Contradiction of Concordance Theory

Introduction

General Pervaiz Musharraf was traveling back from Sri Lanka to Karachi by a commercial airline when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to replace him from the post of Chief of Army Staff. Since Musharraf was on a formal visit to Sri Lanka, Nawaz Sharif considered his absence as an opportunity to nominate a new Chief of Army Staff. But the buddies, the name given by Pervaiz Musharraf to his closely associated generals, refused to accept the replacement and toppled the elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on October 12, 1999.

Although Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was commanding majority in the Parliament, I anticipated that there would not be a single mass movement against the coup. The public and opposition parties welcomed the decision. In a few weeks time, radical changes had been made in civilian bureaucracy, military establishment, and judiciary. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of coup and jailed the elected Prime Minister for life imprisonment in the case of hijacking the plane and charged him for jeopardizing the lives of more than 200 people on board. Since Sharif belongs to the business family and affluent class, he was not made for the conditions of imprisonment. In these circumstances, he reached settlement with the military establishment that he would not play any part in the politics of Pakistan and live an isolated life in Saudi Arabia. Since the military enjoyed strong bonds inside and outside the Muslim League, General Musharraf found no difficulty to form a political party, Muslim League, Quaid-i-Azam Group (ML-Q). This political group in collaboration with other political parties under the high patronage of the military won the General elections of 2002 and formed a new pro-Musharraf government for five years.

The events from coup and up to the formation of new government show the degree of influence the military enjoys in the political, juridical, and public sphere. It is immense and dominating. This level of influence shows that military, judiciary, political, and public are neither separate nor are equal poles. Instead, they subordinate to military establishment.

When I was writing a research paper on terrorism in 2006, I came across the major work of Rebecca Schiff, A Concordance Theory of Civil and Military Relations. She argued that Pakistan’s military coups (1958, 1977, and 1999) are the consequence of disagreement among three equal but separate partners: military, political, and citizenry. While reading her thesis, several questions occurred to me. For example, if Schiff is right to state that disagreement caused military intervention, then Pakistan must have witnessed mass movement against the coup presupposing that public was at discordance with military, political parties must not have welcomed the decision considering that political parties were in disagreement with military, Musharraf would not have been successful to form a new political party and importantly government, judiciary must not have given a favorable decision, the public would not have elected Musharraf as President in 2002 and so on.

Undoubtedly, there were serious disagreements between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and General Pervaiz Musharraf. The events followed by the coup, especially the formation of ML-Q and pro-Musharraf government show that the discordance between Sharif and Musharraf cannot be accounted to be discordance between political and military sphere. Most of the members of ML-Q were former allies of Nawaz Sharif. They switched their loyalties.

The events followed by coup in Pakistan empirically dispute the concordance theory of civil and military relations. This series of interconnected questions guides me to undertake a detailed investigation of what concordance theory is, what its theoretical presumptions are, how it explains the armed coups, how and why it failed to give an adequate account of Pakistan’s military coup, and finally how the military coup can consistently be explained. The argument will proceed as follows. The first section undertakes a detailed explication of concordance theory to expose its underlying abstract theoretical approach. The second explores the multicultural and plural approach so as to show that it contradicts with the abstract theoretical approach. The third takes the case study of Pakistan from the standpoint of concordance theory in which these two rival approaches are running. The last section explores the accounts on which the theory fails. Finally, an attempt is made to diagnose the root cause of the failure of concordance theory.

Exposition of Concordance Theory: Abstract Theoretical Approach

There are wide range of scholars appropriating various theoretical frameworks, for example, Huntington, Janowitz, Finer, Feaver, Cori, Cottey, Bland, Lipset, Cohn, Shils, and Bellin Carothers, Diamond, Steven Levitsky, and Way to understand civil and military relations. ¹ Because of dominance of capitalism and liberal political theory, the mainstream trend among contemporary approaches toward civil and military relations is the separation and subservience of military to civil sphere. These investigations attempt to draw the best possible framework in which the military institution can effectively be separated from and placed under the civilian sphere. However, at the margins of this mainstream trend, a few works challenge the idea of separation and subordination. These works favor integration and cooperation in place of separation and subordination.

Schiff’s concordance theory of civil and military relations is a recent and important attempt to think beyond these marginal and mainstream trends. A critical examination of concordance theory shows that the theory is torn apart by two rival approaches. These conflicting approaches are deeply running through concordance theory. In this part, we will focus upon one approach which may be called abstract theoretical approach. This approach presupposes that in every form of civil and military relations, there are three partners and discordance among partners causes military intervention. In the next part, we will explicate the multicultural and plural approach undertaken by the same concordance theory. This approach presupposes that social and institutional conditions vary from culture to culture and so do civil and military relations. The article will argue that these two approaches simultaneously undertaken by the concordance theory are not complementary but contradictory. Let us explore the abstract theoretical approach first.

The concept of partner and dialogue occupy the central stage in the theory of concordance. Schiff argues that the model of separation or integration can only guarantee the avoidance of military intervention as long as there is a partnership between civil and military institutions. These models by themselves do not suffice to avoid armed intervention. Schiff notes that the model of separation failed in various countries, for example in Pakistan, to cease the possibility of military intervention.

