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The Image of Pakistan Army Fast Getting Restored ALAIWAH!
The Image of Pakistan Army Fast Getting Restored
by Nirupama Subramanian, The Hindu
Down at heel until a few months ago, the Pakistan Army has swiftly and successfully rebuilt its image on the back of the Swat operation.
Mush 2Last year, in the heady first months of heading an elected civilian government, the PPP broke a huge national taboo. Presenting its first budget, the government gave out more details of defence spending than had ever been revealed before. Instead of the usual practice of putting down the defence allocation in a one-liner, the budget outlined two main headings and four sub-headings under which the money would be spent.
Even more astonishingly, there was a two-hour debate in the Senate, or upper house, Pakistans first ever parliamentary discussion on the defence budget, at which the government gave out some more information: it tabled the allocations for each of the three services. The senators were promised more transparency in the following years budget.
This year, the defence allocation was detailed as it was last year, over the same number of headings and sub-headings. But it is a measure of the swift rehabilitation of the military in the public sphere that this time there was no offer from the government to debate defence spending, nor was there a demand for such a debate not by parliamentarians and not in the media. And unlike last year, no service-wise breakdown of the allocation was provided.
When General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over as the Army chief from the former President, Musharraf, at the end of 2007, the most urgent task before him was to repair the image of his force, after the battering it had taken in the preceding months and years. It can be safely said that in less than two years, he has accomplished a big part of his mission.
From about mid-2006, around the time a military operation killed the Baloch chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti, the Pakistan Army suffered one public relations setback after another. All of it was attributed to Musharrafs dual role as Army chief and President, his unpopularity as the leader of the country and his cascading mistakes in this role rubbing off on the powerful institution that he led simultaneously.
Public anger against the military peaked with the imposition of the second Emergency in November 2007, and by the time Gen. Musharraf gave up his uniform on November 15, 2007, the Army was about as loved as it was in 1971.
Among Gen. Kayanis first moves to retrieve lost ground was to reduce the visibility of the Army in Pakistans governance. Hundreds of serving officers posted by the Musharraf regime in civilian government departments were recalled to army duties. Next, the Army distanced itself from President Musharraf, apparently taking no sides during the August 2008 impeachment drama, although it is said to have brokered a secret deal that ensured that its former boss would not be arrested or hauled up before the courts when he finally decided to step down rather than suffer the humiliation of being turfed out.
The Mumbai terror attacks, which saw the Pakistani establishment whip up fears of an imminent military strike by India, gave rise to the first positive vibes between the military and the people in a long time, with the public spiritedly rallying behind the Army preparatory to what they believed was an imminent war.
In March 2009, when the opposition PML (n) threw its weight behind a long march movement for restoring Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, rumours of a military takeover to prevent the street protest threatened its image once again.
But in a master stroke, the Army decided not to oppose a popular cause. Instead of thwarting the protest as many expected it to do, the Army chief was seen in a behind-the-scenes role forcing President Zardari to give Mr. Chaudhary his job back. Gen. Kayani earned praise for his quiet role in averting a crisis, and while Mr. Chaudharys restoration was projected as a victory of peoples power, there was tacit acceptance that the Army was the final arbiter of power in Pakistan.
But the real transformation in the public attitude towards the Army has come with the operation in Swat. At first seen as chary of taking on the Taliban, the Army has in the eight weeks since the operation began managed to win over Pakistanis with its apparent sincerity in taking on the militants.
As many as 144 soldiers have been killed in this operation, and Pakistani television has been playing up the funerals. On one channel, a moving short film showing some of the funerals in a tightly edited collage extols the supreme sacrifice of mothers whose sons have died in the war.
Until two or three weeks ago, the Army could not have re-entered the public sphere. But as a rational consequence of these sacrifices that the Army is seen as making, and is making, people have begun to rediscover their appetite and love for the Army.
This may not have been possible but for the popularity of the Swat operation. A survey conducted by a U.S.-based research group in May found that 70 per cent of the respondents backed the military operation, with 72 per cent expressing faith in the Army to handle the situation in Swat. The civilian government clocked in just behind, with 69 per cent expressing faith in its capabilities.
A recent Dawn Television documentary series on the Pakistan Army called We Are Soldiers best exemplified its rapid progress in rebranding itself. Such a programme would have been unthinkable just a year ago it would have turned off audiences. But the macho take on life in the Pakistan Army, with its gung-ho die-hard footage has fans on YouTube screaming Wawawoooo, Im sure theyll beat Taliban and Yeah Man, Rock on Pakistan Army. The Army now has fans even on Facebook.
The Army faced a serious challenge in terms of its credibility but it has helped the institution greatly that the military is now seen as pursuing a purely professional role, and not trying to involve itself in the running of the country.
This, and Gen. Kayanis deliberate moves to support democratic institutions and processes in Pakistan, said Lt. Gen Masood, were a positive development and will eventually lead to a situation in which civilians will make policy, and the military confines itself to its professional role, and is respected for this, as [are] armies in India, or the U.S. or elsewhere.
