By now, you would have seen it, surely. Pictures, and then perhaps a video, of some commandos from the SSG, roughing up officials of the motorway police. The story, till now uncontested, is that the cops were trying to fine some army officers for traffic violations on N-5.
The images went viral. The public was livid. This was a first for Pakistan. The army is a much revered one. The police is a much reviled institution. To verify this, I’m not asking you to ask the man on the street about his views on both these institutions. I’m asking you to ask yourself.
Why the outpour of resentment? Well, the National Highways and Motorways Police is special, it seems. Though it is officered by the same Police Service of Pakistan who also run, say, the Punjab Police, but the NH&MP has built up quite a measure of goodwill. The reason for this goodwill might be their friendly and cooperative nature, yes, but that friendly nature could also stem from the fact that the people are generally more cooperative with the NH&MP to begin with.
Couple that with the growing number of people who might have faced — or know someone who has faced — the belligerence of military men, and you have an explanation for how the public reacted the way they did.
If you’re old enough to read this, you’d also be old enough to realise the fickle nature of the truth. There are many sides to every story, this one being no exception. But that doesn’t mean all versions, all recollections, of a particular incident are correct.
Interestingly, though, ever since an audio clip of one of the army officers involved also went viral, the public sentiment seemed to sway even more towards the police. “Their side of the story” seemed to make things worse for the army.
Now the fact of the matter is that army officers have been known to misbehave with policemen for doing their job all the time, all over the country. It doesn’t gain as much traction as this episode did, because, as mentioned earlier, the NH&MP have better brand equity. And in the mind of the public, an army officer harrassing a Punjab police official for daring to inspect the cargo of a freight truck is justified because some policeman that they know is corrupt or some traffic constable somewhere once asked them for money.
In fact, in areas of the country where the army performs policing duties, it would be interesting to compare the public’s perceptions of the police with those of the army. The results, dear reader, might surprise you.
Policing is a difficult thing to do. The Americans are the mightiest military force in the history of the planet. There is no conventional army that can take them on. We keep speaking of the rising power of China and the resurgence of Russia. But if these two countries were to enter into a coalition and, through magic, that coalition were to include India and Brazil, and they were to wage war against the United States, we know who would win.
Their police, on the other hand, is a mess.
And it isn’t just the police that is on the receiving end in Pakistan. Employees of Wapda would have tales to tell about what they have to put up with when it comes to army officers. As would those working for the FBR. The list is endless.
What makes this relevant to the media is the speedy dissemination of the information. There was also an altercation between some military men and the NH&MP in 2003. It was nasty enough to make it to the papers. But that was all that we heard of it.
With social media and the proliferation of smartphones and cameras, we got to live the current episode like an event diligently covered by the news. It is my prediction — and I don’t deserve a medal for stating the obvious — that when video editing tools are made even more intuitive and easy to use, we can see many more videos showing such excesses. Made by the general public.
What remains to be seen is how the military establishment is going to leverage, say, the recent cyber crimes bill to curb the only space where criticism of the army is possible.
