The New Neutrality of Pakistan's Army

Basil Nabi Malik in The Dawn

I HAVE been closely following the extremely insightful commentary and discourse on the no-confidence motion and the legalities that surround it. I have read riveting articles on Article 63A of the Constitution of Pakistan, which offer ‘bendy’ and creative interpretations that could put a gymnast to shame. I have also witnessed a titillating discussion on the voting timeline for the no-confidence motion, a discussion that has seen so many permutations and combinations that any mathematician could die proud.

I have read about how Prime Minister Imran Khan’s days are numbered, how his political career has ended, how autocracy has been defeated and how the joint opposition has delivered a master stroke. One side is telling me that democracy is in danger, whilst the other is celebrating democracy’s triumph. One side condemns the opposition as being part of an international conspiracy, and the other targets the government, accusing it of working on a Jewish agenda.

Be that as it may, in this polarised debate on the no-confidence motion, Imran Khan’s political future and the opposition’s democratic credentials, it is safe to say that we are losing the plot so to speak, or in other terms, losing sight of the real questions that deserve attention. What questions, you may ask. Well, for starters, what has suddenly changed that has resulted in the current state of ‘no-confidence’? Is this parliament’s final act of expressing no confidence in Imran Khan’s leadership, or does this lack of confidence in him stem from somewhere else? Even otherwise, are these events cause for celebration?

Let us not forget that Imran Khan had been making blunders from the very beginning, the opposition has been trying to oust him virtually from his first day in office, and the credibility of the defectors was never really beyond reproach — in other words, their loyalties were always questionable. And yet, he was going nowhere. So why is he going now?

Many say it is because of the establishment’s ‘neutrality’. Neutrality implies a lack of alliance with any particular side or a lack of preference for any one over another. It is always good for institutions to be considered neutral and to act as such as well. But a painstaking and consistent attempt to ensure one’s neutrality, along with efforts to emphasise it at every stage, also indicates something else.

It alludes to the fact that the new-found position of neutrality is exactly that: new-found. It appears in negation to the erstwhile policy of non-neutrality or, at the very least, the tolerance of partiality. Obviously, if I proclaim to be neutral today, it would be reasonable for someone to think, rightly or wrongly, that I am shifting away from a partisan position to an indifferent one. After all, if I were neutral from the beginning, why would I have to announce it every now and then?

Secondly, neutrality today does not mean there will be neutrality tomorrow. It may simply mean that in the totality of circumstances, in the prevailing situation of the country, it is better to stay aloof and do one’s job as opposed to getting caught up in the quagmire of political intrigue. But that ‘could’ change. For that matter, at some point in time, it may be felt that that ‘needs’ to change. In essence, this may simply be a temporary phase and not a ‘forever’ decision.

And there is reason to suspect that things are not actually turning a corner, but rather, coming full circle. Nothing has really changed since the last intervention. Our economy is still in the dumps, our currency is still losing value, no large-scale reforms have taken place, our politicians are still considered corrupt and incompetent, justice is still a pipe dream, our masses are still deprived of basic education and sustenance, and the power structures are still skewed in favour of the unelected and against the elected.

The game of musical chairs continues, our prime ministers continue to not complete their terms, our judiciary appears divided, our debts continue to soar, our internal divisions continue to increase, and our disdain and lack of respect for the role of our past in changing our future is palpable to the point of being disheartening. The puppets cheer for the new champions of democracy today and shall support their replacements tomorrow. In fact, they’d even cheer for the puppets who will eventually replace them. Sadly, it’s more of the same. We just fail to see it, again and again and again.

We seem to relish deluding ourselves and continue to live in the theatre of the absurd, where we do the same things over and over again and expect different results. Albert Einstein called this insanity, but we in Pakistan call it a ‘revolution’, or in some circles, the ‘presidential system’. You may chuckle or grimace on reading this, depending on your worldview, but sadly, there is truth to it.

Be that as it may, we should all hope for a better tomorrow when we actually awaken from our slumber and own up to our absurdities. A slumber so deep that we can’t even see how we are killing this country and its people with our own petty version of the game of thrones, and absurdities so absurd that even national interest now appears to be a national joke.

Let’s hope that when such a time comes, when we finally wake up and pledge to improve, when the clouds part miraculously and the sun shines down without a care in the world, we are willing and ready to seek the treatment we need to get better, get sane, and not, for heaven’s sake, to get even.

An 'extraordinary' situation in Pakistan

 

Poisoned Chalice

by Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

Nawaz Sharif is reportedly at death’s door. He has been treated in a most inhumane and callous manner while in custody. This is a thrice-elected prime minister who voluntarily returned from London and went to prison. This is a man who was kept in jail while his wife was dying in London. This is a man who has been convicted by the Supreme Court on the thread of a loose definition of “assets” in an unauthorized reference dictionary in the prejudicial context of “Sicilian Mafia”. This is a man who has been convicted by a judge who was blackmailed to get his conviction. This is a man who has resolutely resisted the various offerings of the Establishment to leave Pakistan and quit politics. His crime: he ran afoul of the Establishment by mistaking the elected office of prime minister for the font of power in Pakistan. Worse, he refused to learn and repent.

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Popular opinion holds that Imran Khan is personally responsible for Nawaz Sharif’s deteriorating health. His government has tightened the screws by withdrawing all manner of decent prison and medical facilities befitting an ex-prime minister. Yet when a reporter recently confronted Mr Khan with this perception, “he threw his arms up with a bewildered look on his face: ‘Am I the doctor? Am I the court’?” The reporter added that shortly thereafter Mr Khan called up the Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and ordered him to arrange a meeting between Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Mariam. A day earlier, Mariam’s request for such a meeting had been denied by a NAB accountability court. Clearly, Mr Khan has answered his own questions.

Mr Khan also told reporters that there was a “foreign hand” behind Maulana Fazal ur Rahman’s long march and dharna. Incredibly enough, he pointed a finger at India! If he had hinted at another foreign power with which the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam and its leader has had traditional religious relations, he might have been less incredible. But how could he have summoned up the courage to bite the hand that feeds him?

The Maulana is still talking tough. But suspicions have arisen about his aims and objectives. It has been reported that he met Establishment Big Wigs recently and was told flatly that there would be no minus-Imran solution and that there might be other “minuses” amongst politicians. Curiously, opposition party activists are being arrested daily even as Mr Khan has belatedly allowed the dharma to proceed to Islamabad. The Establishment has reportedly told the Maulana that his dharna should be short and peaceful, otherwise it would do its “constitutional duty” to protect the “lawful” government. This is in sharp contrast to what it did during Mr Khan’s long drawn out dharna.
The fate of Nawaz Sharif hangs in the balance. Some “connected” journalists are claiming that both father and daughter will be allowed to go to London without an NRO because Nawaz is precariously ill and the Establishment doesn’t want his blood on their hands – they are still reaping the political backlash from the assassinations of two Bhuttos. The popular mood in the Punjab – the recruiting ground and bulwark of the Establishment – has palpably turned against it. This is unprecedented.

We – people and institutions – are all drinking from a poisoned chalice. Imran Khan is guzzling from the poisoned chalice of a rigged election. The people are choking on the poisoned chalice of the IMF. The opposition parties and leaders are swallowing from the poisoned chalice of their corruptions and commissions. The Establishment is gulping from the poisoned chalice of its regional adventures and internal interventions. The judiciary is swigging from the poisoned chalice of its great betrayal of the lawyers’ movement.

This need not have been the case. Only six years ago, we witnessed a peaceful transfer of power, the second consecutive handing over of the baton from one elected government to the next. The judiciary gave hope with its newly grown spine courtesy the successful lawyers’ movement. The media, though raucous, was reverberating with the din of democracy. Nawaz Sharif’s government was making regional alliances and reaching out to neighbours. The 18th Amendment had devolved power to the provinces, fulfilling a long-standing demand of Pakistan’s alienated ethnic populations. This was in the natural order of things: the system growing, changing, adapting, on the road to cleansing itself.

