The white Suzuki van, remarkable only for its military licence plates, pulled up outside Gate 2 of army headquarters in Rawalpindi—the complex of buildings that houses not just the army chief, but the country’s top nuclear-weapons officials, including the director-general of the Strategic Plans Division and the director-general of Strategic Forces Command. The Tehreek-e-Taliban jihadists took hostages from among base staff, and forced an extended battle with troops, which claimed the lives of twelve soldiers.
Earlier this week, the gate of that citadel was breached again—but this time by hundreds of enraged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) supporters, some from military families, protesting the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan on corruption charges. The army had—wisely—pulled its guards back, avoiding bloodshed some feared could divide its own ranks.
From inside the burning home of the Lahore corps commander came ceremonial cannons, boxes of frozen strawberries, and even the exquisite albino peacocks that graced his lawns: “These were bought with the people’s money,” one protestor asserted, “we’re just taken back what was stolen from us.”
Imran might seem an unlikely icon for an explosion of proletarian rage: He is, after all, alleged to have helped himself to expensive gifts as well as state lands, and cultivated cronies one of whom flashes $100,000 handbags. The fact is, however, that for the first time in Pakistan’s history, action against a political leader has inspired an impromptu mini-intifada against the military itself.
To understand just what has led to this dramatic confrontation—and the deep consequences it could have for the country—it’s necessary to put Imran’s unprecedented defiance of the Army in context.
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The old new Medina
For all its iconic surrealism, Imran’s politics represents a long political heritage: The religious Right-wing positioned itself as the pole of political resistance to the élitism of the post-colonial State. The Objectives Resolution of 1949, which committed Pakistan to seek the construction of a theocratic State, was the first victory of the Right. The religious Right forced religious clauses into the 1956 constitution and compelled military ruler General Ayub Khan to restore the words ‘Islamic Republic’ to the text of the new Constitution.
There were plenty of people, the scholar IA Rehman has noted, who believed Pakistan was merely a vessel created to conquer India—a sentiment plastered over railway trains bringing government employees from New Delhi to Lahore.
Even the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) melded religion into its discourse on socialism and facilitated the State’s acquisition of powers to decide who ought to be considered a Musli. Elements in the party even cheered military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as he created religious courts with the power to usurp the functions of their civil counterparts.
The religious Right enjoyed influence far in excess of its demonstrated electoral success because of the reluctance of the secular centrist parties to challenge Islamism head-on. Each wanted to recruit Islamism to its side, not seeing it as a threat to democracy.
Foreign allies watching these political process play out worried. In 1951, a now-declassified State Department document warned of the “activities of reactionary groups of landholders and uneducated religious leaders (mullahs) who oppose the present Western-minded government.” These formations, it suggested, “favour a return to primitive Islamic principles.” There was a risk “Pakistan might become a theocratic State with a distinct anti-Western bias.”
Empowered by the growth of jihadism in Pakistan’s north-west, Rohail Ahmed and Fatima Sajjad have written, the Lal Masjid movement sought to capture state power. That led to confrontation between its Islamist sponsors, and the Pakistan military—leading to a savage terrorist attacks that would, among other things, claim the life of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The New Medina Imran promised was thus an old, familiar idea: A just religious order, in which wealth would be used to build a socialist order centred on Islamic principles. To his followers, like those of Donald Trump, the personal failures of their leader seem a trivial issue.
Army chief General Syed Asim Munir has been cautious about crushing Imran, knowing he risks blowback. The arrest, though, suggests the time’s come when the army chief knows he has no choices.
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A divided military
Long confronted by ideological divisions within the Army over Imran, General Munir clearly understands the need to move carefully against the former prime minister. The botched Battle of Zamaan Park—which, in March, saw Imran supporters pitted against police—witnessed the state back off. General Munir’s decision not to use force to protect military institutions is a bet the leaderless protests will fizzle out as Imran remains in jail‚ but that is a high-stakes gamble.
This is because the army has long had problems with jihadist influence within its ranks—support for which could throw its weight behind Imran. In 2011, Brigadier Ali Khan—with three generations of military service behind him—was arrested on charges of conspiring to incite a mutiny. Khan and three other officers were convicted of membership of the Hizb-ul-Tahrir, a jihadist organization.
As late as 2014, rogue naval officers are suspected to have helped al-Qaeda seize control of the Pakistani warship, and use it to stage an attack on the United States fleet.
Lieutenant-General Shahid Aziz—a trenchant critic of General Pervez Musharraf, and the botched Kargil attack—was reputed to have joined al-Qaeda, eventually dying in 2018. The writings of General Aziz, scholar Husain Haqqani has written, were replete with apocalyptic fantasies of a coming global war, involving the Devil, Freemasons, and secret Jewish cabals.
The terrorist attack of 2009 itself, investigators found, was led by jihadist warlord Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a one-time special forces officer. Two other men with military backgrounds participated in the attack, using their training to find means to evade the complex’s security measures.
Leaked diplomatic cables recorded Pakistan Air Force vice-marshal Khalid Chaudhary complaining that the organisation was struggling to make enlisted men trim their beards. Each week, Chaudhary told US officers in 2006, the PAF encountered incidents of low-level sabotage, intended to ensure its combat jets could not operate against terrorists in the country’s North-West.
Earlier, in 1995, Lieutenant-General Zahir-ul-Islam Abbasi led a plot to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and escalate the stalling jihad inside Kashmir into full-scale war.
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A terror peril
Even if the military succeeds in pushing Imran off the political stage—using the more -than-a hundred criminal cases now pending against him to disqualify him seeking office—that might not be the end of its problems. Levels of jihadist violence have been escalating sharply through the year, with the Tehreek-e-Taliban successfully targeting troops across large swathes of the north-west. Lacking political space, at least some of Imran’s more fanatical supporters could turn to the gun.
There is the real risk that soldiers could refuse orders if forced to engage in large scale repression targeting the PTI. Lieutenant-General Asm Ghafoor, Lieutenant-General Sadiq Mehmood, and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Sahir Samshad Mirza are rumoured to be among officers cautioning under a showdown.
Finally, the government’s incompetent management of the economy is rapidly undermining its mass legitimacy. Experts have been warning the country could default on its foreign exchange commitments by June, plunging everyday life into chaos ahead of elections.
The grim dance, which began after Prime Minister Imran Khan’s arrest has torn down the scaffolding that has held together Pakistani politics for generations. A pyromaniac ending to the crisis is become terrifying certain.
The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)