Abstract
After remaining under army rule for almost three-quarters of its sovereign existence, in 2008 democracy returned to Pakistan, followed by a democratic transition of power in May 2013. Does this mean that the Pakistani Army has lost its dominance? Any analysis or predictions about this would be too early because of the fragile political system in Pakistan. In this book Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed has made an attempt to theoretically decipher the reasons for the dominance of the army in Pakistan.
In this book, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed has characterized Pakistan as a ‘garrison state’. Not agreeing with Hamza Alvi’s (1972) thesis of ‘over developed state under developed civil-society in post-colonial state’, Ahmed instead argues that Alvi hinted at, but did not develop and work out, the political implications and ramifications of a post-colonial oligarchy’s relative autonomy in relation to international capitalism. Also Ahmed notes that the significance of the Cold War during that period did not receive much attention from Alvi (p. 9). Ahmed writes that the concept of a garrison state as defined by Nelson-Pallmeyer (1993) was already developed by Harold Lasswell (1997) in the late 1930s, which the latter further developed in the backdrop of the rising tide in Nazi Germany (p. 16). Theoretically, it was assumed that as the world after the end of World War II entered into a phase of Cold War, a garrison state could emerge in the US, but it did not happen. Instead Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia, with help from the US, developed features of garrison states. The Soviet Union promoted garrison states in its sphere of influence (p. 20).
Ahmed writes that Islamic radicalism and the army provided oxygen to each other during the initial years of Pakistan’s formation. The Pakistani modernist rulers, who held power from 1947 to 1977, failed to provide an alternative to the Islamic state: on the contrary, more and more dogmatic features were added to the Pakistani national identity until, in 1977, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq set aside the charade of democracy and went about constructing Pakistan as the fortress of Islam, braced with not only military but also repressive legal and cultural measures (p. 20). The root of the problem, according to this author, lies with Pakistan’s constant fear of the influence from ‘Hindu’ India. To counter that fear the Pakistani leadership always looks towards other countries for means and support. Even before its formation in 1947, the leadership of the Muslim League was looking for future assistance from Britain, the US and the then Soviet Union. On 1 May 1947, Jinnah told Raymond Hare of the US State department that the ‘establishment of Pakistan is essential to prevent “Hindu Imperialism” from spreading into Middle East; Muslim countries would stand together against possible Russian aggression and look to us for assistance’ (quoted in Kux, p. 44).
The army is also dominant because the territory, which became part of Pakistan, after the partition of India in 1947, was an important region in terms of recruitment in the British Indian Army. Till 1940, it is noteworthy that 36 per cent of the men in the Indian Army were recruited from the Punjab area but after 1942, the Muslim percentage declined to about 32 per cent while, by the end of 1945, the Hindu percentage had increased to about 47 per cent. The Sikh intake declined because of the spread of the Communist influence in central Punjab, while that of the Muslims quadrupled (p. 52). Due to its character and composition, the British establishment was not in favour of dividing the Indian Army; however, as soon as Mountbatten became Viceroy on 24 March 1947, he began to consider the possibility of the division of the Indian armed forces if India was partitioned (p. 52). Soon after, the former comrades in arms, who fought shoulder-to-shoulder in the past, were in the war field against each other in 1947 over the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. After the war, as the Pakistani Army managed to establish its control over one-third of Jammu and Kashmir, it built up its image. Their claims were accepted by the people because of a long tradition of singing praises to the warriors of Islam (p. 77). To become closer to the US-led bloc during the Cold War in 1954, Pakistan became a member of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), and in 1955 it joined the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). Through these alliances, Pakistan’s army acquired material resources and established its control over a substantive part of society.
In 1958 Ayub Khan carried out a successful coup. To legitimize his rule, he started the practice of civilianization of army rule by inducting civilians into his cabinet (p. 116). During Ayub Khan’s tenure, India and Pakistan contested a remote marshy area known as the Rann of Kutch—on the border between Pakistan’s Sindh and India’s Gujarat provinces (p. 127). After interference by the UK, an Arbitration Tribunal was set up to settle territorial disputes in this area. Side by side, strategists in the Pakistani Army planned Operation Gibraltar; backed up by operation Grand Slam (p. 133). As Farooq Bajwa has also discussed in a recent book, Operation Gibraltar failed because the infiltrators were recognized and captured by the Indian Army. In terms of the follow-up operation Grand Slam, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed writes that there is a belief that General Malik had nearly captured Akhnur, an important military transit point, when General Musa relieved him of his charge, and Yaha Khan failed to consolidate that crucial gain.
