Understanding Pakistan Project

Athar Osama September 23rd, 2007

By: Athar Osama

In October 1999, when General Musharraf came to power in a coup and declared himself the Chief Executive of the country, he was met by a silent nod of approval by his 150 million compatriots. He charted a six point agenda that included broad-based accountability of those who had plundered the country’s wealth and political reforms that would rid the country of the shackles of “professional” politicians–which many of us, ordinary citizens, thought was a euphemism for a mix of political and land-reforms aimed at weakening, if not eliminating, the hold of feudal and family dynasties from the country.

I, for one, like many of my compatriots was willing to give the General a chance. The resolve that Musharraf showed upfront won him kudos and inspired a hope–a very naive hope, though–that when the General finishes his Supreme Court mandated 3-year tenure, Pakistan would be in a much better position to develop true sustainable democracy than before.

Then something predictable–something that I had not foreseen then–happened. Musharraf regime took a course that is far too similar to the 2 or 3 (depending upon how you see it) military regimes in the past. It is important to look at and understand this general pattern because I think it makes a very important point that many of us, Pakistanis, have not fully understood and assimilated.

Today, as Musharraf seeks to have himself elected for a second term, it is useful to ask a question: Is military rule the solution to Pakistan’s problems? Is Musharraf any different than his predecessor generals? Answering these questions is critical to charting a new course of democracy in Pakistan for it will address and counter the argument at the very center of the ongoing political saga and the impending presidential elections in Pakistan. 
In this article, I would demonstrate, I hope, that military dictatorship in Pakistan’s context has repeatedly proved itself to be incapable of either providing sustainable and stable governance or for solving the country’s long-term problems.

Therefore, when military generals force the civilian rulers out on the pretext that the latter have played havoc with the governance in the country and that they, and only they, can set things right, that makes a seriously questionable claim given the experience of 33-year military rule in Pakistan.

I will argue that there is a clear “pattern of failure” associated with a military regime that can be divided into three phases.

In the first phase, the regime comes to power and seeks legitimacy for it by making promises of cleaning up the mess and announcing a reform agenda. By the time the second phase begins, the regime is losing steam, legitimacy has remained elusive, and demands for return to civil rule are beginning to appear. This leads to creating a civilian face for the regime. The third phase really sees the crumbling of the artificial civilian order and last-ditch attempts by the regime to hang onto power.  
In totality, this pattern—found across all three (or four) military regimes in past—indicates the unsustainability and failure of the military experience in Pakistan.

Phase I: Seeking Legitimacy for the Coup Leads to a Reform Agenda and Many “Promises”

The first period is characterized by the regime’s coming to power, seeking legitimacy from the people by making promises to “clean up the mess”, and expending considerably energy and “efficiency” with which it tackles some of the problems that it promises to tackle. This pattern is only differentiated across the three (or four) regimes by the motive that brings the regime into power in the first place.

Historians may differ (and have always done so) as to which one of the four generals who ruled at the helm through Pakistan’s history was more or less sincere, more or less effective, in managing the country’s affairs.

To my mind, though, Ayub Khan was perhaps the most “visionary” of all the generals that ever ruled Pakistan. He had genuine ideas about what was wrong with the country–and how it should be governed and consequently his coup was the most pre-mediated of all as well. Zia ul Haq was the least “thinking” of Pakistan ’s military dictators. He had no ideas of his own and in all likelihood power was thrust upon him because of the bickering of PNA and PPP after the 1977 elections. Once he found himself at the top, though, he was equally tenacious in hanging onto it.

Musharraf falls somewhere in the middle of the two. While the act of his coup itself may be forced–due to the mismanagement of the Nawaz regime–it is quite evident that the relations between Nawaz and Musharraf had deteriorated in the aftermath of the latter’s Kargil adventure. It is quite likely that Musharraf was looking for an opportunity to dispose off a democratically elected prime minister when his moment arrived and he jumped at it. Consequently, these differing motives and circumstances determine the regime’s actions in its first years in power.  

For Ayub Khan regime, for instance, this was the period between Oct 1958 to about 1961/62 or so during which the Martial Law Regime moved to tackle some of the most complex and long-neglected problems of the country with the swiftness and resoluteness that was never seen before (or since) in Pakistan’s history. Ayub had not come to power on the premise to hold elections and he wanted nothing to do with it.