But these very changes threatened to whittle down the power of Pakistan’s deep state. The latter’s response was concerted and fierce. We all know what happened thereafter but it is deeply ironical that we are once again desperate for the reprieves that were all within grasp only a few years ago – peace at home and goodwill abroad, relief from international punitive actions, a buoyant economy, a developing democracy worthy of respect. We cannot upturn the natural order of things and expect to come up trumps again and again. Our chalices will remain poisoned until we purge ourselves.

Pakistan, Waziristan.- the descent continues

Hope Vs Reason

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

The economy is in tatters, inflation and joblessness are stalking the landscape. Both western and eastern borders are insecure – a civil war is threatening to spill over one border while an invigorated predator is sizing up its prey on the other. Terrorism/insurgency in Balochistan is barely manageable even as another threatens to shatter the newfound peace of FATA. Hounded to the wall, the mainstream opposition is inching towards mass agitation. Yet the PTI government of the day – hanging by an arrogant and unaccountable puppeteer’s thread — is bent upon imprisoning popularly elected leaders of Sindh, Punjab and FATA, blackmailing the NAB Chairman to do its bidding, prosecuting an honourable judge who dares question the writ of the puppeteer, extinguishing a rising star from lighting the path of the opposition and gagging the media from speaking the truth. Under the circumstances, can we shut our minds to reason and hope that all will be well? Or will defiance trump logic and set things right?

The Afghan Taliban are not likely to concede core American demands. In time, the Americans will blame Pakistan for not doing more to bail them out. President Trump has already teamed up with PM Modi to contain, if not confront, Pakistan’s lifeline ally China. Before long, both will turn the screws on Pakistan, the former via the US Treasury’s manipulation of the IMF and FATF and the latter by priming its “offensive-defense” proxy war doctrine. This will transpire when the ruling Puppeteer–PTI clique stands totally alienated and isolated from most sections of state and society.

The confrontation in FATA between the “patriotic” army and “treasonous” populace may get worse. Both sides have wantonly crossed red lines. In the heat of the moment, the protestors tried to overrun a security check post. The army shot and killed several of them. Next time, the protesting crowds will be bigger. If a new insurgency is born, it will doubtless be aided and abetted on a bigger scale by hostile neighbours.

The NAB chairman was spoiling to be hoist on his own petard. But the PTI exploited his weakness to advance its anti-opposition agenda. Now, if he throws in the towel and the government is successful in empowering its hand-picked Deputy Chairman, then there will be more confrontation, more repression, more political instability, more economic chaos. It is remarkable, isn’t it, that the media managers of the government, in cahoots with a civilian intel agency, should have successfully staged such a coup? No wonder, the government is adamant in denying a proper investigation into L’Affaire Chairman!

The decision to target a Supreme Court judge and teach a suitable lesson to other wayward judges was expected. The good judge had dared to tick off the Intel Agencies and seemed inclined to read out the “democracy” sections of the constitution to them. Horror of horrors, he was also lined up in due course to rule as the chief justice of Pakistan for many years. Confronted by leaked reports of a Presidential Reference to the Supreme Judicial Council to defame him, he has demanded to know the veracity of the reports. The Additional Attorney General in Karachi has resigned in protest. If other judges don’t resist such machinations, the peoples’ struggle for an independent judiciary will be lost. Certainly, there is at least one other judge who may be on the hit-list for ruffling the untouchable feathers of certain VIP housing societies across the country.

Next in line is the Election Commission of Pakistan. Having advisedly taken a soft look at the shenanigans of the Prime Minister, it is now being pressured to take a hard stance against Mariam Nawaz Sharif. If it does the government’s bidding, it will join the queue of discredited state institutions that are paving the way for societal anarchy and states of siege.

The worrying future is already upon Pakistan. The US is gearing up India and others to confront and contain China in the Asia-Pacific and Asia-West region. China’s Road and Belt project, in general, and CPEC, in particular, will be targeted. It is also engaged, along with Saudi Arabia, UAE and others in trying to force regime change in Iran as a prelude to redrawing the map of the Middle-East. This makes Pakistan’s third southern border vulnerable. It also threatens to open deep sectarian divisions within the country.

Wiser counsel would surely advise a contrary path. A national all-parties government headed by a stolid prime minister who can disarm domestic critics, build trust with prickly neighbours, manage the economy dispassionately and herald certainty and stability would do Pakistan much good. Such a dispensation would heal the wounds between provinces, between state institutions, between political parties, between classes and ethnicities, between Pakistan and its neighbours while pulling the economy out of its current trough. A nation united and at peace with itself is bound to be a nation united and at peace with the rest of the world. More than anything else that is the need of the hour.

Will hope be rekindled at the altar of realism? Or will despair be our lot when reason is sacrificed?

Najam Sethi on Pakistan Military's Truths

 Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

The world according to Al Bakistan


In a wide ranging and far reaching “briefing”, Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor, DG-ISPR, has laid down the grundnorm of state realism. But consider.

He says there is no organized terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. True, the military has knocked out Al Qaeda/Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and degraded the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. But a question mark still hangs over the fate of our “freedom fighter” jihadi organisations which are deemed to be “terrorist” by the international community. That is why Pakistan is struggling to remain off the FATF black list. The Maj-Gen says Pakistan has paid a huge price in the martyrdom of 81,000 citizens in the war against terror. True, but the world couldn’t care less: these homegrown terrorists were the outcome of our own misguided policies. He says that “radicalization” took root in Pakistan due to the Afghan jihad. True, but we were more than willing partners in that project. He says that terrorism came to Pakistan after the international community intervened in Afghanistan. True, but we provided safe haven to the Taliban for nearly twenty years and allowed them to germinate in our womb. He says it was decided last January to “mainstream” proscribed organisations. True, but what took us so long to tackle a troubling problem for twenty years when we were not busy in “kinetic operations”?

Maj-Gen Ghafoor says madrassahs will be mainstreamed under the Education Ministry. A noble thought. However, far from being mainstreamed, the madrassahs have so far refused to even get themselves properly registered as per the National Action Plan. Now the Punjab government and religious parties have refused to comply. Indeed, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is actively funding some big ones which have provided the backbone of the terrorists.

But it is Maj-Gen Ghafoor’s briefing on the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) that has generated the most controversy. He says the military has responded positively to its demand to de-mine FATA and reduce check posts but is constrained by lack of civil administration in the area and resurfacing of terrorists from across the border. Fair enough. But most of the “disappeared” are still “disappeared” and extra-judicial killings, like those of Naqeebullah Mehsud, are not being investigated. He wants to know why the PTM asked the Afghan government not to hand over the body of Dawar to the Pakistan government. He has accused PTM of receiving funds from hostile intel agencies. If that is proven it would be a damning indictment of PTM.

The PTM has responded by accusing the military of being unaccountable and repressive, a view that is echoed by many rights groups, media and political parties across the country.

In response, Major General Ghafoor has threatened: “Time is up”. Presumably, the military wants to detain and charge some PTM leaders as “traitors”. That would be most inadvisable. It will only serve to swell the PTM ranks. It may even precipitate an armed resistance, given the propensity of foreign intel agencies to fish in troubled waters. We also know how the various “traitors” in Pakistani history have ended up acquiring heroic proportions while “state realism” dictated otherwise. The list is long and impressive: Fatima Jinnah, Hussein Shaheed Suharwardi, Mujeebur Rahman, G.M. Syed, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Khair Bux Marri, Ataullah Mengal, Akbar Bugti, etc. etc. We also know the fate of “banned” organisations – they simply reappear under another name.

