A careful analysis of “political engineering projects” of the past by the Pakistani Establishment can help us understand our present and guess our future!
It is said that history does not repeat itself but it rhymes. This repetition or rhyming of history is precisely the reason why scholars of every nation have spent huge efforts in the study of history. We can often answer the questions of our present by a careful study of our past and in the process, peer into the future. Pakistan has been suffering from a long period of political instability which does not appear to be ending anytime soon. Every opportunity to rectify the current crisis has not only been spurned but also bungled up royally in order to augment the mess. Most recently, a huge opportunity to arrest the political instability was lost on the 8th of February. Free and fair elections would have gone a long way to tranquilize the public and put the country back on the path towards stability and progress. Instead, what the country witnessed was an openly rigged election. Here, I will controversially concede that even rigged elections can bring stability if they are properly rigged (Putin being an example here) even though in the long run such shenanigans always end up costing the nation dearly. But the February elections in Pakistan weren’t just brazenly rigged, they were incompetently rigged! Obviously, those who meant to do the rigging believed that by doing so they would “stabilize” the country and eliminate a certain problematic politician from the political map of Pakistan. In the mind of the general public, the Chief Election Commissioner or even the Chief Justice, named as the chief organizers of the rigging by an official, are mere accessories or pawns. It’s the powerful military establishment that is said to be the prime mover behind the tumultuous events of the last 2 years including the election.
Any serious student of the history of the Pakistan Army can appreciate an interesting phenomenon: Our military’s performance has been quite uneven. The stellar performance at Chawinda came at the same time as the pathetic performance in the Khem Karan offensive. Similarly, even when we study the history of the military’s political “operations”, we find out that while the election rigging in 1965 and the coup of 1977 were executed almost flawlessly, the “management” of the elections of 1970 and 2024 reeked of massive incompetence. The question I will attempt to answer in this article is: Why has the establishment been so uneven in its political engineering? Why did the same institution “fail” so spectacularly in 1970, only 5 years after the “successful” management of the 1965 Presidential election? The answer to this question will provide us with valuable insights into the present scenario. By discovering the governing dynamics behind the army’s political engineering record, we will be able to see some serious dangers lurking for Pakistan in the near future.
In order to answer the question at hand comprehensively, I will examine the 1970-71 episode in detail. The election campaign of 1970 threw Pakistan into a spiral of political instability, a horror show that only ended with the vivisection of the country and a humiliating military defeat. The factors relevant in that crisis are relevant today as well. So, let’s dive into the murky world of United Pakistan ruled by Yahya Khan and his coterie of generals. The tragic saga of 1970-71 starts with the year-long election campaign marred by violence and hooliganism in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League was thought by many in both East and West Pakistan to be a party whose ultimate aim was secession. Sheikh Mujib himself had been tried for treason in the Agartala Conspiracy Case for his secessionist activities by the government of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. But the military government under Yahya Khan bizarrely did nothing as Sheikh Mujib used systematic violence to sabotage the election campaigns of other parties. Even on the polling day, Awami League’s goons ruled the polling stations while the army looked on and did nothing to stop the rigging. Why did the military establishment give the Awami League a license to rig? The answer is both interesting and awful. In the book “East Pakistan The Endgame: An Onlooker’s Journal, 1969– 1971”, Brigadier A. R. Siddiqi (who was heading the ISPR then) wrote that the military leadership had expected that the electorate would return a splintered verdict. Such a fractured National Assembly, they believed, would render the task of constitution- making within 120 days nigh impossible, and so necessitate a fresh election. “This process, they hoped,” recalled a member of the martial law administration, “would go on indefinitely, allowing martial law to remain in force.” According to Indian historian Srinath Raghavan, “In a trance of wishful thinking, the generals continued to believe that the polls would play out to their script. They persistently underestimated both the Awami League and the PPP.” Shuja Nawaz, in his seminal history of the Pak Army titled “Crossed Swords”, mentioned: “The military intelligence estimates gave the Awami League no more than 46-70 seats out of 167 seats in East Pakistan, and gave the PPP no more than 20-30 seats out of the 144 allotted to the West.”
