The pre-eminent aspect of institutional dominance of the over-arching unit of establishment, the Pakistan Army, is its strict adherence to a chain of command that keeps its unity intact even in times of extreme stress. The efficacy of the army as an institution is accordingly buttressed by disciplined operational mode. But the catch is that its operational conduct has consistently remained unhinged by normal considerations of state control as it singularly pursues its own laid down agenda, ranging from recruitment to choreographing its national image. Unfortunately, militaristic perception of the Pakistani nation wrongly equates the orderly functional code of uniformed operation with the widespread and contradictory juxtaposition and behaviour of disparate sections of the national polity.
The Pakistani mainstream cannot grasp that the army may well speak with one voice through its spokesman in the ISPR but the vociferous voices of national socio-political groups cannot be confined to a singular expression of their aspirations, demands, disagreements and anger. Socio-political cohesion is an elusive goal that extracts a higher price than traditionally afforded by the military thought process.
The obvious aspect of an unwavering chain of command is its unmitigated evolution. In 1947 its lynchpin, the officers’ corps, was not entirely monolithic as it consisted of personnel from different social backgrounds such as members of the Indian princely families such as Lt Gens Nawabzada Sher Ali Khan Pataudi and Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, urban middle class families taken through open competition such as Gen Yahya Khan, educated men from rural backgrounds from serving military families such as FM Ayub Khan, Lt Gens Azam Khan and Iftikhar Ali Khan, officers serving in the ranks before getting commissions such as Gens Musa Khan and Tikka Khan and officers with no tradition of military service such as Lt Gens Ishfakul Majid (an Assamese Muslim) and O.A. Mitha (a Memon). It was the British who provided the young men an opportunity to cross social barriers, allowing some from humbler backgrounds to serve in the elite Indian army.
Ironically, the sticklers for regular a change of guard do not believe in efficacy of periodic election, a mechanism equivalent to the civilian change of command
The army has evolved over time and has grown enormously in size as well as influence. Gone are the days when the block promotion of 11 brigadiers by Yahya Khan evoked one Subedar Major to wryly observe that he had not heard of so many Lance Naiks promoted in one go! The requirements of commanding the Pakistan Army have increased to a degree where the promotion of 30 brigadiers at a time has become the order of the day.
But the steady cohesiveness it achieved is also due to curbing rampant arbitrariness that existed a few decades ago that saw the four-star rank awarded to Gen Abdul Hamid Khan, bosom buddy of Yahya Khan, widely ridiculed as a ‘new year’ gift to him. The whimsicality apparent in Zia’s insistence to promote three of his colleagues to four stars only because “they have served [him] loyally and deserve this promotion” (he was persuaded to drop this idea) is beyond imagination now. The merit principle is largely adhered to, rooting out the possibility of repetition of the pitiable case of the promotion of General Akhtar Abdul Rehman who was probably the only four-star general in the whole world superseded a record number of times, all the way from Colonel to General!
Despite the strong inculcation of an egalitarian camaraderie spirit, the class difference still persists as sons of officers brought up in an urban environment live and behave differently than sons of officers from Cadet Colleges Hassan Abdal/Kohat and Military College Jhelum, groomed more conservatively. There was a general complaint that Gen Kayani promoted a disproportionate number of officers belonging to his alma mater, Military College Jhelum.
Owing to social and institutional vicissitudes, it was never easy to ensure a smooth chain of command and build a strong monolith.
Long considered a hand-to-mouth job, serving in the army was mostly symbolised as being part of a prestigious institution but it was through carefully managed financial and other measures such as housing and subsidised plots of land that it was transformed into one of the most lucrative careers in the government sector. The point that most of its monetary advantages are legally accrued, although made possible by institutional influence, usually adds lustre to arguments from its vociferous bevy of former officers very prominent on national media who conveniently ignore that self-righteousness is usually the bane of logical perception.
Despite being aware of the roadblocks in ensuring the perpetuation of the smooth chain of command and equipped with vast experience in the matter, it is indeed surprising that the army consistently disrupts efforts at establishing a chain of command by the civilian political forces and hinders the blossoming of the vital trait responsible in transforming it into a national entity. It would be naïve not to expect that it is aware of the vital contribution of the civilian part of the state in providing necessary financial means to it by collecting taxes, levying duties and undertaking all other fiscal arrangements. Instead of structuring avenues of peaceful coexistence with the civilian sector, the army consistently envisions it as its perennial foe, a stance not very comfortable to fathom. Even in military philosophy there is clarity of defining and periodically evaluating the nature of the enmity faced by the armed forces.
Consistent adherence to an abnormal role creates paranoia very evident in current policies pursued by the establishment. The problem is compounded by a regular supply of fresh blood after command changes hands every three years, depriving respective managers of the institution a continuous perspective. Ironically, the sticklers for regular a change of guard do not believe in efficacy of periodic election, a mechanism equivalent to the civilian change of command. Such ‘suspension of belief’ propels the establishment, held ransom by its long-term tendency to fall for polemical calculation, to adopt short-term measures whose intrinsic fallacy provides its opponents a recurring prospect of making anti-establishmentarianism a potent theme to hide their misdemeanours.
Resultantly, a Nawaz Sharif, ostensibly on his way out through elections as people were quite apprehensive of his dismal performance, gains a new life. Asif Zardari’s political base was fast shrinking and his political influence dwindling when he conveniently ranted against the army and the ‘expected’ uniformed reaction facilitated him to re-emerge. The MQM was the army’s baby but the method in which its parentage is reclaimed is immature. Imran Khan’s pageantry is probably making the top brass clueless about how to deal with him although he is a classic calamity in the waiting. To top it all, resorting to the hackneyed method of using a hanging Damocles sword of a government of technocrats, a non-starter through and through, speaks volumes about the paucity of logical thinking the establishment is victim of.
However inferior the civil sector may be in the eyes of a uniformed professional it is only through its organised coherence that national interest can be served. The militaristic and civil perceptions cannot run parallel for all time to come. What political leaderships of successive generations tried was to establish a chain of command within their respective groupings. To continuously frustrate their efforts was not is not a wise option at all. The cumulative effects of such stymied policies resulted in the emergence of a cohort of political adventurers devoid of scruples, mirroring the tactics of their uniformed model. If political cohesion was not quashed through arbitrary EBDOs and the like, surely the political arena would have been radically different today. It is painful to realise that a myopic high command has consistently failed to grasp a simple arithmetic calculation that actions usually rebound and that too with additional force.
The efforts to destabilise the civilian political apparatus go back to the army’s dominance as an overdeveloped state institution since the 1950s but its current socio-political supremacy is virtually unchallenged to the extent that under its influence Pakistan is perpetually rated as a strategically hyper-conscious state devoid of any other purpose of its nationhood. It vexes the notion of normalcy when an institution is observed as isolating itself in its vision without ever contemplating lessons of the past, current realities and future prospects.
The fact that a united national spirit is essential for supporting an armed wing of the state appears to be gradually lost on uniformed policy makers. It is not credible, or indeed achievable, an option to smother every nuance of pluralism and lord over a hollow and fragile polity. It is quite strange to notice that army high command is oblivious to growing national insensitivity that is growing exceedingly prone to accepting everything lying down, a scenario directly opposite to the favourite martial sobriquet, ‘Zinda qaum’.
Ali Siddiqi is a former bureaucrat and runs an academic training outfit in Karachi. He can be reached at tviuk@hotmail.com