View from Pakistan: Civilian control - A means to stability, sanity

So many left-leaning and liberal political commentators have believed for long that the civil-military imbalance lies at the root of most of the country’s ills. With Nawaz Sharif taking up the cudgels for civilian supremacy and blaming his ouster from office on it as well, many conservative and right-of-centre commentators and opinion writers/anchors have also joined the ranks of those who believe in civilian supremacy as a means to stability and sanity. Agreed that many major policy areas such as national security and foreign affairs and the direction that the country follows in each must be decided and set by the constitutionally-empowered civilian leadership, with input from all key institutions. It is and should always be a civilian prerogative. The ground reality tells a very different story. Civilians can try, and have tried, to assert themselves. In the end, however, their stance, even as it is in line with constitutional provisions, represents no more than token defiance. Just rewind to where the government started on coming to office in 2013 when the then Prime Minister spelt out and tried to execute his own foreign policy. Whether on India or Afghanistan, he increasingly found no elbow room to manoeuvre. Some four years later, the once-robust politician, who could hold his own on the issue of Constitution and civilian supremacy, and now the foreign minister, does little better than to parrot with near relish the military’s views in key policy areas.

One can understand the frustration of Rawalpindi-Islamabad residents who are justified in attacking the government and its interior minister for their apparent inertia in dealing with protesters blocking a major artery connecting the two cities and also the capital with the airport. But one must also be mindful of unsaid government concerns that if administrative action sparks wider protest whether forces other than police would follow its orders. After all, the interior minister will recall what happened when he demanded action against a paramilitary Rangers soldier. The soldier had blocked the minister’s path to an accountability court where he was headed to witness Sharif’s trial. When the interior minister reacted angrily and demanded action, the Army’s chief spokesman advised him to give shabaash (pat on the back) to the soldier for doing his job. Then there was the unprecedented “seminar” co-hosted by the ISPR on the economy where not a single civilian government voice was represented. Among the speakers were a couple of harsh critics of government economic policy with one known to embellish his facts with non-facts.

When sections of the media criticised that the Army had been open with its reservations on the government’s economic policy, the military spokesman remained unapologetic and robustly defended his institution’s right to formulate and express an opinion in this area too. These examples represent the tip of the iceberg. Should this civil-military tussle where (some allege) the judiciary also weighs in on one side or the other prevent the civilian setups at the centre and provinces from delivering good governance in areas where they do indeed have the authority? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. We’ll leave the performance of the other provincial governments for another time but a recent, quick visit to Karachi painted a tragic picture of neglect at the hands of the only political party I’d vote for in the past.

There are no doubt big capital expenditure projects being executed perhaps because of the associated economic opportunities they represent to those authorising them. I must have counted several new underpasses and flyovers compared with a visit last year. But side by side, it was shocking to see a large number of tall buildings mushrooming across the Clifton area where clearly land-use change had been authorised after only who knows what considerations, with no accompanying mandated upgrade of the utilities. I bet untreated sewage from many of these projects will find its way to the sea which, in some cases, is merely a few hundred metres away. The country’s most avowedly democratic party, the PPP, agreed to hand over local bodies to the elected representative after much-delayed elections — which too followed Supreme Court intervention. But not before emasculating their powers through amendments to the law. The result: one of the biggest urban conurbations in the world looks to the provincial and not its city government to provide as basic a service as garbage removal. Garbage removal does not seem to sit anywhere in the list of priorities of the Sindh government.

Wherever one drives in Karachi and this includes the so-called “upmarket, posh” areas piles of rotting rubbish are never out of sight. At least the one blame the PPP won’t have to shoulder is elitism. Crumbling roads, piles of rubbish and not a semblance of civic services is common to all rich, middle-class and poor neighbourhoods alike in Karachi. Wouldn’t one way to civilian supremacy be through enhancing one’s credentials through exceptional governance delivered transparently and cleanly? Of course, the civilians can argue what credentials or track record does the military high command have enabling it to claim primacy? My only response would be not to compare chalk and cheese. In a recent interview, Gen. Musharraf conceded he lacked legitimacy during his years in power. Those whose claim to power is legitimate must not dilute it with poor governance.

By arrangement with Dawn