Here, one may ask why the military was woefully unaware of the situation in East Pakistan. Why didn’t the generals know that giving Awami League a free hand would result in giving a potentially secessionist party complete freedom to frame a constitution of its choice and foist it on the country on the basis of its simple majority with all of its MNAs coming from a single province? General Khadim Raja, commander of the lone Pak Army division in East Pakistan at that time has provided some valuable information regarding this question in his book, “A Stranger in My Own Country”. Before the elections, he had curtly informed Yahya Khan’s National Security Advisor Major General Ghulam Umar (who was deputed by Yahya to “manage” the elections) that “Sheikh Mujib would ‘sweep the board’, to the extent of 75 percent, in East Pakistan.” He further wrote: “I have reason to believe that there was a lot of misreporting by these two agencies (IB and ISI). Some of it may have been inadvertent, but a lot of it may have been deliberate in order to misguide the authorities. These advisers of the President appeared to believe that the vote in East Pakistan would be divided. According to them, it was not possible for the Awami League to win a decisive majority. They failed to see the obvious writing on the wall. Some of these gentlemen surreptitiously went about trying to reinvigorate political opposition to the Awami League through money and the moral support of the Central Government. These crude attempts leaked out and eventually produced negative results. There was a lot of resentment among the educated masses.”
The moment of reckoning arrived on the 7th of December 1970 when the “election management experts” were left flabbergasted with the results. The Awami League won 160/162 seats in East Pakistan and gained an absolute majority (the total seats up for direct elections were 300) in the assembly. Arshad Sami Khan, Yahya Khan’s ADC, has described the scene at the President house vividly in his book “Three Presidents and an Aide”. On the election night Yahya Khan hollered at General Ghulam Umar and asked him, “What in the devil’s name is happening here? Where on earth has your assessment gone?” Interestingly, instead of accepting this “setback” and trying to work with the newly elected government for the betterment of the country, the establishment chose to prop-up Bhutto (runner-up in the election with 81 seats) as an “equal” to Mujib. According to Shuja Nawaz, as soon as the results were in, the well-respected Chief of General Staff General Gul Hassan proclaimed to A.R. Siddiqi, the ISPR chief, “Let’s back Bhutto!” Lt. General Kamal Matinuddin narrated in his excellent book on the 1971 debacle, “Tragedy of Errors” that in late December 1970, General Akbar Khan (The ISI Chief) declared, “Don’t worry . . . we will not allow those black bastards to rule over us” (The “black bastards” being the comparatively dark skinned Bengali citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan!).
Under Yahya Khan’s leadership, the military establishment now embarked on another venture that was doomed to fail in the eyes of anyone who still had a working relationship with his brain. The task at hand now was to give Bhutto the veto power against Mujib. Not only was this against the rules framed by the military itself in the Legal Framework Order (LFO) under which the elections were held but this attempt was also certain to cause huge resentment amongst the Bengalis (even those who hadn’t voted for Mujib). Yahya’s two top aides, Generals Peerzada and Ghulam Umar, now tried to convince the smaller parties of West Pakistan to boycott the National Assembly if Bhutto directed his PPP to do so. Quite predictably, all of them barring one exception refused. The military was advised by leaders of those parties to let the democratic process run its course. All of them also didn’t want to surrender their position to Bhutto who was consistently provoking provincialist sentiments and spuriously proclaiming himself to be the sole voice of West Pakistan.
