Familiar playbook - the statesman

Pakistani Generals routinely overstay their tenures and overstate their relevance in the national discourse. For a military that inherited the same structural commonalities and regulations

as India, it is telling that the Pakistani Army has its 15th native ‘Chief’, whereas the Indian Army is on its 30th Indian ‘Chief’. The love to continue wearing the uniform is apparent in

the case of the last five Pakistani Chiefs of Army Staff. Instead of serving the mandated three year term, General Pervez Musharraf served for over nine years, till he was grudgingly pushed

out. Musharraf’s successor, General Ashfaq Kayani gave himself a three-year extension to serve a six year tenure. Kayani’s successor, General Raheel Sharif gave civilian politicians

nightmares by threatening to extend his tenure ~ though he still manages to wear the uniform even today (almost eight years after his retirement), albeit the uniform of the Commander of the

Riyadh-based, Islamic Military Counter Terrorism force. Sharif’s chosen successor, General Qamar Bajwa took a lot of interest in domestic and political fights and he too chose to extend his

tenure to six years. The incumbent head of Pakistani Army, Asim Munir, has been a startlingly different kettle of fish altogether. In November 2024, he first got the Pakistani Parliament to

make an amendment to the Army Act wherein the tenure of the Army Chief got extended from three years to five years (also removing the 64 year age limit for retirement). Advertisement There

was also an unprecedented provision made for a possible second term which means that a 10 year tenure for Munir is almost certain. But presumably not satisfied with just a 10 year

opportunity, Munir went even further when on May 20 this year, he got the Pakistani Parliament to promote him to Field Marshal, ostensibly for his role in what they call Operation Bunyanum

Maroos. It is the worst kept secret in Pakistan that it is the dour and over entitled Generals working out of the cantonment township of Rawalpindi (General Headquarters or GHQ) who pull the

essential strings in the Pakistani narrative. Advertisement The fact is that the most popular political leader i.e., Imran Khan, has been booted into the jail by the Pakistani military and

the motley crew of a discredited political alliance of PML-N and PPP, who jointly run a beholden, obsequious, and sham government. This explains the tearing hurry to bestow the Field

Marshal’s rank on Munir, clearly at his behest. The so-called “PM’s proposal” has very few takers and the incredulity gets accentuated by the official rationale ~ “In recognition of his

brilliant military leadership, courage, and bravery, ensuring Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and courageous defence against the enemy”. Neither did the Pakistani military

acquit themselves with any distinction in the four-day conflict (they were hit across locations) nor are the claims of “victory” in consonance with the ridiculous and propagandic claims of

similar “victory” in earlier wars with India. Irony dies a thousand deaths with the official Pakistani celebrations of September 6 as Defence Day (commemorating what was actually a disaster

called Operation Gibraltar in 1965). Later Musharraf was to similarly gloss over the debacle of Kargil as a “victory” in his memoir, In the line of Fire. Befittingly, the shame of the 1971

war is not openly acknowledged or recounted as a “defeat”. The patent PR machinery of the Pakistani military has remained on overdrive despite losing each and every conflict that it is has

launched, be it the wars of 1947-48, 1965, 1971, 1984 race to Siachen, 1999 Kargil, or even the recent four-day conflict that left them scurrying for a ceasefire. So much so, even its

misadventures and machinations to achieve “Strategic Depth” in Afghanistan with its own creation i.e., Taliban, have backfired embarrassingly as Pakistan is now in the midst of deadly

fighting against the Afghan Taliban and its proxies. Therefore for the Pakistani military to be outrageously claiming “victory” yet again, is not surprising as it is from a propaganda

playbook used since independence. The first (and the only other) Pakistani officer to become Field Marshal was the till then General Ayub Khan. His promotion like Munir’s ostensible

recommendation by Parliament was equally insincere and self-driven as he had justified his own elevation by describing it as “a drastic and extreme step when with great reluctance, but with

fullest conviction that there was no alternative to it except the disintegration and complete ruination of the country.” The reality was that there was a clear attempt to usurp power,

control levers of governance and intimidate any opposition (as he turned the tables on President Iskander Ali Mirza, who had wanted to shut out Ayub Khan). For all of Ayub’s initial

grandstanding and commitment to restore democracy, he ruled with an iron fist for eight years and only ceded space owning to his deteriorating health, mass unpopularity, and shift in

loyalties of the military brass towards opposition leaders. Even then, he finally passed the baton to yet another military general, the equally undemocratic and debauched General Yahya Khan.

Later, two more overambitious Generals i.e., Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharaff succeeded in going beyond the ‘uniform’ formally by undertaking coup-led Presidentships. Both had reasons of

grave insecurities and ruthless ambitions binding their moves. These two Generals did not trust the local politicians to be the ‘public front’ of Pakistani leadership. Hence they skirted the

domineering Field Marshal route, and instead, took over the leadership mantle unilaterally. However, in the post-Musharraf era, the Generals in Rawalpindi have devised and perfected the

more efficient, controllable, and optically-palatable system of allowing a farcical and submissive civilian government to take centerstage (and also the accompanying brickbats), whilst the

puppeteers (read, Generals) wield control from Rawalpindi GHQ. This convenient arrangement ~ with the invaluable and protective shield of plausible deniability for any wrong committed by the

Pakistani government ~ was used by post-Musharraf Chiefs like Kayani, Shareef, Bajwa and now Munir. Basically, the blame was always taken by the civilian government while the perceptions of

the Pakistani military remained shielded and unscarred. Therefore by assuming the rank of Field Marshal, Munir has perfected that ‘optical’ arrangement even further without getting accused

of a coup (he doesn’t need one given the wholly dependent status of the civilian government). Field Marshal-ship also allows for glossing over the embarrassment of the four-day conflict with

India by stitching a counter-narrative of a positive outcome, even when the reality is far different. Munir follows a longstanding tradition of storytelling by Pakistani Generals that

downplays their ruthless ambitions, consistent failures, and yet legitimises their relevance in the eyes of distracted and unaware Pakistani masses. Like the civilian government in Pakistan

that was not really “elected” but “selected” (by the Pakistani Military), the same way the Field Marshal rank was not “earned” but “taken” by Munir himself. History is instructive on the

reasons why Ayub took over as Field Marshal (later President) or why Zia and Musharraf took over Presidentship, and it never had anything to do with any military accomplishments or

democracy, and everything to do with political machinations, ruthless ambition and grave insecurities. (The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman &

Nicobar Islands and Puducherry) Advertisement