and modus operandi, as he once was their chosen man. Yet, now, he has gone on the offensive like no mainstream politician has before. That the army rigged many elections before and manipulated the political process for six decades, has never been hidden. But a former premier, let alone one with his power base in Punjab – the home of army brass and soldiery – doing so publicly is unprecedented and unheard of in Pakistan. Elected in 1990 in a contest alleged to have been rigged by the ISI Nawaz Sharif was seen as a reliable proxy by the Pakistani military establishment. Like Imran Khan, his politics centered around populist Islamism. He patronized Punjabi jihadist groups. Among other things, Sharif promised to make Pakistan’s legal system consistent with the Shari’ah, and proposed the Siamization of the educational and economic systems.
Sharif’s unsubtle efforts to buy influence inside the army—which included handing out upmarket cars to top Generals—did not go down well with then-army chief, General Asif Nawaz. Sharif and General Nawaz clashed over the appointment of Lt Gen Javed Nasir, a member of the proselytizing Tablighi Jamaat order, as the ISI director-general—without even consulting the army chief.
And General Nawaz’s efforts to transfer out Islamist-leaning Lt Gen Hamid Gul, who as ISI chief had ensured PM Sharif’s election, also caused friction. The army chief did not trust Gul to hold charge in his absence, and wanted him in a non-command position, where his ambitions would be contained. Eventually, Gul was retired, over Sharif’s strenuous objections. In 1998, Sharif sacked Karamat, and handpicked Lt Gen Pervez Musharraf to succeed him, superseding Lieutenants-General Ali Kuli Khan and Khalid Nawaz Khan. Following the Kargil War, Sharif moved to sack Musharraf, who had gone to war without informing his prime minister. The General staged a successful coup.
No sitting army chief, who was not a dictator, has ever been named and shamed publicly by a mainstream politician before.
Ironically, Beg’s decision to support the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) had resulted in bringing Nawaz Sharif to the office of Prime Minister for the first time. Having been elected thrice, and removed from office thrice, Nawaz Sharif has seen and understood how Pakistan’s military influences politics.
Sharif was overthrown in a military coup once (in 1999), but on the other two occasions, he was removed from office through ostensibly invisible machinations within constitutional processes.
Another component of the opposition alliance, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has also been at the receiving end of the establishment’s disapproval. Its leaders have been elected to office four times and removed from power in a military coup once (1977), dismissed by presidential fiat twice (1990 and 1996), and effectively neutered by the judiciary in 2012.
Knowing his desperation to become prime minister, and the fragility of Imran Khan’s political base, it was assumed that if Sharif was pushed out of politics and the PPP was confined to the Bhutto-Zardari families’ home base of Sindh, the army would no longer have to worry about civilian leaders pursuing policies different to the ones preferred by General Headquarters (GHQ).
On June 16, 2015 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-Chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari gave a hard-hitting speech, where he lashed out at the military establishment for overstepping its domain.
The former president said army chiefs come and go every three years but the political leadership was here to stay. “We know the country better and we know how to run its affairs,” he stressed.
Speaking at an oath-taking ceremony for party bearers belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, Zardari warned the establishment to refrain from character assassination of political parties. “If you do not stop, I will come out with a list of accused generals since Pakistan’s creation.”
“German history reached its turning point but failed to turn,” the historian AJP Taylor famously wrote of the revolutions of 1848-49. The praetorian system in Pakistan ensured politicians who fought what’s called ‘hybrid democracy’ met the same fate.
The PPP which is threastening to hold protest rallies across Pakistan against Imran Khan for his division of Pakistan speech has also done the same. Bilawal seemed to have lost the plot completely when he began threatening the federal government with possible disintegration of Pakistan.
In his speech opposing Article 149, on September 13, 2019 Bilawal warned that by doing so the state risked the creation of Sindhu Desh.He also made a reference to how Bangladesh was created in 1971 and how history could repeat itself with the creation of Sindhu Desh and Saraiki Desh.
This shows that the Urdu proverb EK HAMAM MEIN SUB NANGAY is correct. Lest the politicians who amassed whopping wealth, all illgotten and took it to foreign counrties to keep the loot safe, that Pakistanis admire the army as they do no other institution.
Through the past two decades, respect for the courts, the schools, the press, parliament, organized religion, Big Business, and virtually every other institution in modern life has plummeted. The one exception is the Army. This is still one institution which keeps the nation alive and kicking.
References:
- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/
- https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/525610-govt-policies-can-create-pakhtun-seraiki-states-sindhudesh-bilawal
- https://bolojawan.com/bilawal-bhutto-zardaris-sindhu-desh-speech-has-pakistanis-upset/
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-military-idUSTRE7BL0K820111222
- https://theprint.in/opinion/security-code/imran-khans-fall-is-a-win-for-pakistans-generals-not-its-democracy/888208/
- https://www.dawn.com/news/1188576
- https://theprint.in/opinion/pakistan-army-cant-risk-controversy-with-nawaz-sharif-sacrificing-imran-khan-easier/527738/
- https://thewire.in/south-asia/pakistan-nawaz-sharif-army-bajwa
About time this elitist ESTABLISHMENT was brought to justice. They are into everything real estate developers, banking insurance, education, politics and everything in-between but have failed to liberate Kashmir for72 years.
The current crisis is because of the NUTRALS…They would rather let the nation go to the edge of ruin than intervine in the setting up of a corrupt traitor and guilty colloborators of a forign hostile power to run the nation to the ground. They stand indicted and brought to justice.