The PTM has arisen because of the trials and tribulations of the tribal areas in the last decade of terrorism. The Pashtun populace has been caught in the crossfire of insurgency and counter insurgency. The insurgents were once state assets with whom the populace was expected to cooperate. Those who didn’t suffered at the hands of both. But when these “assets” became “liabilities”, those who didn’t cooperate with the one were targeted by the other. In consequence, from racial profiling to disappearances, a whole generation of tribal Pashtuns is scarred by state policies. The PTM is voicing that protest. If neighbouring foreign intel agencies are exploiting their sentiments, it is to be expected as a “realistic” quid pro quo for what Pakistani intel agencies have been serving its neighbours in the past.

If the Pakistani Miltablishment has been compelled by the force of new circumstances to undo its own old misguided policies, it should at least recognize the legitimate grievances of those who have paid the price of its miscalculations and apply balm to their wounds. Every other household in FATA is adversely affected one way or the other by the “war against terrorism”. The PTM is their voice. It needs to be heard. The media should be allowed to cross-examine it. In turn, the PTM must be wary of being tainted by the “foreign hand” and stop abusing the army.

The civilian government and opposition in parliament should sit down with the leaders of the PTM and find an honourable and equitable way to address mutually legitimate and “realistic” concerns. The military’s self-righteous, authoritarian tone must give way to a caring and sympathetic approach. Time’s not up. It has just arrived.

The spectre of partition haunts India and Pakistan

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times







As the month of December inches forward to herald a new year, we might pause to reflect on some issues that continue to pose existential problems for us as a nation.

The Federal Censor Board has not yet cleared a film on the life of famed writer Saadat Hasan Manto by Nandita Das, a renowned peace activist and producer/director in India. Apparently, the Censor Board is concerned about how some aspects of the “Partition” are depicted in the film. The sad ironies in this matter should not be missed. In India, too, the film was not selected for screening in an International Film Festival in Mumbai, despite being shown at the Film Festivals in Cannes and Toronto, because of sensitivities about “Partition”. Apparently, if Indians are inclined to object when Hindus are shown to rape and slaughter Muslims, Pakistanis are wont to protest when Muslims are depicted in much the same communal light. The bigger irony is that in both countries, Manto is celebrated by the writers and artists of the subcontinent as a great short story writer whose humanity soared above communal or ideological motives because he situated it in the agony, rage and sadness of both sides of the divide during the months leading to the “Partition”. The biggest irony is that Manto was persecuted and prosecuted for the same original sin in the “Purana Pakistan” of the 1950s for which he is posthumously paying the price in “Naya Pakistan”, despite being honoured with a Nishan-e-Imtiaz by the PPP government in 2012. It seems that, seventy years later, both countries are still trapped in the trauma of the “Partition” and constantly seek ways and means to reinforce its memory in our new generations instead of “moving on” to create fresh spaces for mutual welfare and growth.

Pakistan was itself “partitioned” in December 1971 with the bloody birth of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, most Pakistani writing on the subject is still focused on the role of India in the military debacle instead of the role of its own Punjabi civil-military oligarchy in creating the economic and political conditions that led to the acute alienation of East Pakistani Bengalis. In India, the same moment is rung up as an occasion to savour the Pakistani army’s “humiliating” surrender while in Dhaka it is time again to fuel rage against Pakistan for the “genocide” in 1971 and demand an “apology” and “reparations” for it. The collective hostile imagination of the “Partition” continues to sour the quest for peace in South Asia.

Tragically, however, Pakistan continues to be the most adversely affected country by the consequences of the original Partition. Its attempt to seize Kashmir from India – to redress a gross inequity of the division – by force shortly after independence sowed the seeds of a continuing confrontation that has crippled us politically, economically and socially. Enveloped in anxiety, fear and rage, we have ended up creating a “national-security state” that has, in the name of supreme national interest, trampled on civil freedoms, curtailed provincial autonomies, manufactured violent non-state actors, thwarted political leaders, fashioned parties, engineered anti-democratic political systems and dissembled “political Islam” as a legitimizing force for itself. This state continues to hog the budget and restricts regional development connectivity for “security” reasons. It constantly straitjackets the space for cultural freedom and social advancement. In short, it has stalled the development of a vibrant, pluralistic society at peace with itself and with the rest of the world.

The Taliban attack on the Army Public School in December 2014 in which over 149 children were martyred is another grim reminder of some of the painful consequences of the path taken by our national security state. The Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani offshoot are a direct consequence of our regional security policies centered on the “threat” from India. While the Afghans were given safe havens, the Pakistani Taliban were mollycoddled with one peace deal after another even as they were attacking girls’ schools and assassinating civilians with impunity. It is only after they attacked the APS that the national security state finally girded up its loins to go after them with a vengeance. Those who fled to Afghanistan have now become proxies against Pakistan in the new great game unfolding in the region.

This December we also should also expect a final denouement against the two mainstream parties of the country for whom most Pakistanis voted in the last elections. The PMLN leaders, Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, are already shackled, and more troubles are in store for the PPP’s leader Asif Ali Zardari. To be sure, both parties and leaders are partly responsible for their tribulations. Each governed callously in turns. Each joined hands with the Miltablishment to undermine the other and erode the credibility of the democratic system. Now they are lined up to pay for their sins.

Unfortunately, however, the most enduring legacy of the Partition, the national security state, that has re-engineered the political system yet again, has put all its eggs in Imran Khan’s basket. But he is fumbling and stumbling, leaving us wondering about our options in case he drops the ball.

Imran Khan - The first 100 days

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times






Prime Minister Imran Khan is being hauled over the coals for failing to match words with deeds in his first 100 days in office. Indeed, he has made a laughing stock of himself by justifying 19 controversial decisions and 35 U-Turns so far as tactical policy befitting “great leaders” like Hitler and Napoleon. Since he wittingly proposed the 100-day yardstick to measure his government’s performance, he has only himself to blame for this media onslaught.

The most urgent item on PM Imran Khan’s agenda is related to the crisis in the economy manifested by a yawning gap in the balance of payments, falling forex reserves and a plummeting rupee. As opposition leader, he had thundered endlessly against crawling to the IMF or foreign countries for financial bailouts. Instead, he had pinned his hopes on billions in donations from overseas Pakistanis and tens of billions from unearthing black money stashed abroad. The problem arose when, after assuming office, he persisted in his delusionary approach, and the situation went from bad to worse. When his finance minister, Asad Umar, dared to baulk, he was forced to eat his words. It was only when the army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, “launched” himself purposefully that Imran Khan reluctantly packed his achkan, dragged himself off to Saudi Arabia and China with bowl in hand, and Asad Umar sat down to engage the IMF, both making a bald-faced virtue out of necessity.

But even this belated dawning of “wisdom” has failed to yield the desired results. China is not even ready to reveal the nature of its help. The Saudis have made an insignificant deposit that doesn’t tally with the tall expectations of government. And the IMF delegation has returned to Washington without any commitment, leaving the PM and his FM wringing their hands in despair.

The second item related to the efficient and honest functioning of government. On that score, there is even more confusion and contradiction. Parliament cannot function properly without consensual committees to steer legal reforms and oversee public accounts. But the hounding of the opposition parties at the behest of the interior ministry and civil-military “agencies” directed by Imran Khan himself has log-jammed the core committees. Worse, the PM’s intent to run Punjab from Bani Gala via a weak chief minister in a sea of cunning contenders for power like the Punjab Governor and the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly, has deadlocked the bureaucracy and administration. The rapid postings and transfers of high and low officials at one power broker’s behest or another’s has led to lack of direction and motivation.