As far as civil and military relations are concerned, Schiff writes that there are three partners: the military, political elite, and citizenry. The concordance theory embraces the concept of partnership among them. She insists that through partnership the role and function of military is to be figured out. By means of dialogue, three partners must decide the scope and the limits of military and civilian role. The partners may decide in favor of a significant military role in the civilian sphere or the absolute civilian control of the armed forces.

Concordance theory’s insistence upon the role of partners and dialogue show that it considers partners equal and separate in terms of power, share, and responsibility. If the partners are grossly unequal and extremely integrated, then there is no question of dialogue and partnership. I will shortly demonstrate through the case study of Pakistan that political elite is extremely weak in terms power and influence. It has been subject to commanding influence of the military. In this way, concordance theory’s notion of partner and dialogue as means to avoid military intervention is not viable for the institutional and social conditions of Pakistan.

When partners fail to reach an agreement, it increases the likelihood of domestic military intervention. An important way to avoid military coup is neither the complete or partial separation or integration of nor the subservience of armed forces to the civilian government. ²

In the context of partnership or concordance, Schiff enlists four indicators that significantly affect the relationship among military forces, political elite, and citizenry. The indicators are (1) social composition of the officer corps, (2) political decision-making process, (3) recruitment method, and (4) military style. ³ The social composition of the armed officers signifies the ratio of recruitment or employment of various social classes in the army. By the political decision-making process, Schiff signifies the strengths and weaknesses of the political mechanism to reach decisions. In the “recruitment method indicator,” she explores the presumptions and beliefs upon which the recruitment is made. And by military style Schiff signifies the “importance of military symbols such as uniforms, rituals such as parades and saluting, and traditions such as the officer and the gentleman.” ⁴

These factors indicate whether the concordance is likely to be attained or not. It indicates the chances of concordance and discordance of a nation. As she puts it, “by the standards of concordance theory, it is not the separation of institutions which makes domestic military intervention less likely. Rather, it is the ability of the partners to agree on the indicators mentioned above, regardless of whether the “civil” and the “military” are separate or not.” ⁵

Disproportional composition of the armed forces, weak political mechanism, biased recruitment method, and aggressive and unprofessional military style would tilt the partners toward discordance. A balanced composition of the armed forces, effective decision-making mechanism, unbiased recruitment, and progressive military style increase the chances of concordance. Based on these indicators, Schiff evaluates the likelihood of domestic military intervention. And we will shortly see that Schiff foresees the military intervention in Pakistan on the basis of these indicators. ⁶

The case study on Pakistan disputes the abstract theoretical constructs of concordance theory. The theory states that there are three partners: military, political, and citizenry. But, Pakistan’s case study shows that there are two partners, that is, the United States and the military where the political forces do not turn up as the partner but a client. In this circumstance, military coups are not consequence of discordance but of concordance.

In the following section, we will discuss the multicultural and plural approach providing justification to concordance theory but contradicting with its abstract theoretical approach. The aim of this section is to highlight the point that Schiff meets one approach at the expense of the other. In this way, she commits the similar mistake what she charges for Huntington.

Exposition of Concordance Theory: Multicultural and Pluralist Approach

Methodological approaches associated with multiculturalism and pluralism such as concordance theory insists on the idea that understanding of civil and military must be based on the cultural facts and norms. This approach suspends all preunderstanding of civil and military relations and prior conceptual constructs such as partner, dialogue, or four indicators. Suspension enables the multicultural approach to explore civil and military relations from its indigenous soil and not to superimpose the other cultures’ norms. But if we take a close look at the concordance theory, we find that it fails to meet this standard because of its abstract theoretical approach. We will see through the case study of Pakistan that Schiff explores Pakistan’s civil and military relations not from its local social and institutional settings, although she claims, but reads them with the help of notions such as partner, partnership, and four indicators presupposing that these factors are the ingredients of all civil and military relations. These notions informed by the Western experience with civil and military relations compromise multicultural and plural approach. In this way, these concepts block access to the local conditions of Pakistan.

In tension with abstract, theoretical approach concordance theory also claims to explore the military and civil relations from the perspective of multiculturalism and pluralism. Indirectly challenging the viability of notions such as partner, dialogue, and four indicators, she argues the models of civil and military relations, since they are shaped by cultural and institutional factors, must be driven from them. Given the cultural basis of civil and military relations, no normative comparison is legitimate among rival forms. ⁷

If local culture and institution provide foundation to civil and military relations, in face of radical differences existing among cultures of the United States, Argentina, Pakistan, India, and Israeli, Schiff cannot argue that in these divergent cultures the disagreement among three partners on four indicators cause military intervention. Even if we permit this belief to concordance theory, then Schiff must have drawn, not presupposed, the notion of partner, the number of partners, dialogue and four indicators from the local conditions of these highly divergent societies. All through the text, Schiff unfortunately reads local conditions through abstract concepts.

