Saving graces… Shahzad Chaudhry

The last two years in Pakistan have been anarchic for a more explanatory term. A weaker nation would have rolled over. A poly-crisis of political and social rupture, an economic meltdown somehow avoided, and a military which was assailed from all sides in political discourse, only portended an impending implosion. Add to it the assault on the western borders by those who are not only inimical but serve the interests of their foreign masters in the name of rights and militant-nationalism. They use terror to unnerve the masses and choose their targets to entrench genocide as a weapon. They assault the state and its symbols to energise an economy of war. They are paid mercenaries doing the work of the Satan and the enemies of Pakistan.

It is in this environment that Army chiefs get named as a daily staple in the political discourse on the popular media and stories bandied about indiscipline in the ranks. This is new for a country which has prided in an unalienable support and affection for the military among the masses. Through targeted criticism of some in the military, serving or retired – social media serves a suitable vehicle to malign the serving – army is now a daily subject of ridicule and spite among those who populate TV channels. It has an attached insidious purpose to commonalise the agency to malign the army while taking cover of discussing its historical role in national affairs, thus reigniting the dislike bordering on hatred. The garb is always altruist meant to wean the military away from what blots the image and find them newer credibility. But what irony, they hash and rehash the negatives from the yore to reinforce their hate narratives of today.

Both sides of the political divide are equal offenders, venomous in recounting for their audiences how the military has been a usurper. Coined creatively, terms like ‘hybrid’, ‘fifth-Gen war’, ‘doctrines attached to each general’s name’, are all meant to denigrate the military – these go unchecked and unimpeded. The context is neither related nor answered instead treating the anomaly as a finite sin reinforcing the disdain. True, there are missteps in the past which yield the space for such insidious exploitation, but times have moved on. Clearly, it must begin with the military charting a clean exit from the mess that politics has designed for itself to thrive in. Especially now, when the challenges from all directions have only accelerated and the army is being forced to fight a rearguard battle. It is time to instead focus on the gathering storms along and on the borders of the country.

April 2022 to March 2024 has been the longest dark tunnel that this hapless nation has had to endure. We have traversed it though retaining our coherence. It threatened a meltdown. Speculations and conjectures were rife. Politics and political activity stood polarised to the extreme. State institutions were forced to take sides. Governance structures were a shamble. In larger perception a civil war loomed where military credibility was being slowly eroded, the economy had already tanked and was being sustained through artificial intervention, and the society was on a brink of direct clash. Yet, we survived. There were saving graces.

Blood did not let. The political process, however compromised, tainted and manipulated, still held. People came out in large numbers – in relative sense given the prevailing uncertainty – and voted in the February 8 election reinstating their belief in the democratic process. And military’s integrity and command structure remained in place reinforcing its coherence and discipline as a formidable force. To me February-March 2024 was the shining hour of this nation. The nation may have appeared exhausted, laboured by unanswered questions and continuing political strife, perhaps having lost some of the sheen it has prided on for decades, yet it found hope and light at the end of the arduous experience. It remains a work in progress, but we seem to have beaten the odds once again. For no other word, resilience alone comes to mind. Till when though? Let not this chance and opportunity die at the hands of selfish, egotistical motives and emplaced chaos – political or legal.

Fast forward to now. May 9 will extract its own cost as an attempted insurrection and treated per law, and the responsible brought to the book. But that is a criminal proceeding which must follow its own course. It cannot be permitted to be hijacked and availed by those who considering army’s sensitivity exploit it to further their own cause – political, personal or institutional. A former DG ISI’s arrest and arraignment in a court martial is exceptional but to serialise it in maligning the institution of intelligence or army can only be malicious and subversive.

If indeed 9 May was a botched insurrection with deeper, more insidious aims there are two positives on this side of the dark tunnel that we must celebrate. The integrity of command and the order of our structures in the military remain unblemished – imagine the dirt, filth and the innuendo which the media carried, and surely the enemies of Pakistan propagated to bring down and rupture the armed forces. Those who meant harm failed to appreciate the commitment and the sense of duty that these troops carry far above any as a sacred trust. This ethos and commitment to it saved the day for us and is the cornerstone on which rests the edifice of a formidable fighting force. It must be preserved and nurtured, never taken for granted.

The other winners of the day were the people. Considering how few ventured out to eke a revolution failed those who underestimated the sensibility of the people and their belief in the story we call Pakistan. Regardless of their preference there was one entity, called Pakistan, which will not be put at risk in any circumstance. They held back from what could have been destructive and dastardly displaying their innate rationality. They were also the winners when they instead chose to take the legal and proper way out for expressing their belief and conviction using instead the vote in the elections. It reinforced democracy. The people need to be respected for their maturity and discretion. It is up to democracy now to prove itself worth that trust.

These are the assets this country and its inhabitants need to preserve and cherish. Rather than eliminate the opposition using the shoulders of state institutions it is time to be fighting the imminent threats which only increase by the day. Rather than dissipate and dissuade from the task at hand we are increasingly being distracted by the frivolous. Balochistan, KP and fading writ in our midst beckon for a coherent and focused fightback. It cannot be put off at the altar of personal vengeance and hate which is being used to draw lines and divide the nation. It is time to call for ending the pantomime on display in the political order.

Courtesy The Express Tribune