For Zia, the first imperative during the first phase (1977-1980+) was to hold elections. He had indicated in his first television appearance that he did not want to stay a moment longer. Unfortunately, the moment never arrived and Zia always deferred the elections on one pre-text or the other. Zia did not come to power with any deeper agenda of his own. As he became more addicted to his chair, though, he found one in the Islamization agenda.

For Musharraf, this period lasted from Oct 1999 until circa 2001/2. Musharraf’s first years in power–like Zia’s–were devoid of any deeper agenda for the country. His regime was like a rudderless boat for it came to power on a faint notion that ran as follows: Democracy hasn’t worked for Pakistan, things have gone only from bad to worse, Even Army–which was supposedly the only “institution” in the country–stands ruined, and that Pakistan needs something else.

Musharraf’s regime struggled to gain legitimacy–even more than his predecessors Zia and Ayub–and more so on the international front than the domestic front. There was little true reform in these early days except steps to neutralize his opponents by pilling up cases under the NAB Ordinance and creating systems that would weaken traditional politics in Pakistan through the policy jugglery at NRB etc. The economy continued to suffer in these early years as did the other social sectors.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, but fortunately for Musharraf, all this changed on Sept 11, 2001 with the terrorist attacks in New York. With the foreign policy U-turn, the Musharraf regime was back in business and its international legitimacy soured as never before. Ironically, this is a familiar pattern with all three of the military regimes in Pakistan. For Zia ul Haq, Soviet attack on Afghanistan in 1979 was a Godsend for it put him firmly in the western camp as an ally in the war against the evil empire.

Another predictable pattern of all three military regimes is the initial burst of development and economic growth that they create thus providing a measure of relief to common man. This too, is largely artificial. Economic historians who have looked at both Ayub and Zia regimes are quite unanimous on the fact that the high economic growth rates seen during these periods were financed, in major part, by foreign aid coming from the Western countries (most notably America) and other external sources (such as expatriate capital during Musharraf era and Narcotics-funded Afghan Jihad during Zia’s period).

These experts are adamant that these growth rates wouldn’t have been possible without this civilian and military aid and that they have lost their steam as soon as the foreign aid has vanished. This seriously calls into question the sustainability of the economic performance of these military regimes as well for it raises the question: Would Pakistanis like to economically enrich themselves at the expense of their sovereignty? I seriously doubt many would knowingly take that course.

This broadly concludes the experience of the first of the three phases of military rule in Pakistan. We will look at the second phase in next section.

Phase II: Military Regime Runs Out of Steam as the Quest for an Elusive Legitimacy Turns to a “Controlled” Democracy

While military dictators, throughout Pakistan’s history, have tried to seek acceptance of their actions and agendas–where such agendas existed–their search of this elusive legitimacy has invariably been futile. All three of these dictators learnt during the very few years after coming to power that the true essence of the Pakistani people firmly lies in a democracy.

With their search for legitimacy turning out to be futile and pressure building up for a return to civilian government, the attention of the military regimes has often turned to creating a facade of civilian power and legitimacy. Each of the three military regimes have turned to this mode during the second phase of their tenures. There are three series of steps–very predictable–that generally constitute their quest for legitimacy.

The first step is to get rid of the major source of opposition–the “old guard” politicians–whom the General in question replaced. Ayub did this by using EBDO regulation, Zia did it primarily through a series of Martial Law Restrictions and by co-opting some (mainly Islamics) and eliminating others (primarily Bhutto). Musharraf too used NAB and other instruments to eliminate an immediate challenge to his power. 

The second of this series of three steps in the process is to isolate the General in question from the resulting political battle once the floodgates of a “controlled” democracy will be opened and to elevate him to a higher plane than the rest of the political lot. This has been achieved, time and again, through a Presidential Referendum–pre-rigged as it always has been–that elects the President for a full term of 5 years and gives him broad (implied) powers to rule.

The third of this series of three steps begins with the creation of an alternate system of governance. Each of the three military rulers of Pakistan have attempted to create and institute local governance systems. There is nothing inherently wrong with local government, as such. In fact a strong multi-tiered system of governance is essential for a heterogeneous country like ours.