Similar to Schiff’s approach, O’Donnell and Schmitter shed light upon the importance of culture for the understanding of military and civil relations. They argue that the fundamental factor determining the civil and military relationships is the perception of the military in the society. If only the institution of military is considered efficient and just then it, by default, will influence the political decision making. ⁸ We will see through the case study of Pakistan that the perception of armed forces in Pakistani society as guardian of state and Islamic ideology played a major part in getting the public support for its intervention into civilian sphere.

From her multicultural and plural standpoint, she seriously contests the idea that the Western forms of government, the idea of separation, integration, or civilian supremacy, are inevitable for development and progress. That is why Schiff strongly resists the suggestion, theories, doctrines, and policy proposals that look up to the mechanism of separation and civilian supremacy for the solution of military coups in the third world. Schiff disagrees with all modernists, classical liberals, and neoliberals such as Huntington, Janowitz, Finer, Feaver, Cori, Cottey, Bland, Lipset, Cohn, Shils, and Bellin  that the Western model of government in general and the framework of separation in particular is a precondition for restricting the military from intervention into civilian sphere. ⁹ She is closer to the postmodernists and poststructuralists in her approach to civil and military relations such as Carothers, Diamond, Steven Levitsky, and Way. ¹⁰

From a multicultural and plural standpoint, Schiff criticizes Huntingtonian inspired models of civil and military relations insisting upon the idea of civilian supremacy as an essential precondition to avoid military coups. ¹¹ Huntington’s thesis of the separation of power attracted several critiques and modifications. ¹²

Schiff argues that all these recent appropriation of Huntington’s constructs such as by Pye, Burke, Feaver, Janowitz, Finer, and so on, get round the errors of the Huntingtonian model because they draw their critiques and theories upon the fundamentals of the separation model. ¹³

She maintains that the strength of her theory is to give serious consideration to cultural and institutional conditions for the understanding of military and civil relations. ¹⁴ She is right to state that the civil and military relations in isolation of cultural settings and institutional conditions cannot be understood and superimposed. She charges Huntington, Janowitz, Feaver, Finer, and their counterparts of giving no or little attention to cultural roots of the nexus between armed and civil institutions. That is why they fail to give a consistent and adequate account of military coups. ¹⁵

Schiff argues that the separation model is derived from the American experience with democracy. It is a cultural invention. Undoubtedly, the separation model has brilliantly worked in the United States so far. However, she rightly indicates that the fundamental factor contributing to the success of the separation model is the cultural and institutional conditions of the American society, not the model by itself in isolation of the American society. Schiff charges Huntington and his disciples with wanting to impose and reshape the world in light of the American experiences and cultural standards.

Arguing from the perspective of multiculturalism and pluralism, Schiff clarifies that she does not either presuppose that armed forces should be under control of civilian institutions or that there should be separation or integration of power between the civil and the military. She also explains that the theory of concordance does not even appeal to democracy or constitutional supremacy on the conviction that forms of government, doctrine of separation/integration of power preclude cultural and institutional settings. ¹⁶ Schiff’s decision not to appeal to democracy or to constitutional supremacy has dangerous consequences.

But, the concordance theory like separation theory too appeals to culture-specific normative standards such as appeal to minimize the possibility of domestic military intervention and to maximize the degree of partnership and concordance. These are cultural standards. She fails to notice, I will shortly demonstrate through the case study of Pakistan, that human societies and cultures across globe do not hate military intervention and love partnership as much as Schiff or Western society does. Not like Western societies such as Pakistan there are always more or less than three partners. Her analysis looks to be culturally biased. She takes it for granted that for every society domestic military intervention is undesirable and additionally it must be avoided through dialogue, partnership, and concordance. She failed to see that majority of the Pakistani citizenry, political groups, civil society, and judiciary frequently request the military to intervene in the civil sphere. And she also failed to see that in the case of Pakistan shown below, dominance, not partnership and concordance, is a means to avoid military coup.

Let us explore how Schiff reads the local conditions of Pakistan through abstract theoretical approach by abandoning the multicultural and plural approach. Nowhere she derives but superimposes the notion of partner, dialogue, and three indicators on the local social and intuitional conditions of Pakistan.

Discordance: Domestic Military Intervention in Pakistan, 1958, 1977, 2009

So far, in Pakistan, military coups or civil and military relations are not predominantly understood from any theoretical perspective. I find several studies undertaken to explore the causes attributed to the failure of democracy in Pakistan. These investigations, such as Jalal, Khalid Bin Sayeed, Ayesha Siddiqa, Agha, Adeney, Newberg, Cohen, Aziz, Goodson, Pamela, Diamond, Rais, Haqqani, Nasre, and Shah, are primarily done from a historical and empirical perspective. ¹⁷ No theoretical framework is employed to understand empirical reality. It is highly appreciable that Schiff is one of the few scholars attempting to understand Pakistan’s military and civil relations from a theoretical perspective.

At the first stage, she argues that the separation theory of civil and military relations fails to give the adequate account of military coups in Pakistan. She further argues that the conditions that provoked the 1958 military coup were the same conditions that forced the military to intervene in the civil sphere in 1977 as well as in 1999. Unfortunately, she does not provide much detail upon the connection between the 1958 military coup with coups in 1977 and 2009.