The director of military operations, General Gul Hasan Khan, who was one of the key players in the Kashmir cell established in 1964, casts doubt on the wisdom of relieving Malik. Ahmed asserts that the change in command, and the inordinate delay in launching Operation Grand Slam, was a major factor in the failure: ‘Had he (Malik) been permitted to attack on 26 or 27 August, I am convinced we would have obtained our objective in not more than three days’ (Khan, 1993, p. 134). To authenticate his claim, the author met General Akhtar Malik’s son, (Retd) Major General (later Lieutenant General) Abdul Ali Malik, who showed letters written by General Akhtar to his son about his military operations during 1965 war (p.135). The war ended with peace treaty mediated by the Soviet Union at Tashkent. The defeat in the war and the peace treaty hurt the morale of the Pakistani Army.
Soon after the 1965 war, Pakistan experienced another challenge: civil war between East and West Pakistan. The immediate cause was that, despite his strong performance in the parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was denied the chance to form the government. Citing Admiral Ahsan, Ahmed mentions that during talks with Yaha Khan, at one point Mujib even suggested that his party had decided to elect Yaha Khan as the President of Pakistan because he had played crucial role in restoration of democracy in Pakistan (p. 166). Civil war in Pakistan led to the second India–Pakistan War in 1971. After the defeat in 1971, the army was again at its lowest ebb. In this situation, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made a meteoric rise. At the post-1971 war peace conference in Simla, Shuja Nawz made an interesting remark that ‘this was not an army that had just lost a war. It sounded more like the terms of surrender offered to a defeated enemy’ (p. 201). Though Z.A. Bhutto emerged as a strong leader he forgot that, despite consecutive defeats, the army was still the strongest institution in Pakistan. He paid a price for his interference in the army, which annoyed the top brass and also middle-ranked officers. He had retired Yahya and his close associates, but retained many senior commanders who were involved in the East Pakistan debacle including General Tikka Khan, which was viewed with dismay (p. 212). In its contest against civilian leadership, the army was supported by the Islamic group led by Maulana Madudi, who gave a call to remove Bhutto. On 5 July 1977 the army, under Bhutto’s protégé, General Zia-ul-Haq, staged a coup.
Under Zia’s patronage, the garrison state, a polity deriving its identity from perceived existentialist threats from external as well as internal enemies, acquired incontrovertible Islamist features (p. 226). The push to Islamize the army started with the institution of many Islamic practices and introduced a book authored by Brigadier S.K. Malik, The Qurani Concept of War (1979), which epitomizes the philosophy of war and armed conflict that the military rulers of Pakistan wanted to inculcate in their men in order to transform them into Islamist warriors (p. 237). To improve his relations with global leaders, General Zia used the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan in his favour. Under him Pakistan became a frontline state in the US war against the Soviet Union. As Saadia Toor has discussed elsewhere, in payment for this support, the Americans provided financial and military aid (Toor, 2011).
After General Zia-ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash on 17 August 1988, democracy returned and Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of Pakistan. Soon she was succeeded by Nawaz Sharif. Again, after elections Benazir Bhutto came back to power in October 1993 and was in power till 5 November 1996. The army never allowed Benazir Bhutto to settle down (p. 280). She was thrown out of power and replaced by Nawaz Sharif in 1997. He remained in power till 12 October 1999, when a coup was carried out against him by his chosen Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Pervez Musharraf. During the Nawaz Sharif tenure, India and Pakistan fought a limited war in Kargil. This was the first war between the two countries after they conducted a nuclear test in 1998 (p. 293).
General Musharraf tried to present the liberal face of the army by being pro-market, a supporter of free speech and, like his predecessors, he also civilianized the army rule by inducting civilians in his cabinet (p. 307). He also tried to improve relationship with India (p. 323). For some time he became very popular figure among Pakistan’s liberal society because of his policies. His fortunes changed after he challenged the authority of the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Iftikar Chowdhary and the operation against terrorists in the Lal Masjid incident. These parallel fights against Pervez Musharraf led to his ousting from office.
After the 2008 elections, a civilian government under the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) came into power. During its tenure there were scuffles with the army on many issues, yet the COAS, Pervez Kayani, due to many reasons, did not attempt a coup, and let the PPP government complete its tenure. Earlier the army had control over the radical groups and terror outfits. The grip of army over radicals has now been loosened but not completely lost; the umbilical cord between the two still exists. Osama bin Laden’s ability to live, supposedly undetected, in Pakistan is a perfect example of this. In the past, as the relationship between the army and terror outfits turned sour, attacks have taken place on military camps, naval bases, like PNS Mehran and General Headquarters (GHQ) (p. 417).
The Pakistan Military in Politics: Origins, Evolution, Consequences by Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed is a meticulously researched work, which helps to understand the nitty-gritty of the Pakistani Army. He has talked about how and why the army is a dominant institution in Pakistan; and how it has turned Pakistan into a garrison state.