The notion that the Pakistani military and its affiliated intelligence services are omnipotent and omnipresent is a myth and untrue. The biggest promoters of this myth in our society are the traditional military bashers and critics who blame the military for everything and anything thus reinforcing the myth of its smartness, omnipotence, and omnipresence. For decades Pakistani military’s apologists cashed on this myth to build an image of the military as the most powerful institution of the state and society. Since Nawaz Sharif’s ouster from power in 2017, in what has been widely seen as an intrigue jointly hatched by judges-generals combined, the military’s myth of omnipotence and omnipresence has come back to haunt the so-called most powerful institution of the state.
Especially after Imran Khan started his anti-military campaign in the wake of his ouster from power in 2021, the situation has turned ugly for the military—the military leaders are regularly bashed, and they have been pushed into a corner by the dominant strains of popular public opinion in the country. The intensity of military bashing has reached the level last seen in the last days of military dictator, General Pervaiz Musharraf’s rule—in the year immediately following General Musharraf’s ouster from power in 2008, the military under General Ashraf Pervaiz Kiyani regained lost ground in the realm of public opinion as Pakistani military achieved one success after another in breaking the back of militants in Pak-Afghan border areas from 2007 to 2014.
In the following decade, Pakistani military leaders fell victim to the messages of their own propaganda machinery that they were omnipresent omnipotent, and extremely smart. Since 2014 they started using their crude power to overwhelm Pakistan’s inept and intellectually barren political elites who lead a life under the awe of the Pakistani military and its intelligence agencies’ omnipotence and omnipresence. Long marches, protests, judicial activism, ruthless power struggles, and no-confidence motions were all blamed on Pakistani military leaders and their subordinate intelligence agencies. From the nature of our public discourse, it becomes clear we genuinely believe that the military and its intelligence services are omnipresent omnipotent, and extremely smart. Nawaz Sharif believes military leaders made the judiciary unseat him as Prime Minister. Imran Khan thinks the then-military leaders were behind the no-confidence motion that ousted him from power. All this makes the military extremely smart and extremely powerful within the system. Their narrative of blaming the military for everything and anything tends to mythologise the military and its intelligence agencies as a powerful institution and politically smart.
The military dominates the power structure because of its image of omnipotence, omnipresence, and extreme smartness. Political elites and military bashers play a crucial role in constructing this image of the military and its intelligence agencies
This political narrative tends to ignore the fact that the military and its leadership have persistently failed to manage the aftereffects of their interventions in the political sphere—the ouster of both successive prime ministers put the military into deeper troubled waters than they were before they intervened to oust Nawaz sharif in 2017 and Imran Khan in 2021, that is if we trust both of them that military and intelligence agencies were instrumental in ousting them from power, one after the other. Both the accusations are commonly believed as both Nawaz Sharif’s and Imran Khan’s parties have been harping on these points as propaganda themes since their respective ouster from power. However, if we ask them whether they have any concrete proof that military leaders actively conspired against them, they tend to produce unsubstantiated statements. In the case of Nawaz Sharif’s ouster, there were judges in the Supreme Court who showed deep bias against him during the hearing of his case in Panama. In the case of Imran Khan’s ouster, he initially publicly accused Washington of orchestrating his ouster. Only at a much later stage, Imran Khan accused General Qamar Javed Bajwa of conspiring against him. This article was not written with the intention of projecting an alternative interpretation of events that led to the ousters of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan.
I intend to bring home the point that the military dominates the power structure because of its image of omnipotence, omnipresence, and extreme smartness. Political elites and military bashers play a crucial role in constructing this image of the military and its intelligence agencies. Historically, in the post-Zia period, our intellectuals, political elites, journalists, and commentators made it a habit to project an analysis of the military's dominance which seemed to come directly from the pages of some Western spy thriller, thus presenting and constructing an image of the military as all-powerful and extremely smart.