She contests the prerogative/separation model on the following accounts. First, there is no confusion about the distribution of power in the legal framework of Pakistan. Pakistan incurred the Parliamentary form of government in which powers are well defined and separated and military is constitutionally put under civilian control. Second, Pakistan’s military personnels were professionally trained under the British System of governance, the Westminster model. They were trained to follow the instructions of the political government. Democracy was not foreign to them. Third, in the initial years, the military had no designs to control the political government. Rather, it encouraged the democratic system to flourish. Fourth and finally, there was no shortage of democratic experience. The Bengalis commanding majority in the Parliament had enough political experience to run the affairs the country. In short, Pakistan meets all preconditions of the separation model: well-defined distribution of power, civilian control of military, no aggressive and ambitious military, sufficient political experience to run the state affairs.

Despite meeting all conditions of separation model, Pakistan fails to avoid military coup. According to Schiff, the separation model fails to explain domestic military intervention of 1958 because it heavily relies upon institutional factors and analysis. The flaw of the Huntingtonian model is its lack of interest in the cultural analysis of coup. ¹⁸ And interestingly, the article will shortly demonstrate that due to the same reason concordance theory fails too.

Schiff argues that the 1958, 1977, and 2009 military coups in Pakistan are the result of discordance. The three partners, military, political elite, citizenry, failed to achieve concordance. This state of discordance pushed the country into military dictatorship. ¹⁹ If we determine the probability of Pakistan’s case to achieve concordance, the four indicators, social composition of the officer corps, political decision making process, recruitment method and military style, show a bleak picture. These indicators clearly reflect that partners would be leaning toward disagreement and conflict which would eventually result in domestic military intervention. From the standpoint of the concordance theory, it may be said that Pakistan is culturally and institutionally prone to military coups. Concordance is unlikely to be achieved in Pakistan. Pakistan has religious and cultural problems, a weak political decision-making mechanism, an imbalanced recruitment method, and an ambitious military style. Similar to Schiff’s approach Mahmmod, Weinbaum and Finer too give great weight to the cultural factors to understand domestic military interventions. ²⁰

Evaluating the likelihood of military intervention upon four indicators is somewhat a form of the political culture argument. ²¹ Welch and Heeger may have serious disagreements with the political cultural argument of Schiff. ²²

The conceptual tools of concordance theory, for example, three partners, discordance or four indicators unfortunately predetermine the approach of Schiff. In this way, Schiff does not derive the number of partners and indicators from the local social and institutional conditions of Pakistan. She reads the local cultural conditions from her abstract theoretical framework failing to see that there are less than three partners and the ground reality is much more complex than that of being oversimplified by four indicators. The abstract theoretical approach of concordance theory (three partners, partnerships, and four indicators) overshadows the institutional and cultural conditions of Pakistan despite its multicultural and pluralist approach. Conditioned by the theoretical approach, she just finds the following cultural and institutional conditions leaning Pakistan toward military coup. The article does not argue that there is no truth in four indicators, but the notions of four indicators translate the complex situation into simpler terms. Let us explore this oversimplified explanation.

Religious and Cultural Problems

She explains that although Pakistan was created in the name of religion, religion as a unifying force has always been weak. The fundamental notions of Islam such as Muslim Ummah (nation) or brotherhood are unable to diffuse the linguistic, racial, and provincial differences. The political process heavily depends upon linguistic and racial differences. From 1947 to 1958, antagonism between East and West Pakistan was serious. Although the Bengalis were a commanding majority in the Parliament, they have almost no representation in the military and civil bureaucracy which was holding critical power in the background. ²³ They were constitutionally powerful but practically they were dependent on the indifferent Punjabi military and an Urdu-speaking civil bureaucracy. The causes such as the economic disparity between East and West Pakistan, unjust distribution of resources, heavy allocations of budgetary funds to the military establishment, powerful bureaucracy, and linguistic divisions created a sense of alienation and deprivation in East Pakistan. These factors led the breakup of Pakistan in 1971.

Ayub Khan introduced the Basic Democracies System to readdress the alienation. However, it created a narrow promotion system in which the people close to the bureaucracy and military were promoted to higher grades. ²⁴ Schiff further argues that the insecurity at the borders from the first days of independency and the military’s design to gain superiority over the Hindu nation altered the national interests of Pakistan. In these conditions, Pakistan primarily focused on military development.

Political and Decision-making Process

Schiff argues that Pakistani armed forces initially did not challenge Pakistan’s parliamentary democracy and there was plenty of political talent, especially the Bengalis who had enough experience with parliamentary democracy. ²⁵ The institution of decision making not only failed to diffuse the linguistic and interprovincial problems, but it multiplied them. The political decision-making mechanism, the Parliament, from 1947 to 1956 was unable to frame a constitution until 1956. The 1956 constitution was passed by indirect Electoral College in the Parliament on the most controversial idea of the One Unit Scheme. The conflicts within and outside the Parliament became frequent among political parties. The Government resorted to corrupt practices to stay in power. In a short period (1947–56) emergency was imposed, the government was dissolved on two occasions; the Parliament witnessed four different Prime Ministers and the formation of four new political parties.

