Source: Himal, November 1999, Vol 12, no 11
Again, desperate times [in Pakistan]
by Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar
The late Eqbal Ahmad once wrote : ìIt has all been said before. Yet those who should, do not listen. And, as in talking to the deaf, one is compelled to repeat in louder, more agitated tones: The army may bring temporary relief. But the problem is eminently political; it shall not yield to military solution.î There is little more that should need to be said about the situation in Pakistan after the 12 October coup by General Pervez Musharraf. But, unfortunately, more will have to be said, loudly, and often, because for too many people memories have become short and the needs of the moment have silenced the warnings of conscience, history and political sense.
Like the 1990s, the decade after partition and independence was one of enormous political instability and opportunism; there were seven prime ministers and four governor-generals between 1947 and 1958, in the last decade there have been seven prime ministers, and three presidents. In mid-1958, General Ayub Khan, then head of the army and defence minister, wrote in his diary ìI am receiving very depressing reports of economic distress and maladministration through political interference, frustration and complete lack of faith by the people in political leadersÖ The general belief is that none of these men have the honesty of purpose, integrity and patriotism to root out the evils of the country, which will require drastic action.î
The action came on 7 October, 1958, when President Iskander Mirza abrogated the constitution and appointed General Ayub Khan as Chief Martial Law Administrator. Ayub Khan addressed the nation on the radio the following day, describing the abrogation of the constitution and declaration of martial law as ìa drastic and extreme step taken with great reluctanceî. But, he said, ìthere was no alternative to it except the disintegration and complete ruination of the country.î The situation was one of ìtotal administrative, economic, political and moral chaosî brought about ìby self-seekers, who in the garb of political leaders, have ravaged the countryî. Ayub Khanís 1958 text could have served General Pervez Musharraf for his speech to the nation on 17 October 1998. Musharraf said ìThere is despondency and hopelessness surrounding us with no light visible anywhere aroundÖ we have reached a stage where our economy has crumbled, our credibility is lost, state institutions lie demolishedî.
Both Ayub and Musharraf claim to have a clear mission. Ayub Khan claimed ìmartial law will not be retained a minute longer than is necessary, it will not be lifted before the purpose for which it has been imposed is fulfilled.î For his part, Musharraf declared ìThe armed forces have no intention to stay in charge longer than is absolutely necessary to pave the way for true democracy to flourishî. He did not said what ìtrue democracyî was, or how he planned to create it, or whether anyone but he would recognise it as such. Perhaps he will try Ayub Khanís local government based ìBasic Democracyî system.
The response of the media and Pakistanís intellectuals to Musharrafís coup was also familiar. It was the same as the response to Ayub Khan, which has been described by Altaf Gauhar; ìAcademics, scholars and writers, particularly in West Pakistan, welcomed Ayubís arrival on the scene and the press gave him considerable support.î Gauhar noted tellingly, ìThe media surrender was so complete the government did not have to resort to any kind of censorship. Not one newspaper uttered a word of criticism against the imposition of martial law. Indeed, most newspapers acclaimed the advent of military rule as a blessing and many of the press barons became willing tools of the regime.î
Tools there are aplenty, some well worn. Musharraf announced that he would have three civilian advisers in his National Security Council. The people picked are known for having co-operated with military governments in the past. Their history of failure, like that of earlier coups, conveniently forgotten.
Along with the reaching back to Ayub Khan, there are some notable borrowings from the July 1977 coup by General Zia-ul Haq; although not the desperate search for legitimacy which led the 1977 coup to be called Operation Fairplay. Musharraf has copied General Ziaís little innovation of saying that he was not abrogating the constitution, merely suspending it. Like Zia, he has also kept on the President, at least for a while. It is to be seen if, like his predecessors who each ruled for over ten years, Musharraf settles in for the long haul.
Despite all this, like the previous coups Musharrafís seizure of power was welcomed with a general sense of relief in the country. Nawaz Sharifís government was seen as having become a problem facing the country, rather than a mechanism for solving its problems. At a time of growing poverty, he was squandering resources on grandiose infrastructure projects and building palaces for himself and his family. He amused himself playing cricket in front of the media while the country watched aghast as poor people burned themselves to death in public as a way to voice the agonies of their lives and their only escape from them.
It was not just these mughal displays that made his going such a relief for so many. Like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before him, Nawaz Sharifís absolutist sense of power drove his efforts to ensure that no one, and no institution, should be able to challenge his authority. He picked a puppet President, ignored the cabinet, railroaded his political party, and amended the constitution in a way that ruled out a parliamentary challenge. On a larger canvas, he bought, brow-beat, and terrorised the judiciary and the press. Until stopped short by the coup, some of the same forces were being brought to bear on the army.
A lot has been said about the relationship between the seeds of the putsch and the war in the Kargil area of Kashmir earlier this year. It is clear now that the action was planned by the army and the civilian government invited on board. Nawaz Sharif went along with it lured by the promise of glory. The halo created so assiduously after the nuclear tests had already worn off as far as the public was concerned. When the adventure in Kargil failed miserably, Nawaz Sharif blamed the military and the military blamed him.