The third agenda item is foreign policy. Here, too, the government’s stumbling is embarrassing. When the need of the hour is to keep the American beast at bay so that it doesn’t waylay the IMF on its way to Pakistan or lean on the Saudis to put pressure on us, Imran Khan has tried to win cheap brownie points at home by counter-tweeting President Trump. On the Afghanistan front, the war of words and proxy terrorism continues unabated even as Islamabad vows to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Now Pakistan’s reopening of the Kartarpur corridor to the Sikh shrine of Baba Guru Nanak is being billed as some sort of “peace breakthrough” in Indo-Pak relations. It is nothing of the sort. Like the IMF, China and Saudi Arabia “openings”, this initiative comes courtesy General Bajwa whose bear hug of Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu at Imran Khan’s oath taking ceremony in Islamabad put Indian PM Narendra Modi and Punjab state CM Amarinder Singh in a tight corner. Neither politician’s prospects are too bright in the forthcoming elections in Punjab state next year. Therefore, they have reluctantly yielded to the Pakistani proposal only to curry favour with tens of millions of devout Sikhs. It is a tactical and short term concession as the hard, anti-Pakistan statements from Amarinder Singh and the Indian FM Sushma Swaraj, coupled with PM Modi’s refusal to attend the SAARC summit for the third year running, prove. Indeed, even as the Kartarpur protocol was being signed, proxy terrorists were taking a toll at the Chinese Consulate in Karachi, SP Tahir Dawar’s murdered body was being handed over to the Pak authorities at the Afghan border, suicide bombers were striking in the lower Orakzai Agency and India’s brutal repression in Held Kashmir showed no sign of abating.

On the Pakistan side, too, General Bajwa’s initiative is tactical, aimed only at reducing current Indian hostility – in the form of armed conflict along the LoC and proxy terrorism across the country – that destabilizes Pakistan and makes Imran Khan’s job of focusing on government difficult. This is the same Miltablishment that winked at the Labaiq Ya Rasul Allah during Nawaz Sharif’s time and crushed it in Imran Khan’s, the same that kicked Nawaz out for wanting to promote peace with India and is propping up Imran now at Kartarpur.

The Miltablishment has put all its eggs in Imran Khan’s basket. It will take more than 100 days of incompetence to shake its faith in their chosen man.

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Bombs or Bread?

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times 16 Nov 2018









As we all know, the civil-military relationship in Nawaz Sharif’s time was severely strained. Among the factors often cited are Mr Sharif’s dogged pursuit of ex-army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, for the treasonable coup of 1999; his rush to “befriend” the hawkish Indian PM, Narendra Modi, without clearing the tactics and strategy with the Miltablishment; the “misuse” of the Pakistan-based jihadis in the proxy war with India, that led to the altercation reported in “Dawnleaks”; and Mr Sharif’s refusal to give the Miltablishment a seat at the roundtable determining CPEC projects and contracts.

But in a recent TV interview, Ishaq Dar, the ex-PMLN Finance Minister, has made a startling admission. He alluded to the issue of increasing defense budgets as the most significant area of conflict between the PMLN government and the Miltablishment. It appears that the Miltablishment wanted “more” money for new weapons systems because of the rising security threat from India but the PMLN government was strapped for funds and declined to do the needful.

The “Defense Budget” remains a sore point with every elected civilian government. At one time, it hovered around 30% of all budgetary expenditures and became grist for critics’ mills. So the Musharraf government cunningly took out military pensions from the Defense Budget and clubbed them with government expenditures, thereby reducing its weight as a percentage of budget expenditures and making it more palatable. When Coalition Fund Support from the US kicked in during the war against terrorism in FATA, it was also toted up outside the ambit of the Defense Budget. It has now become normal practice to post an increase of approximately 10 percent every year over actual expenditures for defense in the preceding year whilst beefing up the defense spending in supplementary budgets during the rest of the year, in effect giving the military much more than a 10% increase. The low levels of budgetary revenue collection and consequent government expenditures have also made defense budgets look overly inflated in percentage terms, especially in relation to India.

The security concerns of the Pak military have increased manifold for three main reasons. First, the aggressive nature of the Modi regime with its constant threat of “strategic strikes” across the LoC and its support of proxy war against Pakistan from non-state actors based in Afghanistan. Second, the perennial threat from its Cold Start Doctrine, now baptized afresh as Pro-Active Operations. Third, India is shopping for advanced weapons systems, the foremost being its proposed purchase of the Russian S-400 Triumf long-range, anti-missile system for over US$5.5 billion which is viewed in Islamabad as a major new threat. Now India has commissioned its first indigenously built nuclear-powered submarine, INS Arihant, armed with a 750km range submarine launched missile fitted with a nuclear warhead. Both these acquisitions are going to compel Pakistan to seek expensive equivalent systems to redress the security imbalance.

In other words, the Pakistan military will want lots more money going forward. The problem is that Pakistan’s economy has been failing and increasingly unable to bear this burden. Therefore, the choice of “bombs or bread” is bound to echo ever more furiously in the corridors of power, leading to renewed strains in civil-military relations and political instability that will in turn hamstring economic development and further strain the budget. When will this vicious circle end to create space for poverty alleviation, education, health, human resource development, etc.?

By definition, a “national security state” like Pakistan with a “permanent” and powerful enemy on its border like India requires a high level of defense preparedness. This is testified by the four wars, countless border skirmishes, and reciprocal proxy-terrorisms between the two in the last 70 years. Ostensibly, the root cause is the unresolved dispute over Kashmir. But we need to ask and answer some pertinent questions here.

How have many countries resolved similar border and territorial disputes in modern times without resorting to wars and proxy-terrorism? Which of the two is the originator of the wars in the subcontinent, regardless of the political provocation by the other? Why has the nuclearisation of the subcontinent spurred the conventional arms race instead of freezing it as originally argued? Who is hurting the most from this arms race, not just in financial terms but also in the cost to representative democracy of an overbearing political-military industrial complex that has created violent non-state actors at home to retain its political hegemony? Why is such a national security state unable to fully exploit Pakistan’s strategic location at the crossroads of three civilisations and markets – South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle-East – instead of replacing the yoke of one declining super power by that of another rising one? Why do we subscribe to the notion of a permanent enemy instead of a permanent peace in the national interest?

The USSR put a man in space and built over 10,000 nuclear bombs but couldn’t put enough bread on its shelves to feed its people. The arms race destroyed it. There are lessons in this for Pakistan.

Good Luck Imran!

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times







The Miltablishment, Judiciary, ECP and Media – “pillars of the state” – are entitled to pat one another on the back for successfully putting Imran Khan in office. Their task became doubly difficult after Nawaz Sharif defied expectations to return to the country and court arrest, triggering sympathy votes in Punjab that threatened to derail their carefully laid plans.

The opposition parties are rightly crying foul. They have demanded the resignation of the CEC and his associates for facilitating the theft of the general elections. The ECP’s explanation about the mysterious breakdown of the RTS system – denied by NADRA which put the system in place and monitored it — and the extraordinary delays in announcing the results hasn’t washed. Nor is it easy to stomach the fact that in many constituencies the lead of the winner is less than the number of rejected votes. The sharp rebuke from the ECP confirms a decidedly partisan sentiment in its ranks.

Clearly, those who thought that unprecedented pre-poll rigging would suffice to get “suitable results” were wrong. A last-minute intervention was necessitated in the dead of night on Election Day when the numbers seemed to be going awry. But that’s not the end of the story.

The “Independents” are now being corralled and branded. Small fry like the GDA, PMLQ, MQM, BAP, TLYRA, etc are being offered “sweetners” while the PPP is being whipped into submission. Asif Zardari, Feryal Talpur,Owais Tappi, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and a clutch of other Zardari cronies and PPP leaders have been read out the Riot Act by NAB and FIA: Cooperate or Else.