To Schiff, no political party showed maturity and sensitivity to national interests. In these circumstances, British trained Pakistan’s armed forces were forced to intervene in the political sphere. ²⁶ When the armed forces were exposed to the civilian sphere, they became more concerned about the institutional viability of the state. So, the cause of military intervention, from the standpoint of the concordance theory, is political instability, corruption and mismanagement. ²⁷

But Lissak, Heeger, and Aziz argue that corruption or political instability did not motivate the military establishment to intervene. The preintervention and postintervention period show that the military establishment did not strengthen the political or judicial institutions. It always resorts to corrupt practices to stay in power as long as possible. ²⁸

In response to the weak decision-making mechanism, Ayub Khan applauds the system of Basic Democracies. Mellama also explores the salient features of Basic Democracies. ²⁹ Despite Schiff and Mellamas’ appraisal, the Basic Democracies generally attracted strong criticisms. Friedman figures out the problems and prospects of Basic Democracies. ³⁰ From the context of the concordance theory, the fundamental flaw of basic democracies is its failure to establish itself as an effective decision-making mechanism. ³¹ Schiff argues that major constitutional changes such as Basic Democracies 1958, The Presidential form of Government 1962, the 1973 Constitution, 8th Amendment, National Security Council, and 18th Amendment failed to create effective political decision making. In these conditions, the military tried to fill the vacuum created by political instability. ³²

However, it severely affected long-held professional military ethics. She explains that in the process of filling the vacuum, the military developed strong doubts about capability and loyalties of political elites to defend Pakistan’s national interests. In consequence, the military establishment defines his relations with the political groups not in terms of partnership but in “patron and client.” ³³ That is why no partnership is developed to reach an agreement. Schiff is right to categorize the political and military force in terms of client and patron. Patron (investor) and client (consumer) by default cannot be the partner in terms of equality, power, and share. But, unfortunately, she treats the political force as partner while discussing the military coups in Pakistan. This mistake leads her to consider Pakistan’s civil and military relations in terms of partners and treats coup as consequence of disagreement among partners. Again, this mistake is constituted by the theoretical abstract approach.

Recruitment Method and Military Style

Schiff discusses the recruitment method and military style from standpoint of martial races. She charges Pakistan’s military establishment that recruitment in the armed forces is predominantly made on the colonial policy that some races are suitable for serving in military. Following the tradition of the British recruitment policy, Pakistan military relies upon the serving capacities of the Punjabi and Pathan races. The military institution by and large does not trust the other communities such as the Bengalis, Baluch, Sindhi, Seraikee, and Urdu Speaking.

The continuation of the recruitment pattern also fed into the tension between the center and the smaller provinces, particularly Baluchistan. ³⁴ In 1950s and 1960s, Bengalis comprised more than 50 percent of Pakistan’s population, but their representation in the armed forces was below 6 percent. The belief in the martial races not only affected the recruitment, but it severely damaged decision making. The separation of East Pakistan in the form of an independent state, Bangladesh, has its roots in the disproportional growth of the military recruitment. ³⁵ Jahan supports the thesis of Schiff that disproportionate armed forces could not diffuse linguist tension and conflicts. ³⁶

Additionally and necessarily, a disproportionate officer corps composition and discriminatory recruitment of the rank and file also affected the military style. Similar to the recruitment strategy, the military style reflects the cultural conditions of the given society. Because of the strong belief in the myth of martial races, Pakistan’s military style has turned aggressive against nonmartial races: Baluch, Sindhi, and Urdu Speaking. ³⁷

According to Schiff, the indicators show that concordance is unlikely to be achieved in Pakistan’s region. They clearly demonstrate that the cultural and institutional conditions do not hold much for concordance. Religious, linguistic, and ethnic divisions, distrust of the political process, disproportionate composition of the armed forces, a highly weak political decision-making mechanism, and a strong organizational structure of disproportionate army are the major factors contributing to the failure of attaining concordance. ³⁸

Ayesha Jalal, one of the prominent experts on the subcontinent, endorses my view that the drawing the explanation of military coup upon four factors may result in oversimplification. Jalal finds the interplay of local, regional, and international factors diffused into social, cultural, political, institutional, geographical, and strategic dimensions are the causes of military intervention. Like Jalal, LaPorte also indicates highly complex and interwoven interplay of various factors causing domestic military intervention in Pakistan. ³⁹

Let us explore the complexity of social, political, and institutional conditions of Pakistan to challenge Schiff’s oversimplified sketch of military intervention. I will appropriate the method of “archaeology” proposed by French philosopher, Michel Foucault, to explore local and institutional conditions of Pakistan. ⁴⁰ It is beyond the remit of this article to discuss his method here. Archaeological method shows that military, political, and citizenry are not separate and equal partners. There are two partners: the United States and the military and four clients: political, citizenry, judiciary, and media. And military coup results in not by disagreement with but by the support of judiciary, citizenry, and political parties.

