The process of subverting democracy and politicians began at the beginning of Pakistan.
Over the decades, the style and tactics may have changed, but not the intention. It has now been honed into a skill, except that coup-makers no longer come marching down from Rawalpindi led by the 111 Brigade of the 10th Division. Nowadays, the Pakistani Army carries out coups camouflaged in judicial robes.
On 13 July, Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam called the army’s bluff and dared to land in Pakistan to face certain imprisonment following a blatantly farcical trial. That very day, Pakistan was rocked by a massive terrorist attack in Mastung, Balochistan. At least 130 persons were killed and more than 200 injured. Among those killed was Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, for whom army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa had special words of condolence, since he was reputedly a person of the deep state.
A few days prior to this, the Taliban killed Awami National Party’s Haroon Bilour at an election rally in Peshawar.
Haroon’s father Bashir Bilour had been assassinated while campaigning in 2013. Both the Bilour killings by the Taliban are meant to show their disapproval of the electoral system, frighten away the moderate Awami National Party (ANP) and its following to leave the political field open for Imran Khan and his mullah coterie.
The Mastung casualties would be explained away as collateral damage by a regime that seems to feel no need to protect its citizens. Just as the killing of 126 children at a Peshawar school on December 16, 2014, was explained. Elsewhere, these incidents are described as blowback, the unintended consequences of undeclared actions by the State. However, Pakistani military rulers are now seemingly suffering from Munchausen Syndrome. Clinically, this is defined as something that manifests itself in self-harm and bouts of pyromania in order to attract sympathy and attention. The Pakistani Army has been setting its neighbourhood on fire for decades and then claiming to be the injured innocent. This fire has now turned inward with killings of innocent Pakistanis by groups nurtured and trained by it.
The aim of the Pakistani military’s current exercise is to control democracy and secure its own future from its own people. For this, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Imran Khan is the frontman, and he is backed by radical Islamist leaders like Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil of the Harkat-ul-Jihad (banned by the UN) who is supporting the PTI contestant from Islamabad.
Other spoilers are from the ultra-right wing Milli Muslim League (Lashkar-e-Taiba-backed), Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, formerly known as the radical sectarian Sipaha Sahaba, and the Barelvi Sunni Islamist group, Tehrik Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah.
They are all expected to bat for PTI by drawing away voters from the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Not for nothing is Imran Khan also referred to as Taliban Khan.
The direction Pakistan would take had been set from the day the country was created with 16% of the total population of undivided India, 17% of the territory and 30% of the armed forces.
It was going to be a top-heavy army whose maintenance would take away alarge chunk of the budget. The malaise of autocracy among the politicians, bureaucrats and the army had set in very early.
This is shown by former special secretary in the Cabinet secretariat Tilak Devasher, who in his remarkable new book, Pakistan: At the Helm, takes us through the various phases of the country’s history. There is no better way of understanding a leader’s mind than reading what he writes, or listening to what he says. Devasher uses this technique when he relies on what Pakistani leaders said, or what the bureaucrats and army did, to keep control of Pakistan with themselves to the exclusion of others. Very soon, the army had won this contest. It has been so since.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan’s Pakistan ended soon after their death — the former by neglect and the latter by assassination. Jinnah’s hatred for ‘Hindu’ Congress and disdain for Mohandas Gandhi is well known — remember, Jinnah did not even mention Gandhi’s name when he spoke after his assassination. After all, Jinnah had declared that he had no equal, having won Pakistan with his stenographer and typewriter.
Thereafter, it was the era of Generals Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf, interspersed with periods of controlled democracies beginning with Zulfiqar Bhutto, an arrogant feudal who frightened the army to the extent that they hanged him. All Pakistani generals had the same characteristic of arrogance, misplaced beliefs of invincibility and extremely susceptible to flattery.
Devasher brings out the army’s extremely patronising attitude towards civilians and politicians, of the Punjabi towards people of other regions in Pakistan, and religious superiority of Muslims over people of other religions, primarily Hindus. It is the story of Pakistan’s tragic-comic heroes.
The 25 July election results may well see Imran Khan in the throne room.
But do not miss the Khaki Eminence that will lurk in the shadows holding the keys to the kingdom. Had Nawaz Sharif been allowed to contest in a free and fair election and lost, one could still say that democracy in Pakistan was healthy. Instead, an Imran Khan victory through manipulation and coercion would mean that democracy in Pakistan has gone into deep coma.
This commentary originally appeared in The Economic Times.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Vikram Sood is Advisor at Observer Research Foundation. Mr. Sood is the former head of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) — India’s foreign intelligence agency. ...
Read More +
PREV