Still, it’s going to be a long haul for Imran Khan and Associates. The bare victories in Islamabad and Lahore will be buffeted every day for the next five years. Indeed, the project of putting Imran Khan in office will have to be updated by a project to keep him in office. Amidst this, the core objective of “Tabdeeli” will be very difficult to achieve.

For starters, Imran Khan will need help in assembling his teams in KPK, Punjab and Islamabad so that the core objective is kept firmly in mind. The refusal to appoint Pervez Khattak as CM of KPK suggests that the Miltablishment will retain veto power over critical appointments. The buzzwords in these quarters are “Neat, Clean and Obedient”. But a contradiction between means and ends is already palpable. The PTI has been stuffed with dirty “lotas” and traditional, status quo “electables” to bring Imran into office and keep him there by a carrot-and-stick policy. But “Tabdeeli” requires motivated ideologues to sacrifice self-interest and support hard decisions. The current intraparty spat over the CMships of KPK and Balochistan, or the resistance faced by Not-so-Neat-And-Clean Aleem Khan, or the visible power struggle between Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen for the coveted CMship of Punjab, is just the tip of the iceberg. The notion of public service or duty – central to the requirement of “Tabdeeli” — is alien to these folks.

The celebratory fireworks on the day Imran Khan is sworn in as Prime Minister will be followed by a different display of fire power. The Miltablishment, which has been tarred in the public imagination by its blunt political intrusions of late, may withdraw behind the curtain and let the “elected” government take responsibility for its actions. That would give the media and judiciary scope to redress their failing credibility by taking the government to task. Indeed, neither pillar of the state can afford to be pro-government for its own sake – the media for its commercial interests and the judiciary for its independence from the executive. This is bound to put several spanners in the works.

As if this isn’t enough, the job of putting the economy on track will provoke howls of protest from the very classes that have voted for Imran Khan. Currency depreciation will fuel inflation. Reduction in budgetary deficits will curtail public expenditures, consumer demand and employment. Plugging the balance of payments gap by curtailing imports and capital transfers will restrict commercial activity (SBP has already banned imports on open account save for essential raw materials). Increasing tax rates will be unpopular. Provincial bureaucracies and politicians will fight tooth and nail over any attempt to reverse the last NFC Award that flushed them with money, no less than any attempt to devolve power and funds to local governments, which are the preferred nurseries of the Miltablishment for nurturing “neat and clean and obedient” politicians.

The Miltablishment will also expect Imran Khan to exploit his “star” status to manage foreign policy productively. But it would be naïve to expect the two key players that impinge on us, India and the US, to overnight repose trust in him so long as he remains a proxy. The problem is that if Khan tries to cut loose from his key benefactor in pursuit of his own vision, he will feel the heat just like Nawaz Sharif did.

Good luck to Imran Khan!

On Imran Khan's Rigged Victory

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Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

Before the elections, every political party (except PTI), every foreign newspaper and every independent journalist had concluded that The Aliens, Khalai Makhluk, Agriculture Department, Miltablishment, Whatever, had conclusively pre-rigged the elections in an unprecedented manner. A day after the elections, every political party (except PTI), every foreign newspaper and every independent journalist has confirmed the finding. Before the elections, the Miltablishment, Supreme Court and Media were on trial. After the elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan has joined them in the dock.

The ECP claims that “the Remote Transmission System (RTS) broke down, hence the announcement of results was delayed by a few hours.” Was the RTS deliberately glitched because the Agriculture Department panicked when the opposition began to weigh in and something had to be done to get things back on track? Even if it was an unforeseen breakdown, this does not explain why the polling agents were kicked out while the votes were being tabulated or why such lengthy delays ensued.

In the next year or so, we should expect scores of petitions to be filed wherever the margin of PTI’s victory is less than 10,000 or thereabouts. Thousands of bags will be opened and hundreds of thousands of ballots recounted and thumbprints matched. Thousands of Form 45 will be scrutinized. But none of this huffing and puffing will bring Imran Khan’s house down because he is protected and propped up by the Miltablishment.

Imran Khan will be Prime Minister, he will choose the next President of Pakistan and the PTI will rule in Islamabad, KP and possibly even in Punjab while mounting stiff opposition to the PPP in Sindh. Why was such a sweeping victory required of it? What should we expect in the new Pakistan?

To be fair, Imran Khan cannot be denied his fair share of the voter, especially among the new youth, urbanising white-collar middle-class and rich. His prospects became brighter after he started to enroll “electables” regardless of the colour of their money or character. Equally, the PMLN, whatever its self-righteous claims or principles, was well and truly on a suicidal path. But electoral engineering on such a large scale was still necessary to provide legitimacy for a constitutional and political overhaul. What’s on the cards?

A State of Emergency could be imposed under the garb of financial necessity pinned to the alleged misdeeds of the previous regimes. The numbers in parliament will not be too difficult to get. Such an Emergency would restrict fundamental rights and pave the way for a witch hunt of political and media opponents in order to satisfy the bloodlust of the winners (IK has said he won’t do that), protect them from any potential buffeting by a disgruntled opposition and detract criticism from unpopular policy decisions or incompetent and corrupt mismanagement. If that happens, we should expect NAB, FIA, FBR and IB to get hyper active after all state institutions are brought on the same page.

The constitution may also be targeted for amendment. The 18th Amendment, for starters, has become irksome because it shaves the federal pool — which is required to pay for increasing defense expenditures and pensions— by devolving financial resources to the provinces. A need may also be felt to reduce the size and strength of Punjab in the scheme of things, especially since the development of a critical fissure in the historical pro-Miltablishment character of the province. Plans remain on the anvil to carve it up into three or more “units” that are politically more “manageable”.

But the “new dream team” that is lining up to run the “new Pakistan” will not find it easy going. The economy needs more than a shot in the arm. Hard times are upon us and the very middle-classes and rich that have catapulted Imran Khan to office will have to pay the price of their convictions. The value of their rupee is going to fall, so their everyday needs will become expensive; they will have to pay more indirect taxes and duties; and IMF structural reforms will dampen infrastructural growth and employment. This will give grist to the opposition, media and judiciary to stand up and create hurdles in his path.

Admittedly, the Miltablishment has stitched up an extraordinary political dispensation in difficult times. But, unlike Nawaz, the person they have chosen to lead it is strong-willed and unpredictable. In fact, Nawaz was eminently pliant. Yet, after a while, he felt compelled, given the nature of power, to try and be his own man. But this was unacceptable and he had to pay the price for even thinking such rash thoughts. Imran Khan, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. He may have embraced the Miltablishment as a tactical move but sooner rather than later he will begin to challenge the conventional wisdom of the national security state handed down to him. That’s when all bets will be off.

Meanwhile, let us not spoil their honeymoon with grudging digs and pin pricks.

Pakistan's Trials

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

Let’s face it. Whatever some may think of Nawaz Sharif’s omissions and however much others may hate him for his commissions, the fact remains that he has demonstrated the courage of his conviction that the unaccountable Miltablishment has no business interfering in the affairs of an elected government, much less in engineering its rise or fall.

Nawaz has held firm to this conviction since 1993 when he was dismissed from office, restored by the Supreme Court and then compelled to step aside. He met the same fate in 1999 and spent seven years in forced exile. Now he is behind the bars for the same “crime” (he insisted on putting General Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason and demanding an end to the politics of non-state actors in domestic and foreign policy). He could have spent another ten years in exile in the comfort of his luxury flats in London – much like Benazir Bhutto, General Musharraf or Altaf Hussain, closer to home, and Lenin, Khomeini and many others in historical time — and looked after his ailing wife. But he chose instead to return, along with his daughter, and go straight to jail “to honour the sanctity of the ballet box”.

