Narendra Modi wants everyone to know that Vladimir Putin and he are BFFs. Katy Perry wants us to know that Justin Trudeau is her bae. Rajnath Singh wants Sindh to someday reunite with India. Nawaz Sharif wants to hold the generals of the last regime accountable. Imran Khan wants the world to recognise Asim Munir as a “mentally unstable person”. DG ISPR tries to convince us that Imran Khan himself is a “frustrated”, “zehni mareez”—a psychiatric patient. And then there is Malala, who now wants to be known as a bong-smoking regular girl whose husband once called her a “sex bomb”. Now this is the plot twist no one readied us for.
But in this circus, one act is a familiar one in Pakistan.
Imran Khan vs Asim Munir
In this prolonged match of wits between Imran Khan and the army, the good old sledging has become more serious than entertaining. Serious for what it means for both Imran Khan and the military. The battle of nerves is on. As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf fuelled a social media campaign claiming Khan might be killed in custody, his sisters staged television interviews with Yalda Hakim of Sky News and India Today’s Gaurav Sawant, raising concerns about threats to his life in jail.
It all gained more momentum as the Shehbaz Sharif government delayed the notification appointing Field Marshal Asim Munir as Chief of Defence Forces until 4 December. Everyone and their nephew was hooked onto the soap opera of this notification. Yet the Pakistan defence minister, Khawaja Asif, seemed to expect no one to squeak a word about its delay. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, meanwhile, celebrated the rumoured rift between PMLN and the army over the delay in notifying this new position. A position that we are told is of utmost importance as Pakistan is currently at war with India. That the May war hasn’t ended is no surprise. But how will we win this war when we won in May under the old system? Old or new scheme, we will win every time.
Amid all the frenzy, the DG of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, hosted a presser where he lashed out at many journalists asking him questions. A visibly perturbed DG ISPR, in a diatribe against Imran Khan, labelled him a “zehni mareez”, a “narcissist”. He repeatedly asked Khan (without naming him), “Tum ho kaun?” Who do you think you are? “Why was he so frustrated?” Offering a psych eval of the former prime minister, Chaudhry said that Khan’s “ego, wishes, and frustrations are such that he thinks that the world revolves around him”, making him a national security risk playing in the hands of Delhi and Kabul. In another fit of rage, while answering a question regarding the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military spokesperson casually said, “barking dog barks, don’t pay attention”. Now the country debates whether kutta is a slur or not.
Only in Pakistan will you find a serving Lt General going after prime ministers and chief ministers with such impunity. It is rather entertaining how the Pakistan army now finds itself at cross-roads with its own laadla. Back in the day, another DG ISPR, Asif Ghafoor, would vow that the army was on the same page as Imran Khan. We remember the analogies of du jism aik jaan, itne kareeb ki hawa bhi nahi guzar sakti (two bodies, one soul, so close that even air cannot pass between them). That was then. This is now. We are affirmed that this time there will be no next time for Imran Khan. Let us hold our chais, not our breaths, over this feud.
Also Read: Asim Munir could be Pakistan PM, PCB chair, Chief Justice. But these are for lesser mortals
Civil-military circus continues
‘Never have we ever said this about any Pakistani politician’ — this is the recurring theme of every presiding military establishment. But we know this record well. “You cannot fool all the people all the time,” as said by the DG ISPR, our version of Lincoln.
From Zulfikar Bhutto to Benazir Bhutto, and from Nawaz Sharif to Maryam Nawaz, every popular politician has been named and shamed as a security threat, a traitor, or an Indian agent. If Bhutto was a traitor for Zia-ul-Haq, Nawaz Sharif was an India-appeasing security threat for Pervez Musharraf. Decades go by, yet the Pakistan story remains the same. One prime minister was declared a hijacker, sentenced to life imprisonment, barred from politics, exiled, and shunned in 1999. He still returned to become prime minister again in 2013, only to be ousted again in 2017 and jailed over trumped-up charges along with his daughter. Imran Khan still has hope; in this war between jailed politicians and the military establishment, the long-term winner is usually the politician.
Understanding the same dilemma, Nawaz Sharif last week insisted on holding to account the men in uniform who propelled Imran Khan into power. His signal is toward former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa who, for reasons known to no one, has been unscathed in the entire Imran pakar-dhakar project. Faiz Hameed, ex-DG ISI, has not been as lucky as Bajwa; he now awaits sentencing in court martial proceedings. Sharif’s lust for hanging a Pakistani general since Musharraf ousted him continues, though it has never served him politically. What a relief that today’s top general has immunity for the future. Or does he?
Naila Inayat is a journalist from Pakistan. Her X handle is @nailainayat. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)