Dr Asim has the unique distinction of being a confidante of both Mr Zardari and Altaf Hussain. So they are naturally upset. But they are more worried by the fact that a man of stature like Dr Asim was arrested by the FIA/NAB without much ado. This implies that the federal government is fully complicit in the military establishment‘s approach to combating terrorism and crime in Karachi. In turn, this means the military intends to spread the net far and wide, and talk of political “influentials” on the hit list of the military is not idle any more. It may be recalled that Dr Asim fled Pakistan along with Mr Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur and foster brother Owais Muzaffar when the Rangers first laid hands on mid-level bureaucrats in the Sindh government amidst rumours that Uzair Baloch, the top PPP-thug, was singing like a canary in custody. Dr Asim and Faryal Talpur returned to the country only after the Sindh CM, Qaim Ali Shah, protested to PM Nawaz Sharif and was reassured that PPP stalwarts wouldn’t be targeted. Now such assurances have been swept aside by a stern warning from the army chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, that, “come what may”, the Karachi operation against terrorism and corruption will go on. This statement was issued following a lengthy meeting between Gen Raheel and Mr Sharif which followed a stinging attack by Mr Zardari on Mr Sharif for “reverting to the politics of victimisation”. He also held out the threat of withdrawing the PPP’s political support to the PMLN government as it faces one threat after another on different fronts from Imran Khan. The PPP is already smarting from the pursuit of its two ex-prime ministers, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, by NAB for corruption, and both are running from pillar to post to get pre-arrest bail in one case after another.
Meanwhile, there is popular support for the military’s action against terrorists and Karachi is already looking less fearful and more peaceful than it has in decades. Indeed, the military’s campaign against the big corrupt fish in Sindh is also quite popular, since corruption is at the top of middle-class Pakistan’s continuing angry refrain against the politicians, buttressed by Imran Khan’s ringing accusations of wrong doing against both the PPP and PMLN.
But there is also a growing perception that the military may be overstepping the bounds of constitutional propriety by equating terrorism with corruption and targeting both on the basis of some nebulous links. For instance, the DG-Rangers has trotted out a figure of Rs 230 billion as proceeds from corruption every year that feed terrorism in Karachi. Yet no effort has been made to explain how this figure has been calculated and how this money nurtures terrorism. Similarly, no facts have been released about Dr Asim’s links with terrorism. Instead, the media is being continuously manipulated to erode the credibility of politicians and cast negative aspersions on the “democratic system” even as General Raheel Sharif is plastered on the front pages every day as the great Lone Ranger of Pakistan.
To be sure, General Raheel Sharif deserves plaudits for launching the war against terrorism when his military predecessors and ruling politicians were conspicuous by their inaction, cowardice or lethargy.
That said, if he hasn’t effected “paradigm change” because some holy cows still remain untouched, his “paradigm tweak” is about to face diminishing returns. The link between terrorism and corruption of mainstream party politicians hasn’t been clearly demonstrated. And the military runs two risks if it fails to firmly establish this link whenever it arrests some high profile politician. First, if it doesn’t target the ruling party, it exposes its political bias and inadvertently props up the “theory of political victimisation” advocated by Asif Zardari and Altaf Hussain. But if it does, then it will come into direct conflict with the federal government and destabilise the political system by upsetting the balance that keeps the system going. Second, if corruption is to become a popular central theme in the military’s agenda, then people will increasingly ask why there isn’t any clean-up operation inside the military establishment as well. In the public perception, many army officers high and low have been involved in wrong doing at the expense of the public purse for decades and not one of them has ever been hauled over the coals like politicians are routinely. Certainly, the sort of gentle reprimands handed out to two generals recently for playing fast and loose with billions of public money don’t impress anyone, even though sections of the media have been prodded to make a song and dance of it at home and abroad.
There needs to be clarity and objectivity and non-partisanship in the war against terrorism. The civil-military balance is in jeopardy once again. The conspirators have crept out of the woodwork. Another breakdown would surely undo the political and economic gains of the last decade.