Failure of Concordance Theory: Military Coup a Consequence of Concordance

Pakistan has gone through three direct military interventions in 1958, 1977, and 2009. I will primarily focus on the events that led to the first direct military intervention in Pakistan. I am constrained to this choice because Schiff’s application of the concordance theory is largely drawn upon it.

The events of the premilitary and postmilitary coup suggest that the military establishment enjoyed immense influence upon the political process, juridical, and citizenry to intervene into the civilian sphere. That is to say the military, political, and citizenry are not separate and equal. When the political and citizenry are extremely unequal in terms of power, influence, and share, there is no question of discordance among them.

Schiff argues that Pakistan’s military in its initial years of independence had no intentions of influencing the political decision-making process. Rather, it attempted to strengthen democracy: civilian control of armed forces. But unfortunately she does not offer evidence to substantiate her optimism. Perhaps, none is there.

We can sense the gravity of the situation and the power of the armed forces at the time of independence by taking into account one of the speeches delivered by the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to the armed forces. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah instructed to the armed forces, “Don’t forget that you in the armed forces are the servants of the people. You do not make the national policy. It is we, the civilians, who decide the issues and it is our duty to carry out those tasks (with) which you are entrusted.” ⁴¹ Jinnah knew the intentions of the armed forces of a newly independent state where the political institutions were in the state of development.

Aziz Siddiqui argues that Jinnah’s suspicions about the armed forces were right. ⁴² Siddiqui, like Stephen Cohn, notes that the army had developed strong views of their own foreign policy from the first days of inception. ⁴³ This view is shared by wide range of scholars and historians from within and without Pakistan such as Aysha Jalal, Khalid bin Sayeed, Aisha Siddiqa, Bose and Jalal, Agha 2001, Katharine Adeney, Paula R. Newberg, Mazhar Aziz, Larry P. Goodson, Pamela, Larry Jay Diamond, Rasul Bux Rais, Hussain Haqqani, Vali Nasre, and Aqil Shah. ⁴⁴

Since Pakistan incurred the Parliamentary form of government, the military institution is constitutionally restricted not to directly influence the national policy. In these conditions, the armed forces need proxies in the Parliament to define what the national interest is and what the means of attaining it are.

At the time of independence, there was only one major political party commanding the majority in the Assembly, Pakistan Muslim League. It was the same party that led the organization of Muslims to establish an independent state, Pakistan. Under the influence of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khans’ leadership, the ethnic divisions between and within the Bengalis and the Punjabis did not surface. The early death of Jinnah and the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan in October 1951 exposed how fragile Pakistani society is. It brought political animosities and ethnic conflicts onto the surface.

There were two major ethnic groups, the Punjabis and the Bengalis, in the Parliament. The Punjabi politicians being in minority enjoyed the support of the civil bureaucracy and military establishment. They also had support of the Punjabi Governor General, Ghulam Mohammad, and lying with him was the power to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. The Governor General relied upon the support of the President Iskander Mirza and General Muhammad Ayub Khan. The Bengalis, commanding majority in the Parliament and the government, had strong differences of opinion on almost all issues of national importance with the Punjabis such as the allocation of resources to the armed forces, the issue of national language, future constitutional formation, the Ahmedi problem, foreign policy, and so on.

After the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, Khwaja Nazimuddin, the Bengali Governor General, was asked to relinquish his constitutionally authorized position and to take a relatively weak position, that is, Prime Minister. Nazimuddin was an experienced politician. During his short tenure (October 1951 to April 1953), the rift between the Punjabis and the Bengalis deepened and eventually resulted in bloodshed on the official status of the Bengali language on February 21, 1952.

Allan McGrath argues that the dismissal was triggered by the budgetary proposal passed in the parliament to cut one third of the defense expenditures. The Bengalis played a major part in the drafting and passing of it from the Constituent Assembly. ⁴⁵ In April 1953, with the support of General Ayub Khan, the President Iskander Mirza dismissed Nazimuddin and appointed another Bengali Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra. ⁴⁶

Despite the new appointment, the crisis continued and the gulf between East and West Pakistan multiplied. The commanding majority of the Bengalis in the Constituent Assembly with random support from Sind and Baluchistan was considered a threat to the interests of the Western Punjabi-dominated political groups and military. Once again, the Governor General with support from the President, Iskander Mirza, and Ayub Khan dissolved the Constituent Assembly on October 24, 1954. The Assembly was dissolved on the grounds of failing to frame a constitution for Pakistan. But interestingly, despite dissolution the constitution was passed in the Assembly on October 25, 1958.

It is important to note that what Schiff called citizenry, the public also supported the dissolution of Constituent Assembly. The public was not in discordance with the Governor General in dissolving the Assembly. The public applauded the decision. Schiff’s theory of concordance fails to give account of Pakistan’s citizenry role in the dissolution of the Assembly.