Thwarted in this endeavor to use all the West Pakistani political parties as front men in its conflict with Sheikh Mujib, the military establishment had to intervene directly. Yahya Khan announced to indefinitely postpone the National Assembly session on 1 March 1971, just two days before it was scheduled to be held in Dhaka. Yahya Khan was sufficiently warned of the consequences of this action by the top Pakistani officials stationed in Dhaka when they were informed of this decision in the last week of February. Governor East Pakistan, Admiral Ahsan, did his best to dissuade Yahya and warned that the public anger in East Pakistan would be impossible to control. He was fired from his job and the charge of Governor was handed over to General Sahibzada Yaqub, the Chief Martial Law Administrator in Dhaka. General Yaqub was not a yes-man at all though. He was well aware of the volatile situation in East Pakistan and had tried to convince Yahya not to postpone the assembly session. Predictably (that is for everyone apart from Yahya’s inner circle) East Pakistan erupted into protest and violence as soon as the news of the postponement was announced. The Awami League had always painted West Pakistan as a usurper which would never accept the Bengalis as equal partners in Pakistan. The indefinite postponement of the assembly session, in which the first popularly elected government (dominated by Bengalis) was to take charge, convinced even those Bengalis who didn’t like Mujib and his party that West Pakistanis would never let them have constitutional power. Hundreds were killed in the ensuing violence and Mujib was pressurized greatly by elements inside and outside his party to declare secession or be considered a “traitor” to “Bangladesh”! General Yaqub implored the President to immediately come to Dhaka and strike a deal with Mujib in order to try to save Pakistan from dismemberment but his appeals fell on deaf ears. Disappointed and disgusted with this apathy, General Yaqub resigned on the 5th of March, 1971. In his telegram to the President, he presciently wrote: “Only solution to present crisis is a purely political one. Only the President can take this far-reaching decision by reaching Dacca by March 6 which I have repeatedly recommended. I am convinced there is no military solution which can make sense in present situation. I am consequently unable to accept the responsibility for implementing a mission, namely military solution, which would mean civil war and large scale killings of unarmed civilians and would achieve no sane aim.”
General Yaqub knew that failure to strike a deal with Mujib would usher in a bloody civil war and the country’s resultant vivisection. Many officers stationed in East Pakistan like General Khadim Raja were rightly fearing a mutiny by the Bengali members of Pakistan Armed Forces. But, according to Shuja Nawaz, not a single general in Yahya’s junta anticipated a mutiny by the East Pakistani soldiers and officers in the province. General Yaqub wasn’t the only one to be removed after openly criticizing Yahya and his Generals’ mad dash toward civil war. Air Commodore Masood, Commander of the Air Force contingent in Dhaka, spoke vehemently against military action in front of Yahya Khan when the latter finally descended on Dhaka in mid-March. For this temerity, Air Commodore Masood, one of the most highly regarded Air Force officers and a hero of the 1965 War, was fired a few days later.
Finally, on the 25th of March 1971, Yahya Khan ordered a military crackdown on the Awami League. Operation Searchlight was thus launched. But Yahya’s cowardice doomed it to failure from the start. It was imperative that the element of surprise be utilized to arrest all the top Awami League leadership on the first night of the operation lest they escape to India and provide leadership to the rebellion that would now certainly break out. But Yahya insisted on leaving East Pakistan before the beginning of the operation. He also ordered that the operation only be started once he had safely reached West Pakistan. The men commanding Operation Searchlight (Generals Tikka, Khadim, and Farman Ali) knew that Yahya’s departure would immediately be discovered by the Awami League through the large number of Bengali officials and workers at the Dhaka airport. They also knew that Yahya’s departure would be taken as the sure sign of the breakdown of talks and the beginning of a crackdown. But Yahya prized his physical safety much more than the 12,000-odd men of the Pakistan Army who were left in grave peril to confront about 60,000 angry Bengali men in uniform belonging to the Pak Army, East Pakistan Rifles, and the Police.
