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| India-Pakistan |
| The military's waning power |
| 2014-05-04 |
| [DAWN] THE victors who climbed the heights of Kargil ... three months of unprovoked Pak aggression, over 4000 dead Paks, another victory for India ... and who gave Pakistain visions as divergent as those based on Islamisation and 'moderate enlightenment', are reduced to controlling the distribution of newspapers and cable channels in cantonments across Pakistain. There was a time when many Paks shuddered at the name of military generals, at the ISI and other spy organizations. Yet today, there is open conflict and condemnation of such actors in the political field. The recent attacks on the military and its institutions have arisen not so much for what the military has achieved on the war front -- its glorious victories in 1965, 1971 or 1999 -- but for transgressing its role in the political sphere. Some writers have called the changes brought about in Pakistain's political economy, where questions of power have been central and have undergone a shift, an "ornamental transition", perhaps not fully understanding the nature of transition, whether social, economic, institutional or political. There would be few who do not see multiple transitions and structural transformation across Pakistain, where the hegemony of the military has been successfully questioned, if not threatened. This does not take away from the fact that the military still continues to be powerful, interventionist, and a veto player in many key decisions, but things need to be seen in their historical perspective. Pakistain's main contradiction at the moment is over military and civilian supremacy. Issues of class, where the landed and propertied rule over and exploit the dispossessed and working people, or of real illusory sovereignty of the country, where Pakistain's elite acquire the vision and sense to confront imperial and global power, are more permanent evolving features of the nature of contradictions facing Pakistain. Similarly, other more substantive longer-term social conflicts are also embedded in contested visions of cultural and social ideology, which one sees being played out in different spheres. While multiple contradictions exist in Pakistain, the immediate tussle over civilian rule free from the obtrusiveness of the military and its institutions, has been played out far more visibly and colourfully than the longer, more drawn-out, transitions. The Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... raid by the US, the outcome of the Asghar Khan case, or even the largely symbolic indictment of General Musharraf, have allowed public criticism of what Aasim Sajjad Akhtar in these columns has called 'sacred cows' to be voiced fairly belligerently. As he argues, 'even a few years ago it was unthinkable that the ISI and its chief could be subject to such accusations' as it has recently. Clearly such a new-found voice by members of parliament or the media, is far more than 'ornamental', and must represent a greater shift. This does not mean that the transition taking place in Pakistain is complete, for it remains partial, tentative and reversible. The possibility of military intervention politically may have decreased, but it still persists. The imminent arrival of Tahirul Qadri next week and rent-a-crowd dubious organizations becoming active, suggests that this war by other means continues, and conditions will be created where military intervention gains further acceptance. Yet, all such possibilities must be resisted and countered by those who envisage a democratic future rather than one which always anticipates the impending interference of the military. It is difficult to understand why people otherwise considered sensible, would support and defend an intelligence agency or military rule, but as one sees in Pakistain, they do exist and propagate pro-military and anti-democratic views -- how such an institution can be called a 'respected pillar of the state', is confounding. While many in the media do gain materially from siding with non-democratic forces, it is the two-facedness of many public performers which makes the political transition from military hegemony to civilian rule even more difficult. Notwithstanding some diasporic academics or foreign journalists, it has taken two decades for scholars to grudgingly accept that feudalism is no longer a dominant social or political phenomenon in Pakistain. Some perhaps still see some remnants of what they would call feudalism, but feudal power as a social category has all but disappeared. Similarly, one is beginning to see the power of the military in Pakistain also diminish as a different transition allows for alternate contenders of power. Like all transitions, this one will also be disruptive, contentious and long-winded, yet the direction may have been established. An injured animal bites hardest. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 That great victory? Indeed. And the Egyptians celebrate their great victory in the Yom Kippur War. Of course, they did get peace with Israel and the Sinai out or it, instead of losing Cairo as originally feared, so they have some justification. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-05-04 10:03 |
| #2 Let me get this straight...the Pakis lost HALF their country in 1971 ( the Eastern Half ) after they killed ( genocide?) 3 million Hindu civilians in just 8 months time ( you got to REALLY WORK to kill 3 million civilians in just 8 months ). And then they not only had 93,000 ( half their standing army ) of their soldiers taken prisoners and shipped by cattle car out into the Rann of Kutch ( a really FINE desert with 126* F temps ) and left to rot for 6 more years while India milked them for ransom ( or something ) and then dumped them on the streets of Karachi so their families could hang the PM a few months later. That great victory? |
| Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 2014-05-04 06:23 |
| #1 its glorious victories in 1965, 1971 or 1999 Paki houmor? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-05-04 02:39 |