The President of the dissolved Constituent Assembly, Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan, filed a petition against the dissolution of the Assembly in the highest Court of Sind. The Chief Justice gave verdict in favor of Tamizuddin declaring the Governor General’s rule unconstitutional and illegal. ⁴⁷

This unexpected decision of the Sind High Court was not welcomed in the offices of the Governor General, the President, and the Military General. The Governor General challenged the decision in the Federal Court and expectedly received a favorable verdict. Upholding the decision of Governor General by the Federal Court shows that the center of gravity is the armed forces.

In accordance with the concordance theory, there are three partners: the military, political parties, and the citizenry. Given the cultural and institutional conditions of Pakistan, this tripartite division corresponding to three power players is not viable for this region. Keeping in view the trajectory of Pakistan’s civil and military relations from 1947 to 2012, I must say that Schiff’s tripartite scheme is too narrow. For, it fails to notice that the judiciary, recently media, and international actors, especially the United States, play a major role in domestic military intervention. As far as the role of judiciary is concerned, it becomes evident with Maulvi Tamizuddin’s case. Almost all dissolutions of the Assembly making up the total of seven and three military coups are validated by the higher courts of Pakistan. ⁴⁸

Governor General, Ghulam Mohammad, restructured the Cabinet and appointed the Prime Minister to frame the future constitution of Pakistan. General Ayub Khan and President Iskander Mirza was behind the reshuffling of the cabinet. The military establishment and the political elite of West Pakistan, predominantly the Punjabis, were absolutely clear about the threat: the Bengalis. The acceptable form of constitution or the mode of governance to the military establishment and politicians was one that rendered the majority of the Bengalis insignificant. Politicians like Chaudhri Mohamad Ali, Gurmani, and Daultana came up with the desired draft of governance dividing East and West Pakistan into two provincial assemblies known as the One Unit Scheme. ⁴⁹ It was approved by the Governor General and the President with support from General Ayub Khan. The aim of the One Unit Scheme was to turn the minority, the Punjabis, into the majority. The draft of the One Unit Scheme reads, “At a later stage Punjab will have to take the lead. At that time I hope an effective intelligent Punjab leadership will have been put in place both at the Centre and at Lahore.” ⁵⁰

The dismissal of Nazimuddin, the dissolution of the Constitution Assembly, and the approval of the One Unit Scheme reflect the close association existing between Western political groups and the military. The influence of linguistic affiliation subsumes civil and military division. Khalid Bin Sayeed rightly notes that the Muslim League was controlled by the center, Iskander Mirza, with support from the military establishment, Muhammad Ayub Khan. ⁵¹ Ayub Khan unveils that Iskander Mirza, along with leaders from the Muslim League and the Governor General, on a number of occasions visited his office for convincing the military establishment to take control of the civilian institutions. ⁵²

It was not only Ayub Khan, but several chiefs of Army Staff, for example General Jahangir Karamat, General Zia-ul Haq, General Aslam Baig, and recently General Pervaiz Musharraf, who made it known that political leaders frequently visited the office to convince the military for taking over the civilian institutions. Pervaiz Musharraf writes that the conflict among the Presidency, the Chief Justice, and the Prime Minister occasionally dragged the Chief of Army Staff to settle the issue. It was decided in one of the meetings that both the President and the Chief Justice have to go. It was not the army chief who willingly intervened into politics, but it was the call of the President and Prime minister. ⁵³ In this statement, Musharraf points out two predominant characteristics of Pakistan’s political, judicial, and military institutions. First, the military decides the dismissal of President, Prime Minister, or Chief Justice in its formal meeting. Second, the political elite and judiciary approaches the military to resolve the political and juridical conflicts.

This fact creates more doubt about the viability of conceptual tools of concordance theory for Pakistan. A large faction of political groups attempts to reach concordance with the military establishment for political issues. These unhealthy social and political conditions show the powerlessness of the political elite. They do not have sufficient power to disagree with the military establishment.

The level of submission to/concordance with the military establishment may be gauged from the fact that the Muslim League accepts the appointment of Dr. Khan Sahib as the Chief Minister of West Pakistan. Ironically, Dr. Khan Sahib accepted the position of Chief Minister while refusing to be a formal member of the Muslim League party. Dr. Khan Sahib, Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, was known as a Congressman and a die-hard enemy of the Muslim League. He was elected as the Congress chief minister of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and defeated the Muslim League representative in the 1946 elections. He even refused to attend the first oath ceremony at the independence of Pakistan which forced the Muslim League government to dismiss him. The appointment of Dr. Khan Sahib unveils the instrumental role of the Muslim League.

Sahib’s refusal to become a member of the Muslim League angered a few: Chaudhri Mohamad Ali and Gurmani and the President of the Muslim League, Abdur Rabb Nishtar. But the center was pleased with Dr. Khan Sahib. When the disagreement became serious within the Muslim League Party Dr. Khan Sahib, with support from Iskander Mirza, announced the formation of a new party known as the Republican Party. Due to the support from the President and the armed forces, strong members of the Muslim League like Pirzada, Rashid, or Noon switched their loyalties. The Republican Party secured twenty-one of the eighty seats. It emerged the largest single party in the house with support from Sind, National Awami Party under the leadership of G. M. Syed and from the NWFP, National Awami Party, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

The political life of East Pakistan was not significantly different from West Pakistan. Similar to the West, the Parliament was reduced to a farce in the East. ⁵⁴ On one occasion, the speaker of East Pakistan’s Provincial Assembly known for his antiestablishment stance was physically handled and received injuries during the session. Fatima Jinnah, the sister of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, rightly said that behind all political bickering was Iskander Mirza with hidden support from Ayub Khan.

