How much of the Pakistan military’s current political quandary, and the bad press they are getting in the status quo, is a result of the organization’s behavior during the nine years of former military dictator General Pervaiz Musharraf’s rule?
The country’s largest and most popular political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is at loggerheads with the military leadership. Only a year ago, the PTI orchestrated and conducted coordinated attacks on military installations in Pakistani cities. The person and the office of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) has become a subject of degrading memes on social media. Remember that Pakistan’s Army Chiefs are perceived with an aura of awe and glamorous respect. What we are observing on social media with respect to the person of the incumbent COAS might be the result of an unfettered and reckless way in which social media is used in our society. But nevertheless, it will be safe to assume that this trend reflects part of the larger political trends. Only a few years ago, the slightest hint from the GHQ that a military operation was required in the tribal areas used to lead the political parties towards a unified political consensus in support of the military.
The military’s image and popularity in northern Pakistan took a dip after the Lal Masjid operation during the last days of General Pervaiz Musharraf. I vividly remember how almost every town and city in Northern Punjab witnessed an anti-Lal Masjid operation immediately after Pakistani military commandos killed more than 100 students in the mosque. But then, the military image quickly recovered after General Musharraf was kicked out of the presidency and the military under new COAS, General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani started successful military operations in Swat and South Waziristan in 2009. This was reflected in the independent public opinion polls, which recorded a high approval rating for General Kiyani.
The stories of military heroism coming out of Swat and South Waziristan were in currency those days. Compare this with the reaction of the people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the government’s plans to launch a fresh military operation against the TTP in the Pak-Afghan border areas. Reports suggest the military fired upon the protestors and the protestors in turn attacked a ration depot in Bannu Garrison. So, the image of the Pakistani military didn’t recover even after the possibility of another bout of military heroism in the tribal areas.
What exactly is happening? Why does the military’s popularity seem to be at its lowest ebb? Why are mainstream political parties projecting their political activity as a revolutionary struggle against the historical dominance of Pakistan military establishment?
After the end of military rule in 2008, the military never withdrew to the barracks. They not only played a crucial role in political developments and policy making processes, their publicists made it a point to show off that they were behind many developments that were taking place.
To those who believe in presentism, this piece of mine would appear as an ultimately useless and meaningless effort to bring unrelated past events into the explanation of a situation which could be explained by events which took place since Imran Khan’s ouster from power in April 2022. Their simple explanation would be that people were unhappy when the military, under the command of General Bajwa, refused to come to the rescue of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was faced with an allegedly America sponsored regime change plan. Imran Khan launched an anti-military establishment and anti-American series of tirades that ultimately coalesced into a set of political narratives that contributed directly to the growth of anti-military sentiment in Pakistani society. So simple and elegant.
I do not believe in presentism. In this piece, I would like to take the rather long view of political developments. My main assertion is that the military and its leaders’ misfortunes in the present political situation can be directly attributed to what General Musharraf and his associated military junta did. The Pakistani military’s overly visible political profile in our society and the Pakistan military machine’s hyper activism vis-à-vis political developments in the society and their high handedness since October 1999 can be counted as some of the factors that landed the military leadership in trouble.
After the end of military rule in 2008, the military never withdrew to the barracks. They not only played a crucial role in political developments and policy making processes, their publicists made it a point to show off that they were behind many developments that were taking place. This made the military’s role in politics overly visible to people.
I implore the generals -- abort the operation to maintain dominance over the power structures of society, and abort the operation to control the mechanics of the country’s entire political system.
Let me point out at this stage that this piece is not making an argument based off comprehensive historical research, but is instead an outcome of my impressions about a distinct historical epoch which started on the night of October 12, 1999, and is still ongoing. I have lived through this epoch as a journalist who has had more than his fair share of trysts with the power corridors and those who roam them in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. At the same time, I have somehow succeeded in keeping a link with society at the grassroot level alive all these years.
Pakistani society started to exhibit a delayed response to what happened to our society during Musharraf’s rule. At the same time, the military's leadership after Musharraf continued to demonstrate their grip on power structures in society and over the coercive machinery of the state, especially after the 2018 parliamentary elections. The military's leadership became increasingly visible in national public life. In August 2008, Musharraf was forced to resign, but immediately after his resignation, the military went into Swat and South Waziristan for back-to-back operations. This was accompanied by a massive propaganda operation that showed the military and its troops in a positive and heroic light. This seemed to work when COAS had an approval rating higher than most popular political leaders in 2009 and 2010. General Kiyani was savvy in his political and public conduct, a quality which was completely lacking in the two successors that followed him, before General Asim Munir took over as commander of the Pakistan land forces.
The highhandedness of the military became common knowledge. This included what happened during the military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and what the military did to popular political groups after retaining control of the coercive machinery of the state in the post-Musharraf period. All through this period, the military found itself cheered on by readymade cheerleaders, in the form of a ruling group that came to power after arriving at some kind of backdoor deal with spymasters who were acting as the power brokers on behalf of military leaders. This was seen as gloating on the part of the military by the public.
