How does one view the commencement of court martial proceedings against a brigadier and four junior officers of the Pakistan Army for having links to a militant organisation? Does one applaud the presence of due process in the military or would this be too low a benchmark to set? That there is nothing to applaud really but everything to shudder about, given the proof of creeping radicalisation within the armed forces? Not some impressionable jawan or a Naseem Hijazi-fed Second Lieutenant but a Brigadier, no less.
It is not as if something of the sort hasn’t happened earlier. One of our failed military coups (a rarity, these, in our unfortunate praetorian state) was, in fact, an Islamist one. And the signs of such radicalisation have been written on the wall since long, not just in the army but the other armed forces.
Lest the development with the brigadier be interpreted as the victimisation of officers belonging to a conservative, religious persuasion – as his family did at the time of the arrest – it should be pointed out that he and his cohorts weren’t penalised for that at all. Links with the Hizb-ut-Tahrir are different from, say, going on an annual leave for an ijmah. It is even different from unsolicited proselytizing. The Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political organisation (albeit one that doesn’t believe in elections) and it has an unequivocally political agenda. It seeks to indoctrinate and groom officers in armies all over the Muslim world so that they could take over from their present, “corrupt, American stooge” leaderships. Cracking down on members of these organisations is no infringement on religious liberties. The same should have been done if it were a subversive, leftist militia within the military.
Are the armed forces able to monitor their human resource the way, say, multinational corporations do? Since the brigadier in question belonged to the Directorate of Regulations at the GHQ, the military equivalent – in an oblique way – of a human resources department, there isn’t much confidence in that.
Cracking down on these individuals will be an uphill, near Sisyphean task; armies are culled from the population within a country. If there is creeping radicalisation within the population in general, it has to spill over into national institutions, the armed forces, police and other government departments being no exceptions.
This trend will be bucked only when the deep state stops going soft on militant groups that are allowed to have the run of the place. With leaders of “banned” organisations drawing rockstar crowds, doing press and making the positive framework of the state irrelevant.
the court martial of army officers who are alleged to having links with banned organization is not surprising .at one side it is unfortunate but on the other side it shows the discourse of our institutions .we claim one policy but we implement other,as the whole world has perception about us .there is immediate need to review our educational policy first because what we are being taught is different what we claimed before whole world .
It surprises me that court martial proceedings are being commenced against a Brigadier of the Pakistan army , for his questioning of the alliance with America in the war against terror. On the other hand the army leadership which in cahoots with America is responsible for surrendering the sovereignty of the country , allowing foreign boots on the ground and allowing CIA network to be established in the country is given extensions and lauded for being saviors. It seems the court martial proceedings are being commenced against the wrong person.
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