The problem, however, is with the intent of creating the system in question. In each of these instances, these systems were created, not with the intention to develop a smoothly functioning multi-tiered democracy–but to weaken national and political parties and their leadership and co-opt local influentials to support the General’s controlled democratic experiment.

In this phase, for instance, Ayub Khan (1962-1965) embarked upon an ambitious program to bring grass roots democracy to Pakistan under the guise of the Basic Democrats system. The Basic Democrats–beholdened to the continuity of the Ayub regime–ultimately voted for him in the 1965 elections and strengthened his version of presidential democracy.

General Zia ul Haq (1982-1985/6) held non-party elections for local government followed by provincial and national elections on non-party grounds. The Mujlis-e-Shura thus established helped provide civilian legitimacy to the General’s rule. General Musharraf as well, began with Local Bodies Ordinance and elections followed by provincial and national assembly elections in 2002. The rest, as they say, is history.

Why are these Generals so fond of local body elections? Do they really want to establish genuine democracy in Pakistan or do they really want to create their own cadre of “political loyals”–and in some cases, entire political parties–to provide a cover for their uniforms? This question has been asked several times.

Without questioning the utility of well-functioning multi-tiered democracies–which none of these men actually were able to successfully create–experts are quite unanimous on one thing. These local body elections were carried out to weaken existing political parties and leadership in the country. Some even go to the extent of blaming these for creating systems of local political patronage–the politics and patronage and privilege–that has seriously harmed democracy at the national level.

Another question worth asking at this point is the following: Why do these Generals even find it necessary to create the facade of democracy? Why can’t they simply rule under the Martial Law in perpetuity, like leaders of some other countries have chosen to do for years, even decades? I think the answer to this question lies within ourselves. I believe that the people of Pakistan are inherently a democratic people who would like to make decisions about their affairs for themselves.

True, their hopes to do so are often marred by their political leaders leaving them helpless and disillusioned and also true that they have never really experienced the taste of true democracy but that does little to change their resolve to change their state of affairs. No wonder then that throughout the course of our history, one finds them repeatedly rising up in unison against various military set-ups. 

By the time the General in question is at the mid-point of his rule, the regime is running out of steam. There is hardly a reform agenda left to implement. It is politics as usual, for most part, and while the martial law itself is now gone, the civilian set up has the force of the Khakis behind it. One set of corrupt stakeholders have replaced another set of corrupt stakeholders. It was one set of politicians ( e.g. Mr. Ten Percents) who earlier enriched themselves at the expense of the masses. It is now another set of politicians (e.g. the Chaudharies) and the military generals who have to be given share of the plunder (e.g. in land, jobs, and powerful civilian positions) to keep them satisfied and content under the new regime. The General, as usual, refuses to shed his uniform for he knows that his “artificial” democracy only hangs with the thinnest of the threads. 

It is around this point in time that the first signs of weak leadership and neglect begin to appear within the ranks of the Army itself. The professionalism and morale of the Army is by now beginning to erode. This can take one of the two forms. In the first instance, there is a considerable mixing of civilian and military leaderships at the highest levels.

Civilian politicians get access to and interfere in the affairs of the military that should otherwise be managed by people of professional capability. Bhutto is widely known to have befriended several military generals and almost single-handedly led Pakistan into the 1965 War. He is also known to have used his GHQ connections to play a central role in the 1971 debacle.

Several of the ulema-politicians who had befriended military men during the Zia regime have ultimately come to play havoc with Pakistan’s Kashmir and Afghanistan policy by creating an alternate “uncontrolled” structure of power and influence within the military and its intelligence agencies.

This should never have happened in a smoothly functioning relationship between civil and military leaders for the latter are responsible to the former–as representatives of the people–decisions about military doctrine are best made by professional soldiers and generals and presented to the civilian leaders for approval.

The second of the two ways in which military professionalism is affected is the neglect that takes place because of lack of availability of a full-time chief of staff. Most often, decisions are left pending for the COAS–who is now a full-time President, as well–to look at and sign-off on.

In other instances, people of lower rank and stature ( e.g. CGS) are forced to make decisions that a person of higher rank and exprience ( e.g. COAS) should be making. While there are no independent accounts of the effects of military rule of our armed forces’ effectiveness, primarily because is an area that has never been open to an independent scrutiny in Pakistan.

