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So Mullah Munir, the General, now appoints or anoints himself, more appropriately, a Field Marshal (FM)! A travesty to beat all travesties. This man, erstwhile ISI chief, who masterminded Pulwama, first delivers coarse, vitriolic speech,then does Pahalgam, to further vent his anti India ire. He was to retire, when just two days before that, the present Sharif govt, such as it is, promoted him and made him COAS. This was political expediency at its best – or worst – Munir hated Imran Khan, as did PML (N) and Shahbaz Sharif. So they ‘promote’ Munir to Chief and incarcerate a popular leader. How convenient! Well this is how politics and the military work in Pakistan. If the West does not want to take its blinkers off and continue to hyphenate India-Pak for its narrow political or imagined geo strategic gains, they will sooner, rather than later, learn the truth, sadly at their own peril. The world’s largest democracy, warts and all, pitted against a military, theological, rogue state, run by its army and mullahs and you want to equate the two – well what can one say!
So where do we go from here? I briefly analyse three basic questions .
1 Why Munir’s Promotion?
This is the simplest to answer. Despite the false narrative building by Pak, Asim Munir and his bunch of thugs in military fatigues knew that they had been beaten thoroughly and soundly, with their Air defence systems, air bases and of course their proxy (read terrorists’) assets (a part of the state apparatus, and NOT non state actors, as l have argued elsewhere) destroyed in 72 hours. Pak had its back to the wall. Their own air/drone attacks had been thoroughly repulsed. So the armed forces, which consume 25 to 30% of the country’s and taxpayer’s assets, had nothing to show for their bravado. But hold on…in addition to the fake media cannonade and false narrative-building to their people, what could Pak do? Hey presto…promote your Army Chief to FM! That would send a loud and clear message to the awam: we have won this skirmish and are rewarding the top boss with top honours! Obviously, you wouldn’t award or promote a loser…so their hollow narrative is accorded legitimacy. The Pakistanis, bred and brought up on hate India diet, swallowed this,hook,line and sinker. It fed into their pride and hubris, spurred by anti lndia sentiment
2 What will Munir do?
Notwithstanding what he and Pak govt peddle out to their beleaguered people, Munir and Sharif are smarting. They know that they have got the drubbing of their lives. Revenge, prodded by that age-old sense of Islamist superiority over kafirs and Hindus, is hurting him and the deep state. He has to act and act fast. Now he is FM…the lord and master of all he surveys. His deep Islamic learning (remember, he is a madarsa trained hafiz…knows the Quran by heart) goads him. Avenging the defeat is a noble, religious and righteous cause.
So, if we in lndia sit smug in the belief that he would have learnt his lesson and sue for peace, we are mistaken. He is planning the next big strike…through the proxies or conventionally, one cannot say. As a FM, he arrogates to himself greater power – in decision making, over the other services and in the ‘quantum’ of punishment that he and he alone will decide. He is now painfully aware of our capabilities in all three domains. His nuclear bluff has been called. So he is going to think deep and think hard, alongwith his coterie of two and three stars, how to get back at us.
Besides this, it can only be expected, that he could, not in the very distant future, kick out Sharif and declare himself PM/president. It is also not unlikely that he may have Imran Khan legally executed, just as Zia ul Haq did to Bhutto. Pak is no stranger to such betrayal and dirty power struggles.
3 So what should we do?
For starters, trite and banal as it sounds, physically we have to be on our guard. 24x7x365. And this is not only in the military domain, but diplomatically, politically and economically too. In my opinion, diplomatically, we have been a tad slow off the block. With our all party delegations going out to world capitals, we may (or may not, given China’s strong support for Pak and the West’s cynicism) succeed, but it is a good initiative. On the political front, following the initial show of unity, some pig headed ‘leaders’ have been making inane and deleterious statements, which can only harm our larger cause. One can only hope that in the broader, national interest, they would desist, at least for now. Economically, we have to choke Pak funding from international organisations like IMF and regionally, do our own bit to starve Pak of economic aid, on which it survives. A tough ask, but doable. Keeping the IWT on hold for now is good step.
So let’s see where Field Marshal Asim Munir (as a soldier,l feel it is an insult to that exalted rank, which so few in the world have held) takes Pakistan…to glory or its doom. I suspect the latter. Bigotry, hatred and animus have a sell-by date…Munir has long since gone beyond it.
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Excellent Analysis