This is an unprecedented political act with far reaching consequences. It has driven a spike in the Punjabi heartland of the Miltablishment and irrevocably degraded the ultimate source of its power and legitimacy. The provinces of Balochistan, Sindh and KP have witnessed outbursts of anti-”Punjabi Miltablishment” sub-nationalism from time to time but this is the first time in 70 years that a sizeable chunk of Punjab is simmering not against the “subversive” parties and leaders of other provinces but against its very own “patriotic” sons of the soil. This is that process whereby the social contract of overly centralized and undemocratic states is rent asunder. In that sense, it is the Miltablishment which is on trial.

Unfortunately, the judiciary, too, is on trial. In a democratic dispensation, it is expected to fulfil three core conditions of existence. First, to provide justice to lay citizens in everyday matters. Second, to uphold the supremacy of parliament. Third, to remain above the political fray as a supremely neutral arbiter between contending parties and institutions. On each count, tragically, it seems amiss. Hundreds of thousands of civil petitioners have been awaiting “insaf” for decades. The apex courts are making laws instead of simply interpreting them. And the mainstream parties and leaders are at the receiving end of the stick while “ladla” sons and militants are getting away with impunity. At some time or the other in the past or present, controversy has dogged one or more judges. But the institution of the judiciary is in the dock of the people today because it is perceived as aiding and abetting the erosion of justice, neutrality and vote-sanctity. In 2007, the “judicial movement for independence” erupted against an arbitrary act by a dictator against a judge. In that historical movement, the PMLN was fully behind the lawyers and judges. The irony in 2018, however, is that the same lawyers and judges are standing on the side of authoritarian forces against the PMLN.

The third “pillar” of the state – Media – is no less on trial. It is expected to “freely” inform the people so that they can make fair and unbiased choices. But it is doing exactly the opposite. A couple of media houses have succumbed to severe arm-twisting and opted to gag themselves; many have meekly submitted to censorship “advice”; most are silent for or blind for material gains. The proliferation of TV channels was meant to be a bulwark against authoritarian or unaccountable forces. But a failing economy and political uncertainty has pitted the channels against one other for the crumbs, which has given a leg up to those on the “right side” of the fence. At any rate, the corporatization of the media by big capitalist interests has served to protect the powerful at the expense of the weak.

Finally, the fourth pillar of the state — Parliament — is about to be stripped of its representative credentials. The castration of the two mainstream parties and their leaders is aimed at empowering one “ladla” leader and his party, a host of militant religious groups and a clutch of opportunist “independents” to storm the citadels of the legislature.

Is all hope lost? Are we collectively fated to be victims of a creeping authoritarian and unaccountable coup by the “pillars” of the state in tandem?

No. Sooner than later, the media and judiciary will begin to crack. Neither can survive by being “pro-government” for long. Every chief justice seeks to make his own mark on history as distinct from his predecessor and no judge can shrug away the weight of popular opinion for long. The electronic and print media, too, cannot allow social media to run away with independent digital news and analysis pegged to financial sources outside Pakistan.

Meanwhile, we, the people, must get ready to suffer.

Pakistan Today - Fair is foul and foul is fair

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times





Imran Khan’s chum for all seasons, Zulfikar Bukhari, is one of the Panamagate accused who is being investigated by NAB for money laundering. He was on ECL. Accordingly, the FIA offloaded him from a chartered aircraft scheduled to take the Great Khan to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. But one phone call from Imran was all it took for the interior ministry to immediately grant Zulfi a “one-time special exemption” allowing him to exit. The rule is that all ECL cases are put up before a special committee of the interior ministry for decision and NAB is then informed of it. It is incredulous that such a special committee was either constituted in seconds, deliberated for a few more seconds and ruled to grant such an exemption or was simply dispensed with altogether. Under the circumstances, it is worth asking whether the interim prime minister was informed and permission sought and what arguments, if any, were noted on the file for such an extraordinary use of discretionary powers without the sanction of a court or under intimation to NAB.

Consider, also, the case of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf who is legally classified as a “fugitive from justice” because he has been “absconding” from his various trials for treason, murder, etc. The then Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, had allowed him to leave the country for “medical treatment” on the request of the then army chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, after assurances in court that he would return to the country within the month to face the various trials. When he refused to obey countless court summons for over two years to return and face the music, the government cancelled his Pakistani passport facility. Now he says he wants to return to the country and contest the elections and the Supreme Court has ordered that all hurdles in his path be removed. Emboldened, the good General has demanded that he should be given pre-arrest bail in absentia. It may be noted that for all the years that he was on trial in Pakistan, he never spent even a second in “jail” because his five star residences in Islamabad and Karachi were duly declared “sub-jails” by the courts when he wasn’t luxuriating in vvip suites in vvip hospitals for treatment of unknown maladies.

Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, hasn’t been so “favoured’. He was swiftly disqualified from being prime minister because he didn’t reveal a source of unreceived income from his son. He is on ECL and permission to visit his ailing wife in London is given only niggardly. He has been compelled to attend hundreds of court hearings. Not a single plea of his lawyer for adjournment has been accepted. Indeed, in a strange twist of legal logic, the NAB court has held that it will hear each of the three cases against him separately but give a judgment in all three at one and the same time. Now the SC has ordered the court to wrap up the cases and decide before the elections, regardless of the status of the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, and unprecedentedly ordered the defense lawyer to attend the court on Saturdays and Sundays as well. The lawyer has refused and withdrawn from the case, compelling Mr Sharif to protest while casting about for another competent lawyer familiar with the case.

Pundits predict that the court will return a plea of guilty against Nawaz Sharif in at least one of the cases and knock him out. They also predict that General Musharraf may be allowed to contest the elections regardless of the treason and murder charges and his truant behaviour as an absconder from justice and helped to win a seat. The fate of the expected disqualification petitions against Imran Khan (for fathering an illegitimate love-child in the USA) in all the five constituencies in which he is contesting across the country may also be foretold. The ECP and courts will doubtless find arguments to quash the truth of the loudest whisper in the country. Last but not the least, Reham Khan’s account of her ex-husband’s “exploits”, that clearly violate the sanctity of the very constitutional provisions 62/63 under which Nawaz Sharif was sacked and is now being prosecuted as a fugitive from justice, will be trashed by a complaint media and banned from public consumption by the courts.

There is a political consensus among the various state institutions that comprise the Miltablishment that Nawaz Sharif cannot be allowed under any circumstances to return to power and Imran Khan must be elevated to the prime ministership, come hell or high water. Towards these ends, the Miltablishment has engineered the Senate elections to its satisfaction and is now primed to achieve “suitable” results in the general elections. Meanwhile, the popular will is tilting against this brazen exercise of fascist power.

Fair is foul and foul is fair. This electoral exercise will go down in Pakistan’s constitutional history as the greatest robbery of all times, with dire consequences for state and society.

Pakistan: Who's in the dock?

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times







Lt General (retd) Asad Durrani, ex-DG ISI, has run afoul of his Alma Mater. His alleged crime: jointly authoring a book with AS Dulat, ex RAW chief of India. GHQ has formed a “court of inquiry” to determine whether he violated any army rules in venturing into this project or revealed “state secrets” detrimental to the cause of national security. It has also ordered that his name be placed on the Exit Control List pending the case.