General K. M. Arif’s in his book, Khaki Shadows, outlines several indicative instances during the Zia regime. He notes, for instances, that important files were left unattended to for several days–even months–while the General, multi-tasking the role of he President, struggled to find time to look at them. He also mentions the fact that annual confidential reports (ACRs) of a large number of officers were procrastinated upon and were left unwritten when Zia perished in the air crash thus causing considerable damage to these officers’ careers. These are merely the tips of the iceberg that an ex-General was able to make public despite the draconian Official Secrets Act in Pakistan.

Ayub can be accused of similar neglect during his own tenure at the helm, especially during the 1965 War when there was a total lack of military leadership at the highest level and Ayub himself was found vacationing in the Northern areas when the war started. Musharraf may be no different.

This is essentially the common–strikingly common–story of the second phase of the tenures of the three military generals that have ruled Pakistan. With their quest for legitimacy found wanting, popular demand for a full-restoration of civilian rule growing, and their own reform agenda running out of steam, things can only go further south from here onwards. This is precisely what happens…

Phase III: Popular Discontent and Disillusionment with the “Artificial” Democracy leads to the Collapse of the Regime  

With the civilian “controlled” democratic experiment in a state of decline, the Generals begin the last of the three phases of their rule. This phase is marked by an intense and growing popular discontent and disillusionment with the “artificial” democracy that is being held together in place with the support and threat of a return to military rule. It is also one where the General has become quite insulated from the pulse of the masses and is increasingly committing blunders–sometimes blunders of immense magnitude ( e.g. Ayub’s celebration of Decade of Development and firing of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Zia’s firing of Mohammad Khan Jonejo as PM, and Musharraf’s recent reference against CJP)—in an attempt to perpetuate his rule.  

For Ayub Khan, this period began immediately in the aftermath of the 1965 War, although his face-off with Fatima Jinnah in the 1965 Elections foretold what was to come. Bhutto–Ayub’s protégé of several years and himself a creation of the Martial Law Regime–capitalized upon and stroked the popular discontent against the Tashkent Declaration signed as the end of the 1965 War. He openly accused Ayub to selling out the country’s interests and challenged him to make the agreement public.

There was already growing disillusionment with Ayub’s Basic Democracies and his Presidential Constitution as well as the effects of his economic and agriculture policies. Bhutto rode on that wave of discontent to transform a bunch of diverse interests into the Pakistan Peoples Party. The general discontent with Ayub’s systems and policies brought him to his knees and he was forced to hand power over to General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan. 

Zia ul Haq’s phase-3 started a short while after his handpicked Prime Minister–a person of little previous independent political standing–took office. Quite soon, the non-party Mujlis-e-Shura began to see emergence of political groupings–if not parties–and the initiative began to shift from Zia’s hands. To make matters worse, the Prime Minister began exercising his own independence and the tussle between the President and the Prime Minister reached a point where the former had to sack the latter.

This was the utter failure of Zia’s “controlled” democracy and the regime was searching for an exit from the quagmire it had put itself in. Fortunately, help came from the least expected of the sources and Zia was relieved of the pain and misery of having to re-create, virtually from scratch, his system of governance and a coalition to help him rule for whatever duration he deemed it necessary to rule. 

All through this duration, the slogan of Islamization was used–perhaps abused–to keep the people in check and to provide just enough stake to them in the system to discourage them from rebelling against the system. After all, when all else fails, one can always ask for more time to implement the vision of Islamization. Who in his right mind would rebel against a self-proclaimed Ameer-ul-Momineen whose only purpose in office is to create a true Islamic state?

Musharraf’s rule in its third and final phase has been no different either. Having experienced strong challenges to his “controlled” democracy right from the first day, he has barely managed to survive by holding onto one piece of support after another and by bending one rule after another. The first test of his democracy was the selection of a handpicked Prime Minister who would not find it in himself to challenge the General. This was achieved by bringing poor Jamali into office only to be unceremoniously dismissed a while later.