In fear of losing power, Iskander Mirza declared martial law on October 7, 1958. The decision was made by taking the members of the Republican Party and KSP (Krishak Sramik Party) into confidence. KSP was established by Maulvi Fazl-e-Haq in 1953. It was under the advice of the political parties that the military directly intervened in political affairs.

In Pakistan, it is frequently observed that political parties regularly and repeatedly call the military establishment for domestic intervention. It is not due to discordance or disagreement that the military takes control of civilian institutions. In the case of the 1958 military intervention, everyone knew that it was not Iskander Mirza by himself, but Ayub Khan who called the shots. Ayub Khan in his autobiography writes “Being a patriotic and national army, it was bound to respond to the thinking of the people in the country . . . .” A well organized, trained, and disciplined army would find it extremely distasteful to be turned into an instrument for securing political power. But as conditions were, the army alone could act as a corrective force and restore normalcy. ⁵⁵

Independent polls conducted by various institutions show that the public (citizenry) supported the military coup of 1958. The citizenry, in the terminology of Schiff, was in concordance with the military to impose martial law. ⁵⁶

There is one more important partner that seriously influences the military’s decision to intervene in the civilian sphere, that is, the United States. The United States Military Assistance Programme (MAP) was introduced in 1954 to support Pakistan’s military. Under the US influence, Pakistan joined CETO AND CENTO in 1955. ⁵⁷ In formal and informal meetings with the US government, Ayub Khan categorically mentions that the political government is incapable of defending US interests in Pakistan. ⁵⁸ On various occasions, the military general, Ayub Khan, seems to have convinced the American counterpart that the Parliamentary form of democracy is not suitable to Pakistan’s social settings where the politicians and civil bureaucracy are corrupt and inefficient and the masses are illiterate. ⁵⁹

Aziz mentions an important point that domestic military interventions of 1958, 1977, and 2009 took place when the United States was directly engaged in this region. The 1958 military coup took place in the days of security alliances, 1977 in the time of the Afghan war, and in 2009 in the war against terror. ⁶⁰ The military did not directly intervene in even more serious conditions of political and economic instability and corruption than those conditions provoking the military coups 1958, 1977, and 2009. It demonstrates the fact that direct military intervention in Pakistan is influenced by regional as well as international factors. Under these conditions, US influence is an important factor in understanding civil and military relations in Pakistan. The US factor matters on a formative basis for the understanding of Pakistan’s civil and military relations; it is neglected by Schiff.

Conclusion

The 1958 military coup demonstrates the marking influence of military upon citizenry, political, and juridical process and political decision making. It does not mean that that the relations between the civil and the military have always been smooth and friendly. I have myself indicated the tensions and conflicts between civil and military relations from the first days of inception. This form of conflict cannot be accounted as disagreement or discordance among partners. First, being the largest single party, the role of the Muslim League and the Republican Party in West and the KSP in East Pakistan was largely instrumental. Being handmaidens, these political parties cannot be qualified as equal and separate partners in par with the military establishment. They have never been partners. They have never been political. Second, the conflict of the opposition parties with the party in the government or with the center was not triggered on the issue of policies or upon the instrumental role of the government in the hands of the establishment. Rather, conflicts spring from distribution of funds, ministries, and on petty issues.

Under the conditions of political instability, major political parties of Pakistan frequently encourage or request military rulers to intervene to replace the political party in the government. They find domestic military intervention as a political solution. Additionally, the citizenry applauds intervention, and the judiciary too upholds it. We find nowhere disagreement as a cause of military intervention among the three partners. Concordance theory fails.

This failure is mainly due to the internal contradiction of the theory itself. The theory is broken apart into two conflicting commitments challenging one another. First, the theory is committed to a multicultural and plural approach to explore the civil and military relations of a society from the social and institutional conditions of that society itself. This commitment bounds the theory to derive the idea and number of partners, the nature of conflict, the strength of institutions, social and political settings, economic obligations, foreign relations, and so on, from indigenous institutional and social settings. The prerequisites of this kind of commitment are to free oneself from all prior notions of understanding, theoretical frameworks, cultural presumptions, and prejudices. But this commitment squares with the conceptual constructs of concordance theory such as the idea of discordance, the notion of partner, the number of partners, four indicators, partnership, dialogue, and so on. These conceptual constructs determine in advance what is to be investigated, how the factors are to be interrelated, on what grounds the explanation is to be drawn, and what is to be concluded. This predeterminism, part and parcel of the concordance theory, does not let it to explore the civil and military relations from indigenous social and institutional conditions. This is what happened in the case of Pakistan. Although Schiff is committed to derive the mechanism of civil and military relations from Pakistan’s local social and intuitional conditions, she unfortunately reads these conditions from her abstract theoretical approach.