Someone or some organisation managing no confidence motion against a sitting Prime Minister singlehandedly—it practically means controlling the votes of the majority of national assembly members who are feudal, businesspeople, local influential, tribal Sardars, industrialists, and many more types of people—could only be described as someone very smart. Someone with the knowledge of the politics of each constituency in the national assembly. So, when someone accuses the military of orchestrating a confidence motion against a sitting government, he must keep in mind that he is constructing an image of the military and its intelligence agencies as people who are extremely smart in doing this kind of business. Irrespective of whether your narrative is based on truth or not, you will project an image of the military and its intelligence agencies as people who are omnipotent and omnipresent and at the same time extremely smart. This image, which our political elites and military bashers so painstakingly construct, helps them dominate the power structure of the state. The military’s image is their political power.
Not for a single moment do I want to argue that the military and its intelligence agencies are not instrumental in many of the behind-the-scenes pulling of strings to manage and engineer the political system according to their whims. This is a commonly held belief in our society and at the same time there is anecdotal evidence to support this belief. Although, purely as a researcher, I take this anecdotal evidence with a pinch of salt as sometimes this evidence comes directly from the month of some boastful intelligence sleuths or a recently retired military official who appears to have a vested interest in constructing an image of himself as a democracy-loving, people friendly intellectual. Most of these stories about the military’s omnipotence and omnipresence tend to be based on narratives that lack deep and authentic analysis.
The military has become so visible in our public life that the decision-makers thought it proper that they should allow a sitting DG ISI—a serving Lt General—to address a press conference
For instance, as some of the political statements coming from political elites and commentators point out, the behind the scene activities of the military’s intelligence agencies don’t reflect their political genius, rather they reflect the crude power through which they are controlling the coercive machinery of the state and bend political events according to their whims in a society where law and legal institutions serve as a mistress of the powerful. Ironically, our political discourse only rarely accuses the military leaders and their intelligence agencies of the political mess their activities have created in this country since 2014. Our intellectuals, commentators, and political elites with their vocabulary derived directly from some spy thrillers, accurately construct the image of the military and its intelligence agencies as the smartest, omnipotent, and omnipresent force in the country. But they rarely project the picture of the military and its intelligence agencies as the ultimate spoilers and disrupters of the political system.
It is not that the military stands to gain anything from this circus—they are the ultimate losers in this game. Their standing as a military force whose primary role is to defend the external frontiers and function as the most potent force against internal threats has taken a hit from the adverse public opinion gaining ground in the society. Its discipline has suffered. Back in the first and second decades of this century, the military was wholeheartedly backed by political forces when it decided to enter the erstwhile tribal area in the chase of militant groups.
Now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based political groups are openly opposing military operations in Pak-Afghan border areas. And remember if there is chaos in the country because of political unrest the military image as the smartest and most potent force will also suffer. I am of the firm opinion that the military’s increasingly negative image is an outcome of anti-military campaigns more the result of increasing visibility of the military and its leadership in public life. The military has become so visible in our public life that the decision-makers thought it proper that they should allow a sitting DG ISI—a serving Lt General—to address a press conference. When you become so visible and when you function as a party in a political conflict in which there are winners and losers, your image will surely take a hit.
In the post-Musharraf period, the military leadership omitted signals that they were interested in seeing who won and who lost in political conflicts in the society. There are no signs that they will relinquish this interest in the coming days. In this way, they are stretching their image power to its limits. Let me point out that there are elements in PTI’s anti-military campaign that hit the military's image as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and smartest force in the country. For instance, quite naively though, the PTI campaign projects Imran Khan as a political genius and the smartest political force who can make things happen in the country. That he has been languishing in jail for the past year makes it impossible for power-oriented Pakistani people to take him as the smartest.
But things do not look good for the image-loving Pakistani military. Imran Khan is not the last popular political leader that has emerged in Pakistani society. Maybe the next one is not as naïve and as foolish as Imran Khan. Imran Khan’s anti-military campaign primarily does not depart from the basic themes of reinforcing the military’s image as the smartest force in society. Secondly, society and technologies have grown in directions where the military's image as an omnipotent and omni-omnipresent force will not continue to stand tall. I do not think they have anything stored for the rainy season.