But it is also the reality of Pakistans civil-military relations that when one goes up, the other usually comes down, and some commentators see possible long-term consequences of the militarys positive makeover.
Militarys resurrection is part of Pakistans political cycle politicians lose legitimacy to be replaced by the military until the military loses legitimacy and it is the politicians turn once again. More explicitly, no country should have to demonise its military in order to enjoy democratic freedoms. However, there are inherent costs of the Pakistan Armys rehabilitation.
It is quite conceivable now, that two or three years down the line, we may discover that the reports of the end of the Armys role in the governance and politics of Pakistan may have been premature and exaggerated.
For the time being though, it appears that the government and the military have decided to present a united front, at least for public consumption. Both are working in harmony on the counter-insurgency effort [in the NWFP. Even on the main issue of relations between India and Pakistan, there is a sharing between the two that dialogue must be revived. There is agreement that the Taliban have become the real threat to Pakistan, and that relations with India need to be mended.
But as India and Pakistan take tentative steps towards re-engagement, there is also no escaping that President Zardaris early expansiveness towards India more of trade, less of Kashmir, no first-use of nuclear weapons has an even smaller market now than before.
In the last few months, more and more Pakistanis have bought into the grand revisionist narrative of a U.S.-backed India being the hidden force behind the Taliban, funnelling funds and arms to Beithullah Mehsud to destabilise their country.
Increasingly, the Pakistani discourse on engagement with India seeks to balance New Delhis demand for action against the Mumbai attack perpetrators with the reciprocal demand that India must stop, as charged, funding and arming terrorists operating in Pakistan. Alongside, the traditional establishment emphasis on Kashmir as the core issue has taken the upper hand, with PM Gilani its chief advocate in the civilian government.
Public opinion wants the Pakistan government to act against extremism and militancy, but these twin menaces have come to be only and completely identified with the Taliban. There is no similar demand for action against the jihadi groups that target India or Kashmir, even though these have radicalised entire towns and villages in the Punjab province.
It is interesting that these trends have come to the fore concurrent with the Armys image makeover. At the same time, they have helped strengthen the militarys repositioning in the Pakistani mind because it is able to articulate the anger [against India] more effectively than the civilian leadership which says one thing for the consumption of Washington Post and another for domestic consumption.
For peace lobbies on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, all this can mean only one thing: the game is now infinitely more complex than it ever was.
-----
An eye opener for many, but only if they want to see.
The Image of Pakistan Army Fast Getting Restored
by Nirupama Subramanian, The Hindu
Down at heel until a few months ago, the Pakistan Army has swiftly and successfully rebuilt its image on the back of the Swat operation.
Mush 2Last year, in the heady first months of heading an elected civilian government, the PPP broke a huge national taboo. Presenting its first budget, the government gave out more details of defence spending than had ever been revealed before. Instead of the usual practice of putting down the defence allocation in a one-liner, the budget outlined two main headings and four sub-headings under which the money would be spent.
Even more astonishingly, there was a two-hour debate in the Senate, or upper house, Pakistans first ever parliamentary discussion on the defence budget, at which the government gave out some more information: it tabled the allocations for each of the three services. The senators were promised more transparency in the following years budget.
This year, the defence allocation was detailed as it was last year, over the same number of headings and sub-headings. But it is a measure of the swift rehabilitation of the military in the public sphere that this time there was no offer from the government to debate defence spending, nor was there a demand for such a debate not by parliamentarians and not in the media. And unlike last year, no service-wise breakdown of the allocation was provided.
When General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over as the Army chief from the former President, Musharraf, at the end of 2007, the most urgent task before him was to repair the image of his force, after the battering it had taken in the preceding months and years. It can be safely said that in less than two years, he has accomplished a big part of his mission.
From about mid-2006, around the time a military operation killed the Baloch chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti, the Pakistan Army suffered one public relations setback after another. All of it was attributed to Musharrafs dual role as Army chief and President, his unpopularity as the leader of the country and his cascading mistakes in this role rubbing off on the powerful institution that he led simultaneously.
Public anger against the military peaked with the imposition of the second Emergency in November 2007, and by the time Gen. Musharraf gave up his uniform on November 15, 2007, the Army was about as loved as it was in 1971.
Among Gen. Kayanis first moves to retrieve lost ground was to reduce the visibility of the Army in Pakistans governance. Hundreds of serving officers posted by the Musharraf regime in civilian government departments were recalled to army duties. Next, the Army distanced itself from President Musharraf, apparently taking no sides during the August 2008 impeachment drama, although it is said to have brokered a secret deal that ensured that its former boss would not be arrested or hauled up before the courts when he finally decided to step down rather than suffer the humiliation of being turfed out.
The Mumbai terror attacks, which saw the Pakistani establishment whip up fears of an imminent military strike by India, gave rise to the first positive vibes between the military and the people in a long time, with the public spiritedly rallying behind the Army preparatory to what they believed was an imminent war.