Now that it is freed from political restraint, the military may try more adventures like Kargil. Musharraf said as much before the coup. It is significant that the unilateral pull back of armed forces that Musharraf announced as a sign of good faith has been restricted to the international border and not the Line of Control which divides Kashmir. This suggests Pakistanís military rulers shall continue their support for the mujahideen groups fighting in Kashmir. Despite Musharrafís exhortation that Islam ìteaches tolerance not hatred, brotherhood not enmity, peace not violenceî, to keep the mujahideen pliant the rulers will have to turn a blind eye to the international holy warriors, their training camps, their schools, and their politics.
The Pakistan militaryís obsession with India helps focus on a largely unremarked motive for the coup. The terrible state of Pakistanís economy had made it increasingly difficult to maintain the military budget, and certainly restricted the kind of increases that military planners needed if they were going to stick with their strategy of keeping up with India.. The military budget, over $3 billion and growing, is about the same size as the budget deficit this year. The only bigger drain on state revenue is debt servicing, which cannot be wished away and is growing rapidly. Having cut development spending to the point where it was all dependent on foreign aid, the state needed to generate and collect more revenue if the military were to get as much as they wanted.
Military demands are growing rapidly. The nuclear tests of last year were only a way station on a longer and more expensive commitment to the development of a real nuclear arsenal. This arsenal was not to be bought by cutting back the conventional forces. The new Foreign Secretary, Abdus Sattar, recently argued that Pakistan needed both nuclear weapons on mobile ballistic missiles and large conventional forces.
General Musharraf has declared reviving the economy to be critical. It is a tall order, by any standard, especially since the armed forces themselves are the biggest domestic drain on state resources. On the revenue side, things look grim. Unlike the times of Ayub Khan and General Zia, there is no cold war to lure the American dollar to Pakistan as aid. The famous bank defaulters, the rich and powerful who borrowed heroically with no intention of repaying it, are the target of much public resentment. But, even if the money is recovered from them it will go back to the banks which lent it not to the public exchequer. The claim to end corruption is nothing more than a hollow slogan. It will simply corrupt the military if it tries too hard.
The only means available to increase state resources are more taxation, enforced austerity, and increased exports. This amounts to further squeezing the poor and the salaried through indirect taxation, driving down wages, and reducing the size of state corporations by increasing unemployment. It was noticeable that there was no mention of increased spending on public sector development projects like education and health in Musharrafís speech on 17 October. Authoritarian governments are more effective at this than democracies, and for this reason were so beloved of the World Bank and IMF, and many international investors.
It is worth recalling that a primary goal of Ayub Khanís military government was economic growth. The military was devouring over 40% of government spending, and the military wanted to spend even more as it tried to catch up with India. This led to anticommunist military alliances with the United States in the search for economic and military aid, and the determined pursuit of economic growth. Steered by supposed experts from Harvard University and their local clones, including Mahbub-ul Haq, growth was pursued regardless of the consequences. The outcome was enormous regional disparity, with East Pakistan suffering most acutely, and growing social inequality. Ayubís decade of development famously left 22 families owning two-thirds of Pakistanís industry, and nearly all of the insurance and banking sectors, while for the rest, wages fell, healthcare and other social sectors were neglected. The suppressed tensions exploded with the mass protests in 1969 that brought down the dictatorship, and paved the way for civil war and genocide in Bangladesh.
These problems identified with Nawaz Sharif, and before him Benazir Bhutto, and before her Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and on the other side with Pervez Musharraf, and before General Zia-ul Haq, and before him Ayub Khan, point to deep systemic problems in Pakistan. The most significant among these is not the venality and corruption of Pakistanís political class, nor the thoughtless adventurism of its military leaders, it is rather the absence of organised public opinion strong enough to discipline either.
Musharrafís coup has hastened a creeping double disillusionment that lessens the chances of creating such opinion. The coup truncated a democratic process that would certainly have thrown Nawaz Sharif out of office as decisively as Benazir Bhutto had been rejected in the last election. The next election may have created political confusion, coalition government and instability, but it would have reinforced the feeling in Pakistan that the citizens would not tolerate the gross abuses of power they had suffered at the hands of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. The sharp political lesson, that the people matter, shall now not be learned by political leaders or the electorate. Instead, for many there will be only a memory of democratic politics as the system that failed. Democracy shall have even fewer defenders in Pakistan.
By putting the old partnership of military and bureaucracy that has ruled Pakistan for half its history back at centre-stage the coup has also exposed the weakened and tottering structures of the state to new stresses. These have been eroded by its earlier efforts and failures at government, and by the unprincipled compliance of every state and public institution with the politicians they now claim to despise. The problems are so grave and the stateís capacity to govern so poor that the longer the military and bureaucracy try to rule without consent the greater will be their failure and their loss of legitimacy.
When dissent grows the present liberal face of the putschists shall change. They shall resort to coercion or shall have to step aside, with few if any of their problems solved. If the military regime become ruthless, there shall be a desperate need for a new source of public legitimacy. They are likely to resort to the cover of Islam, like all other governments in crisis in Pakistan. Waiting in the wings are the armies of god.
Return to: October 1999 - Military Coup in Pakistan: Analysis & Reactions