The occasional setback like the assassination of the Punjab home minister, Shuja Khanzada, notwithstanding – although I can’t help adding snidely that if he’d had one-fortieth the security of the chief minister this would not have happened – Pakistan over the past one year, since the beginning of the ongoing military operation to be precise, has managed to roll back the tide of terrorism which was threatening to overwhelm it. Terrorism has not been totally defeated, the outposts of the support network sustaining it are yet to be seen on the national radar, Islamic radicalism remains a problem, as does ‘secular’ militancy in Karachi, but even the firmest cynics are finding it hard to deny that the terrorism situation has vastly improved. The level of fear and uncertainty across the country – as far as such nebulous things can be measured – has gone down. Most Karachiites would agree, as would people of Peshawar, a city that not long ago was in the crosshairs of terrorism. The question agitating some if not all sections of Pakistani public opinion is whether this momentum, this forward thrust, can be maintained past Gen Raheel Sharif’s retirement in November 2016. The army differently led might not have opted for the course he chose. So it’s pertinent to ask: what happens once he is no longer there? The army command previous to him was vacillating and double-minded. After decisive action in Swat and South Waziristan, it folded its hands and rested on its laurels. It couldn’t summon up the resolution to go into North Waziristan, the command headquarters of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which under its successive chiefs – Baitullah, Hakeemullah, Fazlullah – was unabashedly waging war against Pakistan. Military irresolution was matched, if not exceeded, by civilian lack of spine. Even as the TTP was carrying out killings and bombings at will, paladins from Nawaz Sharif to Imran Khan held up negotiations as the best way to combat terror. Gen Raheel Sharif’s assumption of command signalled an end to this dithering. The army, backed closely by the PAF, went into North Waziristan, gradually extending its operation to other parts of Fata. This was no painless exercise because the army suffered appreciable losses, as it continues to do until today. If anything, these sacrifices have only stiffened its resolve. The politicians, most of them, kept their fingers crossed. Then occurred the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, causing a wave of revulsion and anger across the country, leaving even the weak-minded amongst the political class little choice but to climb aboard the military’s wagon and shout support for the ongoing operation. Politicians who had shed tears at the killing (by an American drone) of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the ruthless TTP chief, quickly changed tack and started singing a different tune. Their military-support rhetoric today almost conveys the impression that they rather than the army started Zarb-e-Azb…badalta hai rung aasman kaise kaise. The operation was soon extended to Karachi, its across-the-board nature attested by the fact that everyone connected to Karachi’s loot and plunder has been squealing: Lyari kingpins, Mr Zardari himself – prompting from him the memorable threat ‘eent se eent baja den ge’, a threat no sooner delivered than he thought it best to head for safer climes – and now the MQM Rehbar who is seeing his world, or rather his remote-controlled kingdom, coming apart. The army has not only changed the situation on the ground. It has, to a large extent, changed the national mood and altered the terms of national debate and discussion. It’s fair to say that the role of personality should not be over-stressed, other factors too weighing in when it comes to the making of history. But neither does it do to undersell the role of personality. Any number of examples can be quoted from our own history. When Gen Kayani was to step down the Sharifs thought long and hard about his replacement. Their all-time favourite, the model they hoped to replicate, was of course Gen Ziauddin Butt, the luckless general they wanted to make army chief in place of Gen Musharraf. Their attempt, as we know all too well, bungled but that’s another story. As an aside let me say that after October 12 Musharraf picked a carpetbagger, who had come to try his luck in the new dispensation, as first his finance minister and then prime minister. That adventurer gave us consumer financing, which in turn gave us the surfeit of cars on our roads. So next time you curse the traffic in Lahore or even Islamabad think back to Ziauddin Butt, October 12, carpetbaggers, consumer finance, and dolled-up young ladies in banks offering you the quickest car loan on record. The whole sequence gives one a sense of the inter-connectedness of history. As a further aside, let me add that traffic jams came to Moscow because of the break-up of the Soviet Union, and they came to Baghdad because of the American invasion…and they can be seen in Kabul as a consequence of another invasion. One of the lessons of recent history: wherever the American Empire strikes, the motor car, as symbol of prosperity, and traffic jams, as more signs of progress, are bound to follow…not to mention McDonalds and French fries (one of the most inedible things on the planet) and shopping malls, and flyovers and underpasses and signal-free corridors, the latest shenanigan. And this is our idea of civilisation. The Sharifovs got it wrong with Musharraf. They thought as a Mohajir, without a support base of his own, he would be their creature. Behind this clever thinking were people close to them. This time, doing their own homework, after long and careful thought they settled on Raheel Sharif. How they came to this conclusion we will perhaps never know but they thought that in the then line-up of generals he would be their man, the closest to their model, Gen Butt. (In the army’s hall of fame, Gen Butt deserves a place of honour.) It was Pakistan’s good luck that they got it wrong again. No-nonsense Gen Tariq, I am told, would have mounted a coup in six months which would have been another disaster for the country. Someone else might have turned out to be another knight in appeasement armour. Raheel has struck just the right balance: his own man, with a mind of his own, but at the same time no trigger-happy cowboy…otherwise the umpire’s finger would have been raised last August, leading to unpredictable consequences. So the key, the big question is: what happens when his time is up? We have turned a leaf as far as terrorism is concerned. Look at the rest of the Islamic world. We look a picture of stability compared to that. But this is a task only half done. And so much more needs to be done on the mis-governance and corruption fronts. There’s much to be said for ‘democratic continuity’. Zardari would not have been consigned to the museum of has-beens but for ‘democratic continuity’. We had our full dose of him and that is what cured us of his malady. Maybe this is what Pakistan needs…although the evidence of the past 20 years suggests otherwise: that the more so-called democracy we’ve had the more loot and plunder there has been. Yeltsinian democracy did Russia no good. Nehruvian democracy has created an Indian middle class but hasn’t managed the poverty-reduction we have seen in totalitarian China. Maybe we should not hunt after false external analogies and instead we should stick to our own circumstances. Maybe the best thing for Pakistan is not a successful generalissimo seizing power, or brought to power by a coterie of his subordinates, but someone who despite popular acclamation follows the rules, for once, and steps down when his term is up. Gen Raheel is by far the most popular man in the country today. Should he want it power will be his for the taking next year. But suppose he desists. Suppose he restrains himself. Can you imagine the delirium of a populace always prone to emotional excess? People will go mad and hail him as a saviour. Ataturk and de Gaulle did not seize power. They set no 111 Brigade in motion. Power came to them out of the iron law of national necessity. What lies in store for us? Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com