In March 2009, when the opposition PML (n) threw its weight behind a long march movement for restoring Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, rumours of a military takeover to prevent the street protest threatened its image once again.
But in a master stroke, the Army decided not to oppose a popular cause. Instead of thwarting the protest as many expected it to do, the Army chief was seen in a behind-the-scenes role forcing President Zardari to give Mr. Chaudhary his job back. Gen. Kayani earned praise for his quiet role in averting a crisis, and while Mr. Chaudharys restoration was projected as a victory of peoples power, there was tacit acceptance that the Army was the final arbiter of power in Pakistan.
But the real transformation in the public attitude towards the Army has come with the operation in Swat. At first seen as chary of taking on the Taliban, the Army has in the eight weeks since the operation began managed to win over Pakistanis with its apparent sincerity in taking on the militants.
As many as 144 soldiers have been killed in this operation, and Pakistani television has been playing up the funerals. On one channel, a moving short film showing some of the funerals in a tightly edited collage extols the supreme sacrifice of mothers whose sons have died in the war.
Until two or three weeks ago, the Army could not have re-entered the public sphere. But as a rational consequence of these sacrifices that the Army is seen as making, and is making, people have begun to rediscover their appetite and love for the Army.
This may not have been possible but for the popularity of the Swat operation. A survey conducted by a U.S.-based research group in May found that 70 per cent of the respondents backed the military operation, with 72 per cent expressing faith in the Army to handle the situation in Swat. The civilian government clocked in just behind, with 69 per cent expressing faith in its capabilities.
A recent Dawn Television documentary series on the Pakistan Army called We Are Soldiers best exemplified its rapid progress in rebranding itself. Such a programme would have been unthinkable just a year ago it would have turned off audiences. But the macho take on life in the Pakistan Army, with its gung-ho die-hard footage has fans on YouTube screaming Wawawoooo, Im sure theyll beat Taliban and Yeah Man, Rock on Pakistan Army. The Army now has fans even on Facebook.
The Army faced a serious challenge in terms of its credibility but it has helped the institution greatly that the military is now seen as pursuing a purely professional role, and not trying to involve itself in the running of the country.
This, and Gen. Kayanis deliberate moves to support democratic institutions and processes in Pakistan, said Lt. Gen Masood, were a positive development and will eventually lead to a situation in which civilians will make policy, and the military confines itself to its professional role, and is respected for this, as [are] armies in India, or the U.S. or elsewhere.
But it is also the reality of Pakistans civil-military relations that when one goes up, the other usually comes down, and some commentators see possible long-term consequences of the militarys positive makeover.
Militarys resurrection is part of Pakistans political cycle politicians lose legitimacy to be replaced by the military until the military loses legitimacy and it is the politicians turn once again. More explicitly, no country should have to demonise its military in order to enjoy democratic freedoms. However, there are inherent costs of the Pakistan Armys rehabilitation.
It is quite conceivable now, that two or three years down the line, we may discover that the reports of the end of the Armys role in the governance and politics of Pakistan may have been premature and exaggerated.
For the time being though, it appears that the government and the military have decided to present a united front, at least for public consumption. Both are working in harmony on the counter-insurgency effort [in the NWFP. Even on the main issue of relations between India and Pakistan, there is a sharing between the two that dialogue must be revived. There is agreement that the Taliban have become the real threat to Pakistan, and that relations with India need to be mended.
But as India and Pakistan take tentative steps towards re-engagement, there is also no escaping that President Zardaris early expansiveness towards India more of trade, less of Kashmir, no first-use of nuclear weapons has an even smaller market now than before.
In the last few months, more and more Pakistanis have bought into the grand revisionist narrative of a U.S.-backed India being the hidden force behind the Taliban, funnelling funds and arms to Beithullah Mehsud to destabilise their country.
Increasingly, the Pakistani discourse on engagement with India seeks to balance New Delhis demand for action against the Mumbai attack perpetrators with the reciprocal demand that India must stop, as charged, funding and arming terrorists operating in Pakistan. Alongside, the traditional establishment emphasis on Kashmir as the core issue has taken the upper hand, with PM Gilani its chief advocate in the civilian government.
Public opinion wants the Pakistan government to act against extremism and militancy, but these twin menaces have come to be only and completely identified with the Taliban. There is no similar demand for action against the jihadi groups that target India or Kashmir, even though these have radicalised entire towns and villages in the Punjab province.
It is interesting that these trends have come to the fore concurrent with the Armys image makeover. At the same time, they have helped strengthen the militarys repositioning in the Pakistani mind because it is able to articulate the anger [against India] more effectively than the civilian leadership which says one thing for the consumption of Washington Post and another for domestic consumption.
For peace lobbies on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, all this can mean only one thing: the game is now infinitely more complex than it ever was.
-----
An eye opener for many, but only if they want to see.
