Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [96]
In the words of Lt-General (retired) Tanvir Naqvi:
The run-of-the-mill officer feels very proud of the fact that the army is a very efficient organization and is therefore a role model for the rest of the country in terms of order, discipline, getting things done and above all patriotism. He is very proud of Pakistan and very proud of the army.1
This belief is also widely present in Pakistani society as a whole, and has become dominant at regular intervals. As Nawabzada Aurangzeb Jogezai, a Pathan tribal chieftain and politician in Balochistan, told me in accents of deep gloom concerning his own political class:
In Pakistan, only one institution works – the army. Nothing else does. Look at the difference between Quetta City and Quetta Cantonment. When people here enter the cantonment, their whole attitude changes. You straighten your tie, do up your shirt, leave your gun at home, become very polite. When you cross the military checkpoint again, you go back to being the same old bandit. Because in the city order is kept by the police, who are weak, corrupt and shambolic and dominated by the politicians, but the cantonment is run by the army, and in the end, this country is always saved by the army. The politicians themselves call for this when they have made enough of a mess of things or want to get their rivals out of power. Look at the PPP. Now they say that they are for democracy and against military rule, but in 1999 Benazir distributed sweets [a traditional sign of rejoicing and congratulation] when the army overthrew Nawaz Sharif.2
These feelings in the mass of the population are always diminished by periods of direct military rule, when the military has to take responsibility for the corruption and incompetence of the state system as a whole. However, admiration for the military always comes back again, as their relative efficiency in their own area is contrasted with the failings of civilian politicians. This was the case for example during the floods of 2010 – only two years after the last military ruler left office – when the military’s rescue and relief efforts were compared with the incompetence, corruption and above all indifference of the national and provincial governments and the civilian bureaucracy. As this chapter will bring out though, this relative military efficiency is only possible because the military has far more resources than civilian institutions.
It is unfortunately true that whatever the feelings of the population later, every military coup in Pakistan when it happened was popular with most Pakistanis, including the Pakistani media, and was subsequently legitimized by the Pakistani judiciary. As Hasan-Askari Rizvi writes of the coup of 1999: ‘The imposition of martial law was not contested by any civilian group and the military had no problem assuming and consolidating power.’3 In his book on the Pakistani military, Shuja Nawaz describes how, when his brother General Asif Nawaz was chief of army staff during Nawaz Sharif’s first government in the 1990s, some of Mr Sharif’s own ministers would come to see his brother to complain about the prime minister and ask the military to throw him out and replace him with someone else.4
It is possible that developments since 2001 have changed this pattern. This is due to the new importance of the independent judiciary and media; the way that the military’s role both in government and in the unpopular war with the Pakistani Taleban has tarnished their image with many Pakistanis; and because Pakistan’s history of military coups has taught both the PPP and the PML(N) the dangers of intriguing with the military against their political opponents. It seems highly likely that in 2009 – 10 Nawaz Sharif would have made a determined push to use mass protest to bring down the PPP national government, had he not been sure that this would inevitably bring the military back into the centre of politics, and therefore later risk repeating the experience of 1999 when the military ousted him from power too. General Kayani and the high command also deeply distrust