The tragic saga of follies doesn’t end here. Despite the initial “success” of Operation Searchlight, men like General Khadim and General Farman knew that Pakistan was now fighting an unwinnable war. The military establishment, though, mistook these officers’ realism for defeatism. A new band of generals was posted to East Pakistan in April 1971 led by “Tiger” General Niazi. General Niazi was actually chosen for this post only because he was a close protégé of the Army Chief of Staff and Yahya’s bosom friend General Hamid. This wasn’t something new in that era as the promotion of officers for rendering personal service to the Army Chief of Staff was a commonplace occurrence according to then Chief of General Staff Lt. General Gul Hassan! General Gul Hassan has also mentioned in his memoirs that in his sagacious opinion, General Niazi was fit to be no more than a mere company commander. Anyway, General Niazi continued to fool GHQ with false reports of fictional victories until the 9th of December 1971. By that time, Niazi’s command had effectively disintegrated in the face of Bengali rebels and the Indian Army. On that day, the Eastern Command finally sent a message to GHQ depicting its inability to wage war further. Upon receipt of that fateful message, General Gul Hassan wondered, “What the situation would have been had Niazi chosen to report facts, rather than habitually conjuring up rosy dispatches that were digested with ease.” General Niazi also had disregarded multiple warnings by Gul Hassan to modify his deployment (Pakistani forces in East Pakistan were spread all over the country and in this array were going to be an easy target for the invading Indian forces) and focus on the defense of Dhaka prior to the war. The reason, according to Gul Hassan, was simple: General Niazi didn’t want to question the plans and delusions of those very superiors who had elevated him to the rank of Lieutenant General!
Lastly, let’s examine the situation of the military high command at the end of this sorry episode. Notwithstanding the calamitous and foolish political strategies of the military junta, one might think that the performance of military establishment in the military sphere would be better as it was their turf after all. One would be wrong to think that. According to General Gul Hassan, “I do not think the GHQ has ever been so ineffective as it was in the months prior to the outbreak of the war with India in 1971.” This is a truly damning statement from the man who was the Chief of General Staff at that time. After more than a dozen months of ruthless repression at home, the military high command couldn’t even summon the courage to launch a single offensive from West Pakistan against India. Officers like Gul Hassan and Tikka Khan pressed hard for committing the much-vaunted reserve strike force to a last-ditch offensive in a desperate attempt to alter the course of the war. But they were firmly opposed by General Yahya Khan and General Hamid. In the end, a humiliating surrender by Pakistani forces on 16 December was followed by a whimpering ceasefire on the Western Front the next day. Such was the disconnect with reality in Yahya’s court that a “constitution” dictated by him was being printed on the very day East Pakistan met its demise! Even after losing half of Pakistan, Yahya tried his best to cling to power. Only a full-blown revolt in the army, led by junior officers who finally had had enough, managed to oust the drunken despot from the office he had illegitimately occupied for two and a half years.
My point in narrating this whole tale of woe is to make evident some trends and dynamics within the military establishment. The army’s performance throughout its history has been uneven because the human resource at its disposal is quite variable. There are officers like Admiral Ahsan, Air Commodore Masood, and Lt. General Yaqub. Then there are men like Gul Hassan, Khadim Raja, Rao Farman Ali, and Tikka Khan. Lastly, there are people like Yahya Khan, General Abdul Hamid, Lt. General Peerzada, and Major General Ghulam Umar.
The first group (Ahsan, Yaqub, Masood) represents those officers who are willing to risk the displeasure of superiors even in political matters when they believe that the country is being harmed. They don’t hide behind the plausible excuse of being “simple soldiers” and don’t stay quiet when they feel that their bosses’ or colleagues’ political engineering is leading the country to ruin. This group is by far the smallest in size of the three groups. It is also intellectually the most superior one in the army. This group has a significant propensity for meddling in politics as its members feel that they can manage the country better than the civilians. Confident, clever, and knowledgeable, they have certain ideas about what is proper and beneficial for the country, yet they are willing to step back if they believe that doing so would benefit the country. On the other hand, if they believe that their entry in politics is required by the country, they don’t hesitate to overstep the boundaries of the military sphere and directly intervene in the political arena.
