It is a great misfortune that the deepest political divide in this country is the civil-military divide. And it is based on deep hatred and it is created against politicians through one-sided propaganda.
Some were called corrupt, some a security risk, and some were friends of Modi. And now the result is that even COAS is being given negative titles. The army has no relation with politics constitutionally, so you are thinking right when it comes to writing, but practically, the army has been on the political side for seventy years.
Is it only the army? Most of the judges have also been doing politics here. The army has been neutral since October last year, but experience shows that such retreats are temporary. Due to some difficulties, the army withdraws from the political front and refreshes itself after some time in a new situation with a completely new chessboard.
After three failed martial laws, our army had a new experience under General Musharraf. in which there was no martial law in the country, only military rule. And the government was also one which had given the freedom to the media more than the politicians until the situation with Iftikhar Chaudhry. But that experiment also failed. So the hybrid system was immediately tested.
In this system, “Akhirul Muminin” used to wake up at 12 o’clock in the day and board the helicopter and go to the Prime Minister’s House and sign the files and return to Bani Gala at 5 o’clock in the evening. This hybrid system created the worst failure in history. A failure that brought the country’s economy to the brink of bankruptcy and left Pakistan so isolated on the foreign front that even strategic partners like the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were angry.
The question is why every effort of the army ultimately fails. And why doesn’t it learn from successive failures and abandon the path of political intervention? According to us, the reason for this is that junior officers are also looking at the situation like a cricket match. Just like “cricket experts” sitting in every drawing room of the country during a cricket match are saying that if so and so had been sent to bat at number three instead of number seven or if the last over had been bowled by so and so instead of so and so then the match could have been won.
Just think, during this 70-year history, whenever there was an intervention, what was the purpose of it? It’s just that we have to make the Prime Minister submit to our will. If this is not possible, then the prime minister of ‘choice’ should be brought.
But in October 2022, we are standing in a situation that has happened for the first time in our history, and it is very dangerous. Today, for the first time, the game is running to bring an “Army Chief” of choice. That is, now we are not facing the situation of military interference in politics, but the scene of political interference in the military. And the tragedy is that just as the army used to get tools from the circle of politicians, in the same way, the Akhirul Muminin is also getting indications of tools being available.
Earlier it was said that the army has the support of certain political forces. Today it is being said that Akhirul Muminin has the support of some army officers. It is as if the game that the army has been playing against the politicians for 70 years has fallen on its neck today. And now the army itself is facing political interference.
But the more disturbing aspect of this situation is that there is also an opinion that the real player is not Akhirul-Muminin but “Faizul Muminin”. So, it is a matter to think that if such illegal and undisciplined tactics have been started to obtain the leadership of the nuclear state’s army, then what will happen to it? Will the world not think that having nuclear weapons in the hands of such an undisciplined army is an alarm bell? Army commanders have been appointed throughout our history. Now, for the first time, there seems to be an attempt to take over. Such an effort should have been smothered at the outset, but here it was encouraged for four years, and when the decisive year came, an attempt is now being made to thwart it. In these circumstances, our only prayer is that God should make the process of changing the command successfully. And the new chief should seriously examine the situation that has arisen because someone broke discipline to become the army chief.
The real root of the riot is the army’s interference in politics. It is the result of these interventions that today, instead of military intervention in politics, the era of political intervention in the army has come. The fire that was kindled to damage others’ houses has reached the house of the “mastermind”. In these circumstances, it has now become mandatory for all institutions and departments to go to their respective limits on a permanent basis. The politicians, generals and judges who are involved in this dangerous conspiracy must be made a lesson for others.
