Geopolitics

Pakistan: A Troubled Legacy and an Uncertain Future - I
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Issue Courtesy: Aakrosh | Date : 05 Sep , 2011

The Pakistan Military and the ISI

The most powerful institution in the Pakistani state since independence, even in the smaller bouts of civil rule, has unmistakably been the Pakistan army. Nations the world over have an army, and as the saying goes, the Pakistan army has a nation! An eminent Indian strategic analyst, late K. Subhramanyam succinctly opined that “Pakistan has not only a tradition of military rule but also one of military conspiracies.”4

“¦Pakistans policies towards major countries, including India, the Kashmir proxy war, military modernisation, etc., the Pakistan army bulldozed its way, with successive Pakistan governments unable to defy the armys diktats

In the last 64 years of its existence, Pakistan has been under the jackboot for nearly 38 years under four military dictators, commencing with the self-styled Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who was Pakistani commander-in-chief from 1951 to 1958, before he finally overthrew the civilian government and established Pakistan’s first military regime, in 1958. In 1965, suffering from delusions of perhaps his military prowess and some U.S. equipment that had been doled out to them being members of the U.S.-led Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and then the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) pacts, respectively, Ayub launched Op Gibraltar and tried to wrest J&K by force, hoping for a popular uprising against Indian rule. Ayub Khan’s unrealistic dreams were adequately answered by the Kashmiri populace and the Indian armed forces, and the Pakistanis suffered a near defeat. Regrettably, India, owing to the Tashkent Agreement, had to return the military gains made in J&K across the Line of Control.

In 1969, Ayub was forced to step down and General Yahya Khan stepped in and remained as Pakistan’s ruler till 1971, having to leave in disgrace after Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in 1971 at the hands of the Indian armed forces. Subsequent to this debacle, Pakistan witnessed a spell of slightly over five years of civil rule under the charismatic, though maverick, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who initiated many reforms in the Pakistani armed forces to streamline its higher defence organisations and tried to rein in the unbridled powers enjoyed by the military till then. It was during Bhutto’s prime ministership that he launched Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Later, however, Bhutto was himself surprised when his own hand-picked army chief, General Zia-ul-Haq, not only overthrew his benefactor, once again proclaimed martial law, but also hanged Bhutto on trumped-up charges. Zia then ruled the country for 11 years, including 3 years as a civilian president with absolute powers, till his death in a yet-unresolved mysterious air crash in 1988.

Editor’s Pick

It is pertinent to mention here that it was General Zia-ul-Haq who commenced the Islamisation of Pakistan society and many of its institutions, including, regrettably, of its armed forces—a step that has and will in the years to come prove rather costly, bordering on the fatal, to the stability of the Pakistani state. In addition, General Zia also promulgated the draconian Eighth Amendment to Pakistan’s Constitution, under the garb of which duly elected civilian administrations could be dismissed by Pakistani presidents, normally in collusion with Pak army generals. “Zia introduced a structure in which the politicians were prepared to accept a political role for the military.”5 After General Zia’s violent death, General Aslam Beg endeavoured to take the Pakistan army out of direct governance, and it was in 1989 that the concept of the ruling “troika” emerged. The troika was an informal grouping that comprised the president, the prime minister and the army chief. Nevertheless, in matters of Pakistan’s policies towards major countries, including India, the Kashmir proxy war, military modernisation, etc., the Pakistan army bulldozed its way, with successive Pakistan governments unable to defy the army’s diktats. It is widely known that General Aslam Beg frequently interfered in Pak’s foreign policy formulations. One of the army chiefs after General Beg, the suave General Jehangir Karamat, though remaining away from his country’s internal political gambits, unlike most Pakistan chiefs, nevertheless stated with authority that “Can you ever imagine a Pakistani Prime Minister having the power to dismiss a Pak Army Chief.”6

“¦with increasing U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region following the 9/11 attacks in New York, General Musharraf had to tone down his anti-India rhetoric”¦

It was again in October 1999 that the Pakistan army was back in the business of running a hapless Pakistan when General Parvez Musharraf staged a coup in dramatic circumstances and ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. With the latter, Musharraf’s relations had dipped following the Kargil misadventure initiated by the wily general in Apr–May 1999 where, once again, Pakistan perfidy was seen by the world and the Pakistanis subsequently underwent grave humiliation at the hands of the Indian army. General Musharraf, in his initial years as the Pakistan ruler after banishing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, upped the ante in J&K by increasing terror activities in the state and elsewhere in India.

But with increasing U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region following the 9/11 attacks in New York, General Musharraf had to tone down his anti-India rhetoric and activities due to U.S. pressure after the latter’s military intervention in neighbouring Afghanistan. Subsequently, Musharraf did make some peaceful noises to marginally improve relations with India while sticking to his machinations of “running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.” Though the U.S. dubbed Pakistan as a “frontline state” in the fight against terror, General Musharraf continued with his duplicity in covertly supporting Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda, and the anti-U.S. Afghani Taliban and the Haqqani network while extracting military and financial largesse from the United States.

General Musharraf, during his tenure, like his army predecessors, paid lip service to the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Nevertheless, with protests rising inside the country, especially regarding his efforts to silence the judiciary, including the removal of Chief Justice Chaudhary from the Pakistan Supreme Court bench, proved rather disquieting for General Musharraf. Also under tremendous pressure from the United States, Musharraf agreed to allow former Pakistan prime minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader, the charismatic Benazir Bhutto, to return from exile in London and fight the general elections. The rest is tragic history, for Benazir Bhutto was, as feared by many, assassinated soon after her arrival in Pakistan, when she was returning after addressing a mammoth rally in Lahore in October 2007.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Kamal Davar (Retd)

a distinguished soldier and veteran of the 1965 and 1971 wars, was the founder director general of the Defence Intelligence Agency, raised after the Kargil conflict. After retirement, he writes and lectures on security, terrorism and allied issues in the national media and many forums.

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