Gen Durrani describes himself as a “normal line officer” until he became “an accidental spymaster” in a stopgap appointment by a caretaker government for 18 months in 1990-91. During this time, he worked closely with COAS General Mirza Aslam Beg to bribe politicians and facilitate the election of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. But he fell out with PM Sharif when he refused to spy on COAS General Asif Nawaz Janjua who, in Nawaz’s view, was conspiring with Benazir Bhutto to get rid of him. So, upon the urging of Nawaz Sharif who wanted his “own man” Gen Javed Nasir as DG ISI, Gen Janjua transferred Gen Durrani to GHQ after promoting him to Lt Gen. Shortly after Gen Janjua’s sudden death in 1993, the new COAS Gen Abdul Waheed Kakar sacked Gen Durrani from the army for indulging in unauthorized political activity by becoming a go-between Benazir Bhutto and General Janjua. But after coming to power, Ms Bhutto rewarded him by posting him as Ambassador to Germany. In due course, Gen Durrani became a columnist and was actively wooed as a think-tanker and Track-2 diplomat with an insider’s take on critical Indo-Pak and US-Pak matters. He now honed his persona to go with his new job: part blunt, part enigmatic, depending on the issue and forum.

GHQ has always looked upon Gen Durrani as a maverick who can be trusted to defend the institution when push comes to shove but with some views subtly contrary to the prevailing national security wisdom in his Alma Mater establishment. So why has GHQ suddenly jumped the gun and hauled him up?

Gen Durrani isn’t the first army officer to have empowered his elbow. At least a dozen Generals and a score of other army officers have, before him, spilled the beans in dribs and drabs, whether in the form of articles, books or TV interviews, at home and abroad. None of them had their books vetted by GHQ and none obtained a formal NOC before doing so. If Air Marshals Nur Khan and Asghar Khan were surprisingly candid about all the wars fought against India, General Pervez Musharraf is the biggest loud mouth of recent times and can safely be classified as a national security risk in comparison with the soft-spoken Gen Durrani. Moreover, at least a couple of dozen books detailing the shenanigans of the Miltablishment, including three full length critical biographies of the ISI by foreign scholars, are freely available at bookshops across the country. Indeed, this practice of writing memoirs or policy critiques is widely prevalent in the West where every second US National Security Advisor and CIA Chief has freely commented on his time in office and often revealed startling facts. So what’s the beef with Gen Durrani?

Regardless of what’s in the book – and there isn’t anything terribly significant that is unknown to Pakistan watchers – GHQ is unsettled by its timing. Only recently it has extracted a heavy price from Nawaz Sharif for Dawnleaks in which a well-known fact – that the Miltablishment’s policy of propping up militant non-state actors has become a millstone around the elected government’s neck – was made public. Nawaz Sharif’s subsequent comments of Miltablishment meddling in politics have attracted charges of “treason” and “Indian agent”. Now General Durrani comes along and calmly goes a couple of steps further than Nawaz Sharif, prompting the latter to quickly demand a sitting of the National Security Council to ascertain the veracity of admissions in the book and compare these with the insignificant utterances that cost him his job as prime minister. Under the circumstances, GHQ had no option but to quell the demand by pulling the “errant” General under its wing and silencing its rising critics. Should GHQ now demand a ban on the book that is published in India, it would look sillier still because it is now freely available on the web.

The double standards of the Miltablishment are now evident all round. General Musharraf is kosher but Gen Durrani is not. Nawaz Sharif is guilty of Iqama but Imran has not misdeclared. And so on, ad nauseam. No wonder, then, that a recent PILDAT survey shows that the credibility of military leaders in the popular imagination has fallen to the lowest among eleven institutional categories. This has raised serious question marks about its strategy to oust Nawaz Sharif and install another kangaroo government in Islamabad by pre-rigging the next elections. It has also put the spotlight on who is really in a bind and in the dock.

Pakistan - Pity The Nation

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times





If the Miltablishment is the irresistible force, then Nawaz Sharif is becoming an immovable object. Indeed, the more the Miltablishment engineers political change to suit its designs, the more Nawaz Sharif strengthens his narrative of “victimhood” in the popular imagination by exposing its past machinations.

Mr Sharif is being branded a “traitor” and “Indian agent” by the Miltablishment and its minions for publicly challenging its national security paradigm in which non-state militant actors continue to play a central role in asymmetric strategies at home and abroad. It is interesting, however, that he is not the first, and he certainly won’t be the last to admit or challenge this fact. General (retd) Hameed Gul (ex-ISI) boasted of the fact while General (retd) Mahmud Durrani (ex-NSA) and General Pervez Musharraf (ex-COAS/President) candidly admitted it. Asif Khosa (ex-IGP/ex-FIA) and Imran Khan have both publicly criticized this national security “contingency” as proving harmful to the cause of Pakistan but they have done so without arousing the ire of the Miltablishment. Indeed, every academic, local or foreign, worth his or her salt has penned reams on the subject, almost always in critical mode, but no book or article has been banned in Pakistan for articulating such views. More specifically, everything about the Mumbai attack of 2008 has been revealed, either in Pakistan or in India and the USA, in the media or during various court trials of various accused, including the role of the “hidden hand” of the deep state. So, what’s the big deal about Nawaz Sharif alluding to much the same thing today?

In 1964, President General Ayub Khan accused Fatima Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam’s sister, of being “pro-India and pro-America” when she stood up to challenge his legitimacy at the polls. Ironically enough, Nawaz Sharif is now faced with the same allegations when he is seeking to challenge the Miltablishment’s favourites in the forthcoming elections. General Ayub rigged the 1965 elections and but didn’t last long enough to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Will the current front runners meet the same fate?

The Miltablishment may be arrogant and self-righteous but it is not unaware or uncritical of the negative role and dire consequences that these non-state actors have spawned in domestic and foreign affairs. It claims to be seeking ways and means to minimize the militant role of “some” of these actors without directly provoking them and destabilizing the state in unmanageable ways. Its anger at Nawaz Sharif is directed not so much at his challenge of their strategic national security narrative but at his refusal to seek their advice on how to decommission these non-state actors or exploit them tactically in the realm of policy. Therefore, while it may be kosher to privately admit that Mumbai was a blunder that badly backfired, doing so in front of Pakistan’s adversaries is not okay because it is bound to extract a heavy penalty.

The Miltablishment is also angry at Nawaz Sharif for trying to diminish its predominant role in national life by “defaming” its institutional chiefs. General Musharraf’s “treason” trial is the original sin, followed by attempts to degrade General Raheel Sharif’s personal credentials.

The Miltablishment’s outrage over Mr Sharif’s latest remarks is in line with its indignation over Dawnleaks. It did not take umbrage when he expressed negative sentiments in the NSC meeting about the role of these non-state actors controlled by the Miltablishment. But it saw red when he leaked it to the media because it suspected that the leak was aimed at endearing himself to the international community at the cost of the Miltablishment instead of effecting a united civil-military front against it. It may be recalled that its reaction was much the same against Mr Asif Zardari following the Osama bin Laden-Abbotatabad affair in 2012 when it accused Ambassador Hussain Haqqani in Memogate of acting “treasonably” against the “interests of Pakistan” (read Miltablishment). It is once again in the same angry reaction-mode: it sees Nawaz Sharif as trying to save his skin at home by appealing to the international community as the good guy and portraying the Miltablishment as the evil empire.

The Miltablishment felt humiliated and resentful when Nawaz Sharif sacked COAS General Jehangir Karamat three months before his retirement in 1998 for merely supporting the idea of a National Security Council. It hit back in 1999 when he tried to sack General Musharraf for his irresponsible Kargil adventure. The two sides mended fences to jointly take up cudgels against a common PPP foe in 2012. Now they are at each other’s throats again, with the Miltablishment making common cause with former adversaries. And so it goes on.

The Miltablishment has eliminated anyone who has dared to cross its path and its national security policies have only wrought fear and instability. The politicians, too, without exception, have been corrupt, incompetent or authoritarian. Pity the nation that has been so trampled upon by its custodians since independence.

Pakistan's Extraordinary Times

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times


We live in extraordinary times. There are over 100 TV channels and over 5000 newspapers, magazines and news websites in the country. Yet, on Press Freedom Day, Thursday May 3, the shackles that bind us and the gags that silence us must be recorded.

