Wardi Special: A History of Failure - The Rise and Fall of the Military “Experiment” in Pakistan
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. Continue Reading »
Unfortunately most of our history, particularly that relating to the conduct of military operations, remains shrouded in mystery, since none of the actual details is made public. Consequently, even those like myself who possess some knowledge of the actual events need to piece these together with educated speculations to fill in the gaps. Today, 40 years after this war, the true story remains untold.
Today, over a hundred and fifty million Pakistanis celebrate the 42nd Defense of Pakistan Day. It was 6th of September 1965 when Pakistan’s armed forces faced off against India’s in the first full-scale war between the two countries. Much to the credit of the brave men (and women) in uniform that day–and for next 2-3 weeks following that–the enemy attack on the City of Lahore was repulsed and the General J. N. Chaudhary’s dream of having his drink at Lahore Gymkhana on the evening of September the 6th was squashed.
The origins of the 1965 War between Pakistan and India, its conduct over the course of several weeks, and its consequences are quite complex for one to be able to do justice with it. Add on top of that the fact that countries engage in one-upmanship to try to make exaggerated accusations of who started the war and claims of victory after it ends, primarily in order to manage “public opinion” at home, and it really gets very difficult and tricky. One additional unfortunate factor in lack of quality reporting on the 1965 War was the attempt by Pakistani leadership—both military and civilian—to attempt to destroy the evidence of the circumstances that actually led to this war. General K. M. Arif, in his biography “Khaki Shadows: Pakistan 1947-97” for instance writes that in the immediate aftermath of the 1965 War:
By: Athar Osama
The Indian army launched a three-pronged attack across a 50-mile wide front towards Lahore at 0530 hours on September 6, 1965. The Indian XI Corps, comprising the 7th and 15th Infantry Divisions and the 4th Mountain Division mounted the attack. Within a couple of days, the Indian army launched a full-scale attack with its 1st Corps directed towards Sialkot, in between Lahore and Kashmir.
In the last episode of this series, we looked at Pakistan under Ayub Khan’s “Presidential” Democracy during the second part (1962-65) of his three-part 11-year tenure at the helm of the affairs. Prior to that, we had also looked the early-years of the Martial Law regime that, owing to the intensity of its policy activism, saw some dramatic changes in a whole array of policy domains. In this episode we dig deeper into two key areas policy change in Ayub Era, namely, economic and foreign policy.
In the last episode, we looked at the first four years of Ayub Khan Martial Law in Pakistan. This period, as the write up indicated, was marked with tremendous amount of progress, policy activism, and legislation on a number of different fronts. Philip E. Jones, in his doctoral dissertation titled “Pakistan People’s Party: Rise to Power”, notes that Ayub’s martial law regime evolved its policies around three main objectives:
make them appear incompetent or remove them from power, if necessary. The story of the second part of the first decade of governance in Pakistan (1952-58) can hardly be termed as democracy in the same way as it is often conceived in the western world or even practiced at that very time in neighboring India.
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