The second group (Gul Hassan, Khadim, Tikka) is composed of professionally competent officers who don’t interfere with the “political engineers” and follow the military chain of command without hesitation. When the political projects of the military establishment become overtly malignant, the officers of this group tend to try to distance themselves as much as possible from the political scene and immerse themselves in wholly and purely military tasks. If they are forced into positions where they have to follow the directives of political engineers, they don’t disobey orders but execute them in a lackluster manner. They view their superiors’ and colleagues’ political games with distaste but stay quiet and don’t rock the boat. Mutiny or the snapping of the military chain of command is their worst nightmare and that is why they never utter a word or move a finger as the “political generals” continue on their path. On the other hand, if they feel that the political engineering of the military is beneficial for the country, they perform the political duties assigned to them through the military chain of command with zeal and gusto. Hence, in this case, their “political performance” is far superior to the scenario in which they believe that the political engineering is proving disastrous.
The third group (Yahya, Hamid, Peerzada, Umar) is by far the numerically largest group. Professionally insecure, most of the members of this group attain high ranks in the military through sycophancy, back-biting, workplace politics and intrigues, and by exploiting the chinks in the system. When placed in positions of command, the members of this group employ intimidation and bullying tactics to exercise their authority. They also surround themselves with lackeys and hand out important posts to them in order to secure themselves in positions of command. Suffering from an inferiority complex and professional incompetence, they employ hubris, false bravado, and delusions to maintain their self-image. They also have the greatest propensity to indulge in politics as their lack of professional competence compels them to look to other fields for personal advancement. Whenever in positions of command, either on the battlefield or in the political arena, the officers of this cadre spell disaster for Pakistan.
Now I will answer the question raised at the beginning of this article: Why has the establishment been so uneven in its political engineering? Why did the same institution “fail” so spectacularly in 1970, only 5 years after the “successful” management of the 1965 Presidential election? Well, whenever the first group has led the political engineering, the second group’s performance has been better as well. In such a scenario, the third group only exercises limited influence and is usually sidelined from apex decision-making. In the 1965 elections, Miss Fatima Jinnah was leading an alliance of opposition parties who had no common program apart from toppling Ayub Khan. From Islamists like Maududi to centrists of the Council Muslim League and secessionists like Sheikh Mujib, the opposition alliance’s only unifying point was to unravel the order established by Ayub Khan. By 1965, Ayub Khan had brought much economic growth and international prestige to Pakistan. His rule had brought much-needed stability after the chaos of the 1950s in which all of the opposition alliance members had been important contributors. So, it was quite understandable if the officers of the first group took charge of the political engineering to “save” Pakistan from the “mix achar” of the opposition. The second group, holding order and stability close to heart, willingly followed the directives of the first group and helped implement the policy of the military establishment. Since these two groups of officers provide all the competence the military has to offer, the political engineering was carried out quite competently and “successfully”.