The second test was to actually have his Presidency endorsed by the sitting assemblies and to have constitutional cover for the Legal Framework Order (LFO) without which the President did not have much power to begin with. This was achieved by having the religious parties alliance–the Muttahida Mujlis-e-Amal–endorse him and provide constitutional cover in exchange for a “promise” to shed of his uniform by December of 2005. The Constitution of Pakistan today–of which the LFO (2005) is unfortunately a part–says that in clear terms. That promise was conveniently forgotten.  

The General, not unlike his predecessors, now wants the nation to give him a chance to fight extremism in our society. Were the last six years since September 11th not enough to eradicate extremism in our society or was it then not in the personal interests of the General to completely eradicate it for that would have meant that he no longer remained a necessary tool for the American Empire? Indeed, we here the phrase of “enlightened moderation” in much the same way today as we used to hear “Islamization” under his predecessor and yet both of these phrases are as farce as the individuals they represent.   

Amidst this renewed attempt to buy time for “enlightened moderation” began the year 2007–a year that has only seen his popularity and grip on power wax and wane. The Lal Masjid episode, eroding support for his policies in America, the reference against CJP, the upcoming parliamentary elections, and the constitutionality of his own attempt to seek a second term in office without shedding his uniform–political crises, one after the other, have beset his term in office. With the ongoing wheeling and dealing, should General Musharraf be able to continue his rule at the top–with or without uniform–it can only come at the expense of the country’s future itself.

There is also talk of imposing emergency to get around the upcoming elections and sub-due a rejuvenated judiciary and there is talk of another Martial Law to completely take the country back to October 1999. 

Should the former happen, it would still be difficult for Musharraf to stay in power, given the popular sentiment on the ground now. Should the latter happen, Musharraf would go down in history as the first and perhaps only General to have done it twice–although some may argue that technically Ayub will share that honor with him. 

In either case, though, it is yet another chapter in a sordid tale that represents a general pattern of failure repeated at least three times over during 33 years of Pakistan’s history. Repeatedly, Generals–Ayub, Yahya, Zia, and Musharraf–have proven themselves incapable to rule over a people that may have erred in asserting their rights at the right moments in their history but are acutely aware of them.

If military dictatorship was to be the best thing that ever happened to Pakistan since sliced bread, it would have worked by now. It has failed on each one of the three (or four) occasions that it was put into practice in this country. If military dictatorship had been this nation’s destiny, as it is sometimes argued, it would have happily embraced it and not repelled it.  

But is not our destiny and it probably never will be. The army–both its men and leadership–has repeatedly shown its willingness and desire to distance itself from the actions of its sole-leader. Each time a general grabs power, and forces the army into political corridors, the latter, to its credit, is willing to play only so far. This happened not only during the events leading up to Ayub’s and Yahya’s resignation but also on several minor occasions as well ( e.g. army’s refusal to fire at PNA protestors under Zia’s leadership during Bhutto’s premiership).

For sixty years, Pakistan and its political institutions are suffering from a disease–a political cancer of sorts–whose causes include, in that order, its inept and selfish political leaders, its adventurous military generals, its bureaucrats, technocrats, and intelligentsia who seem to benefit from and share in the spoils of this political (dis)order, and its poor people–oppressed as they may be–who refuse to take responsibility for their own destiny and assert their rights to its riches.

This cancer is silently eating away on the body of this nation. The patient is dying a slow but sure death. The only thing that a period of military rule, like we’ve seen on several occasions in the past, achieves is that it delays the inevitable. It provides the patient with a drip and a booster shot of some energy that creates an artificial impression that things are getting better but, that too, only for a while. When the signs of this booster shot wear off, however, we’re left with a patient that is weaker, sicker, and nearer to its death than it was before the military intervention was administered for not only is the booster shot only an artificial and temporary remedy, it also results in considerable waste of time–years, sometimes a decade–that could have been spent curing the cancer in the first place.

The death will surely come unless we, Pakistanis, learn to differentiate between treatment and life-support and make a resolve that we will treat this patient rather than leave it to die on a life-support system that is only meant to delay the inevitable. Saving this patient will require every ounce of energy and will power in our body and the best team of doctors that we can assemble but that’s the only sane thing to do at this moment–at any moment. Indeed, nobody would willingly choose treatment over life-support. The choice is ours, so can be the future.  (concluded)

• Democracy , Yahya Khan , General Musharraf , 2007 , Ayub Khan , Zia ul Haq , Military