There are no two opinions about the fact that a vituperative campaign has been unleashed against the army and the intelligence agencies in the country. This campaign has intensified since the Abbottabad incident and an impression is being created as if the two organisations are the principal villains behind everything sinister happening in the country, be it the terrorist activity, the setbacks on the foreign policy front or the depleting economic prospects as also the state of relations between Pakistan and other countries.
While the army may have enjoyed the fruits of ruling this country at regular intervals and may also have caused the derailment of the democratic process, but one has to look beyond one’s nose to see that they have not been the only villains to have catapulted Pakistan from one crisis to another. Most certainly, there have been other players encompassing the corrupt-to-the-core political elite and the excessively bloated echelons within the executive hierarchy. It appears that objectivity is being progressively sacrificed for scoring political points and, in the process, excessive insensitivity is being exhibited to the damage that such a campaign may cause to the national strategic paradigm.
In the forefront of this campaign is the leadership of PML(N) who have resolved that the cause of every ill should be traced to the doorsteps of the military and intelligence agencies. When the journalist community, enraged at the brutal assassination of Saleem Shahzad, staged a sit-in in front of the parliament house protesting the government’s inability to constitute an independent commission headed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court (instead of an ad-hoc judge of a high court), Nawaz Sharif was quick to refer to the ‘hidden hands’ before whom the state is ‘helpless’. In doing so, he forgets that, under the constitution, all powers are vested in the person of the Prime Minister who can exercise them as he deems right. If, however, there are impediments being created in his way, he is constitutionally and morally bound to bring them to light and take appropriate remedial measures. An effort to finding alibis to the government’s proven insincerity to doing so would be shorn of reason. The fact that the PML(N) leadership has not been able to come to terms with the happenings of October 12, 1999 is not a secret, but unleashing of periodic venom on state institutions and holding them responsible en-bloc has become a repetitive tirade.
There is need for the PML(N) leadership to untangle from the cocoon that has warped their thinking and get on with playing their due role in national politics. They should not forget that, more than any other political concoction in the country, it is their leadership that was born in the lap of military dictatorship. As long as they were reaping the benefits of that birth, they were proudly wearing the title of the political disciples of their military benefactors, but once the season of harvest was over and they preferred the luxury of living in exile to suffering the consequences of their original sin, they have taken to targeting the military establishment for their woes.
The PPP case is the opposite. From being a known anti-establishment force, they have travelled miles to becoming its principal proponents in the open. They are seen defending the military and the intelligence agencies, but, behind closed doors, their intrepid operators are busy inciting others who may have ‘suffered’ excesses at the hands of the military rulers to target the army and the intelligence agencies. While PML(N) would want the people to forget its military-sponsored birth, the PPP wishes its establishment-friendly dispensation to become its new public face and a means to elongating its corrupt stay in power.
But, the army-bashing is part of the larger game plan of destabilising Pakistan internally and bringing it to a point where it’ll be forced to roll back its strategic assets. The attack is multi-dimensional encompassing the critical contours of political and diplomatic leaderships, military, economy, information channels and the civil society. Billions are being injected to render the state of Pakistan incapacitated in the face of this assault. The political leaderships, across the divide, knowingly or inadvertently, have become instruments in the implementation of this insidious game plan. Instead of holding back their venom and helping the state to fight this attack, the political leaderships, guided by a fast-depleting PML(N), are busy lending incense to the fire. In the process, they hope that they would bury the threat of a military take-over, but don’t realise that the fate of the country may be buried, too.
Pakistan is teetering on the brink. It needs only a slight push to go hurtling down and it appears that the push would come from those who profess to be its saviours – a favourite pastime of all political leaders. While they go around brandishing their love for their country, they have not spared an opportunity of denuding it of its wealth. For starters, let them bring their billions back to where they belong – this poor country and its people.
The report of a ‘clean-up operation’ within the army is a move in the right direction. After the recent setbacks, that is the most natural thing to do. Will the ‘democratic’ government do the same? Would it like to purge itself of those who are spreading hate against the state and its institutions? Even more important, would they like to purge themselves of the hate that has entrapped their minds? Would they like to cleanse their mindset of the dictatorial predilections and introduce a democratic culture within their parties so that their claim to democracy in the country would carry some legitimacy?
That is hoping for a bit too much from the myopic minds that are pasted right across the political landscape on display in the parliament.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]