We cannot comment freely on the machinations of the Miltablishment without being roughed up or “disappeared”. We cannot comment freely on the utterances and decisions of the judges without being jailed for contempt. We cannot comment freely on the motives that drive the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement and other rights-based groups without being berated for anti-state behavior. We cannot comment freely on the “protests” and “dharnas” of militant religious parties and groups without being accused of “blasphemy” and threatened with death. And so on. The price of freedom is costly. There have been over 150 attacks on journalists in the last twelve months, one-third in Islamabad, the seat of the “democratically” elected, pro-media government.

We live in extraordinary times. With less than one month to go in the term of the present government, we still do not know who the interim prime minister and chief ministers will be, or whether general elections will be held on time or whether these will be rigged or free and fair.

----Also watch

India and its 'free press'

Yashwant Sinha - " Without a Blink, I Will Ask People to Vote the BJP Out of Power"

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We live in extraordinary times. The “hidden hand” is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, pulling the plug on dissenters. For over four years, the democratically elected PMLN government in Balochistan was alive and kicking. One day, suddenly, it was gone in a puff of smoke, replaced by a motley crew of pro-Miltablishment “representatives”. For over three decades, the MQM was alive and kicking. One day, it was splintered into three groups, each vying for the favours of the Miltablishment. For over two decades, Nawaz Sharif was the President of the PMLN and thrice elected prime minister of Pakistan. One day he was no more for ever. And so on.

We live in extraordinary times. For over five decades, the Peoples Party of the Bhuttos was the main liberal, anti-Miltablishment party in the country. Now, under the Zardaris, it is solidly on the side of the Miltablishment. For over seven decades, the Mulsim League has been the main pro-Miltablishment party of the country. Now, under Nawaz Sharif, it is the main anti-Miltablishment party in Pakistan. Indeed, for long Mr Sharif was the blue-eyed boy of the Miltablishment. Now he is its chief nemesis.

We live in extraordinary times. A massive political engineering exercise is being held today to thwart some parties and politicians and prop up others. Such attempts were made in the past too but always under the umbrella of martial law and PCO judges. What is unprecedented in the current exercise is the bid to achieve the ends of martial law by “other” means. An unaccountable judiciary is the mask behind which lurks the Miltablishment. The judges have taken no new oath. Nor is the order of the day “provisional”.

We live in extraordinary times. The liberal and secular supporters of the PPP are in disarray. Some have sullenly retreated into a damning silence. Many have plonked their hearts in the freezer and are queuing up to vote for Nawaz Sharif because he is the sole anti-establishment leader in the country. A clutch is ever ready to join the ranks of rights-groups protesting “state” highhandedness or injustice, like the PTM. We are in the process of completing the circle that began with the left-wing, anti-establishment, party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and is ending with the right-wing, pro-establishment, party of Imran Khan. The “caring socialist-fascism” of the PPP in the 1970s has morphed into the “uncaring capitalist-fascism” of the PTI today. The middle-class, cheery, internationalist “hopefuls” of yesteryear have been swept aside by the middle-class, angry, nationalist “fearfuls” of today.

We live in extraordinary times. In the first two decades of Pakistan, we stumbled from one civil-military bureaucrat to another without an organic constitution or free and fair elections. In the third decade, we lost half the country because of the political engineering of the first two decades but managed to cobble a democratic constitution in its aftermath. Trouble arose when we violated the constitutional rules of democracy and paid the price of martial law in the fourth decade. In the fifth, we reeled from one engineered election and government to another until we were engulfed by another martial law in the sixth. In the seventh, we wowed to stick together under a Charter of Democracy but joined hands with the Miltablishment to violate the rules of the game. Now, after sacrificing two elected prime ministers at the altar of “justice”, we are back at the game of political engineering in the new decade.

Pakistan is more internally disunited today than ever before. It has more external enemies today than ever before. It is more economically, demographically and environmentally challenged today than ever before. The more it experiments with engineered political change, the worse it becomes. We live in extraordinary times.

Pakistan: For whom the bell tolls?

Najam Sethi in The Friday Times

The bell has begun to toll. Most people think it is tolling for the general elections. Although these are constitutionally scheduled to be held no later than September 2018, there are apprehensions these could be delayed. The bell could also be tolling for the House of Sharif, particularly Nawaz Sharif. Most people are convinced that the scales of justice are weighted against him. What are the odds, and consequences, of the tolling of the bell?

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has received over 2000 petitions against constituency delimitations. It has two months in which to appraise and redress them before the national and provincial parliaments are dissolved and electioneering begins in earnest. It is also certain that most decisions of the ECP will be challenged in the High Courts because constituency revisions are critically impacting the fate of traditional candidates. Some may even appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP). Unless some swift solutions are found by the ECP and courts, God alone knows how this matter will be resolved without postponing elections.

Then there is the matter of caretaker governments. Finding consensus candidates in Balochistan and Sindh should not be difficult because the major players there are openly aligned with the powerful Miltablishment that calls the shots. But Islamabad, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa will be less soluble and the ECP may have to step in to clear the decks. There will be unsavoury controversy, conspiracies are bound to be imputed and the electoral waters will be muddied. To top it all, scores of candidates are likely to clutch at Constitutional Articles 62 and 63 or Iqama-type inconsistencies to challenge their opponents’ nomination papers.

The fate of Nawaz Sharif’s accountability trial will also impinge on elections. If he is knocked out, the PMLN will have to consider whether to boycott elections or go down fighting with one hand tied behind its back. In the immediate aftermath, there are bound to be defections from the PMLN. Their significance will depend on how successfully Nawaz Sharif can reinforce his perception as the victim of injustice, who is turning to the people for salvation. So far, going by the big crowds he is drawing to his jalsas in comparison with the rather indifferent showing of his political opponents, he is not doing badly. But the mood of his detractors is turning ugly, a sign of what lies ahead.

The Geo/Jang Group that is propping up the Sharifs’ narrative is for the chop. “Invisible” forces have leaned on cable operators across large swathes of the country, to shut down all the group’s channels. PEMRA is helpless in redressing their complaints. They are losing money because their ads are trailing off and have therefore delayed salaries to their employees. But the Supreme Court has ordered them to “beg or borrow” and cough up. The court accuses them of receiving the largest chunk of public sector ads because of their pro-government stance but is silent in the face of their higher ranking and ratings that attract these ads even from the private sector on commercial merit. Now Saleem Safi, a top GEO journalist, who continues to ask awkward questions about the direction in which Pakistan is being herded, has been targeted – some “invisible” goons attacked his home and beat up his guard for resisting them. And so it goes on.

We are told that any talk of a judicial martial law in the offing, is hogwash. This is reassuring. But one cannot help but compare today’s situation to what transpired in December 1997 when the then CJP, Sajjad Ali Shah, wrote to the then army chief for backing against, and protection from, the government of the day. The CJP’s order was not carried out. It was forwarded to the Defense Ministry on the plea that GHQ answers to it rather than to the SC. Today, we are informed, if any order is passed by the CJP, the army “will not remain in barracks” if it is resisted by the government or parliament.

In fact, an unprecedented alignment of political forces is now grouping to “reform the country”. The original child of the Miltablishment, Nawaz Sharif, has become a dangerous outcast. The original bête noir of the Miltablishment, Asif Zardari, has become its blue-eyed boy. The judiciary, which has historically been the handmaiden of the executive arm of government, has suddenly become “independent” with the backing of the Miltablishment even though its “independence” was won from the same Miltablishment not so long ago with the struggle of the Lawyers Movement and democratic political forces. And the media that fought to win its independence from the Miltablishment a decade ago has suddenly acquiesced in its favour without a whimper.

Under the circumstances, we are right to wonder for whom the bell tolls.