Three parallel processes were discernible in the political realm which put military leaders on the wrong side of public opinion, and which ultimately made the military the target of public hate in the wake of events such as the May 9 attacks. First, the inhibition in the public mind against the use of violence against military installations that was prevalent in northern Pakistan was gradually lifted during the Musharraf period. In Punjab, and to some extent in the urban areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military and its troops were perceived with glamorous respect before Musharraf came to power.
The post-9/11 war on terror brought the military into an active military conflict with a rather nasty section of society in the Pak-Afghan border areas. The manifestation of this conflict did not remain restricted to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa however. For instance, after the 2007 Lal Masjid operation, there were several suicide attacks in the Rawalpindi district against military installations and troops in the full glare of the media and public. This was the process of lifting inhibitions against the use of violence against the military, which in the present-day context, mutated into political violence that took place on May 9, 2023.
By the time General Asim Munir became COAS, mainstream and popular political leaders felt antagonized by the military’s leadership. Imran Khan is actively anti-military, while Nawaz Sharif is waiting in the wings.
Ours’ is a classic example of violence acting as a contagious disease - that has been transmitted from one segment of society, which was armed and motivated to kill, to another segment of the society that has no history of violence. There are few chances that the TTP and PTI ever came into physical contact, but still, the latter learned from the former, although the PTI transformed the nature of violence itself. After all, nobody was killed in the mayhem that we witnessed on May 9, 2023.
Second, the military’s leaders, in their machinations, continued to block the path of political groups which they perceived as evil at a given time in the post-Musharraf period. By the time General Asim Munir became COAS, mainstream and popular political leaders felt antagonized by the military’s leadership. Imran Khan is actively anti-military, while Nawaz Sharif is waiting in the wings.
One after the other, the military takes their political ambitions down. They were ousted from power, haunted, prosecuted and put behind bars. Their dreams of entering the power corridors were shuttered - one after the other. The propaganda campaign that maligned these leaders was for everyone to see. For the military leaders, there is always margin for plausible deniability that they are not behind these campaigns to malign popular political leaders. But the public identified them with these campaigns.
So, to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is what is happening with the military leadership. They are tasting for themselves what they prescribed for others. I remember that there were officers in the military's media wing in the Musharraf period who used to show videos and photos of gold-plated toilets and sinks in Nawaz Sharif's private residences to journalists immediately after the October 1999 coup. Some of these photos found their way onto the front pages of leading newspapers. This was the time when we were decades away from the wonders and reach of social media, and newspapers were the only vehicle for propaganda. But what goes around comes around. The filth that is now being thrown at the doorsteps of military leaders is deplorable.
To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is what is happening with the military leadership. They are tasting for themselves what they prescribed for others.
I remember in 2006, there was an American CIA led drone strike in the Bajaur district close to the village Domadola that killed around 86 madrasa students, some of them as young as 5 or 6. The very next day, a group of some five journalists including myself, visited the village with the help of the local members of the National Assembly. The scene was terrible. Everybody in the village was sure that Americans did it, and they deplored the fact that Musharraf was claiming that the Pakistani military carried out the strike.
In the same year, Musharraf boasted about the capability of the Pakistan military to hit Baloch insurgent leaders who would be clueless about what had hit them. “They would not even know what had hit them,” the general exclaimed, only days before the Baloch tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed by Pakistan’s military troops. The Pakistani media then celebrated these remarks from the military dictator. But these remarks I believe left a very deep imprint on the psychology of Pakistan’s people, and how they perceived the military. A military leader celebrating the deployment of his weapons, imported from abroad, against the country’s own people. Pakistani military leaders are now much savvier, but they are now harvesting what Musharraf has sown for them.
The military’s leadership is now paying a very heavy price for their highhandedness. There is a term often used in military terminology when a military operation goes terribly wrong.
“Abort.”
I will ask the military leadership to please abort. Abort the operation that was launched by the military dictator General Pervaiz Musharraf—the operation to disenfranchise the Pakistani people, the operation to crash and derail the aspirations of whatever segment of the Pakistani populace, when they are seen contrary to the military's own institutional interests. I implore the generals -- abort the operation to maintain dominance over the power structures of society, and abort the operation to control the mechanics of the country’s entire political system.
If you do not abort immediately, there is going to be a head-on collision. The popularity of the mainstream political parties may be transitory phenomenon in our peculiar political conditions. But remember that political trends in our society are not transitory; there seems to be some permanence to the anti-military sentiment in Pakistan. They were there when Bhutto was hanged, when Nawaz Sharif was ousted and when Imran Khan was jailed. When we take account of the internal security threats that Pakistan is facing, I am sure popular political forces will only be a tiny blip on the radar screens in the military's central war room. That is why - please abort.