The 1970-71 episode brings forth a very different picture. Wishful thinking, delusions, poor strategy, impractical goals, self-destructive schemes, false bravado, and a complete inability to gauge the situation at all top levels were the hallmarks of the establishment’s political management. The men in charge simply ignored unpleasant realities. Whenever confronted with the inevitable consequences of their actions, they worsened the situation by employing a new and more destructive strategy, all the while lulling themselves into a false sense of “control” over the situation. They thought they would get a hung parliament (despite being told to the contrary directly by men on the ground). Then, instead of stepping back and letting democracy run its course (Major General Rao Farman Ali had advised Yahya Khan to hand over power to Mujib. He presciently stated that Mujib was a corrupt and incompetent man who would become the most loathed man in Bengal only a few months after taking office!), they tried to use a very transparent smokescreen (Bhutto) and tried to bully their opposition into submission. Failing here as well, instead of stepping back (as advised by General Yaqub and Air Commodore Masood), they indulged in fancies of their “martial superiority” and imagined that a “whiff of grapeshot” would pacify the Bengalis! The resultant gamble (can a guaranteed defeat be called a gamble?) resulted in the demise of thousands, if not lakhs, of Pakistanis from both East and West Pakistan. Thousands of Pak Army’s sons were fed into the meat grinder with reckless abandon as the junta entertained the fantasy that Bengal had been tamed by “Tiger” Niazi. A singular display of military incompetence in the war with India was the final cherry on top of the cake of incompetence, hubris, and egomania baked by our military establishment! The dynamics at play were completely different from 1965. The members of the first group were fired from all the top posts. Thus, the army lost its most intellectual and confident lot. The second group, knowing full well that the political project was leading Pakistan to ruin, didn’t protest openly but was either sidelined (like Khadim Raja) or was put into purely military roles (like Tikka and Gul Hassan). Even in pure military roles, their sound military advice was ignored due to the military incompetence and cowardice of the group calling all the shots. In this scenario, the third group (comprising of incompetent and ethically bankrupt officers) possessed all the power. Hence, the “values” embodied by this group (delusional thinking, self-deception, egomania, cowardice, and incompetence) marked both the political and military endeavors of the military establishment. No wonder the result was horror, humiliation, and abject defeat!
Here, one might ask the question that how any one of these groups of officers manages to gain control of the levers of power within the army and become the military establishment in the process? The answer is simple. Pak Army is organized in a linear and top-down manner. So, it’s the chief who determines this. Ayub Khan belonged to the first group and Yahya Khan belonged to the third group. Hence their respective groups held primacy during their tenures. Obviously, during the tenures of army chiefs belonging to the second group (eg Tikka Khan), the military’s interference in politics was at the lowest levels witnessed in Pakistan’s history.
At this moment, it is pertinent to indulge in a comprehensive 360-degree discussion of the effects of the military’s involvement in politics, especially when spearheaded by the “clever and competent” first group. But I will discuss that in detail in a future article as it is a long discussion in its own right. Here, at the end of this article, I will merely point out that the monumental incompetence of the past 2 years and the resultant political instability (which is ballooning with every new intervention of the “apolitical” military establishment) points to the fact that the third group of officers is firmly in control within the army and is embodying the military establishment. There are eerie similarities with the crisis of 1970-71. It is clear that the establishment big-wigs received highly inaccurate reports prior to the elections. When the results surprised the establishment, it resorted to desperate measures that were not only slip-shod but also tore apart the veil of plausible deniability (a favorite device of the establishment since the first decade of Pakistan). In desperation, the establishment has also attempted to legitimize those who haven’t got the popular mandate. But there are important differences as well. The most important difference is that where Mujib and his party were bent on secession sooner or later (a fact frankly admitted by Mujib himself and his close aides like Kamal Hossain), Imran Khan and his PTI are as far from being anti-national as anyone can be. For the military establishment, this can both be a boon and a bane. It can be a boon if the establishment realizes its mistakes and steps back to let the people choose their rulers. If the PTI does come into power then, the establishment won’t have anything to fear and it will retain its privileged status in the country. Whether that NRO to the establishment would be beneficial for the country is another matter though. But the third group of officers doesn’t usually possess the capacity to accept its inadequacies and step back from the abyss. On the other hand, if the establishment not only continues on its current path but also increases the repression at every step (as has been going on for two years), the risk of a civil war and the country’s disintegration will increase in proportion with each cycle of repression. In 1971, the establishment had West Pakistan to fall back on. This isn’t the case this time. The power differential between India and Pakistan has also shifted greatly in India’s favor since 1971. Unfortunately, the current military establishment is as oblivious to the perilous situation as the one in 1971. It’s the height of folly to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result but sadly, that is what is being done. I will cap off this article with a pertinent excerpt from “The Fall” by Albert Camus:
“How many crimes committed merely because their authors couldn’t endure being wrong!”
