by Ashraf Jehangir Qazi at Pakistan Monthly Review: The night of October 20-21, 2024 will go down as the darkest moment yet in Pakistan’s sorry history. An unrepresentative parliament and a controversially elected government conspired with the military to savage the Constitution. They have sought to constitutionally legitimate what has, in fact, been and continues to be military rule with all its dire consequences for the people and state of Pakistan. Every military officer of Pakistan has pledged on passing out from their training academies not to take part in politics. Every officer knows how far he and the military have been faithful to that pledge. Every officer, indeed soldier, has a conscience that should keep him on the straight and narrow. The International Commission of Jurists stated that the 26th Amendment “has harmed judicial independence, the rule of law, and human rights protection.” The ICJ added that the Amendment “eroded the judiciary’s capacity to independently and effectively function as a check against excesses by other branches of the state and protect human rights.” It noted how the Amendment was passed “in such a secret manner”.
Not even the fall of Dhaka in December 1971 can begin to compare with the scale of national humiliation involved. The humiliation of 1971 was the result of an enemy military victory even if Pakistan’s utter mishandling of its domestic affairs provided the opportunity for external military intervention. The latest humiliation is largely the result of a domestic military victory over the people of Pakistan abetted by a corrupt and usurped political process. Apparently, the calculation of the Pakistan military is that the majority of Pakistanis do not sufficiently value their freedom, rights, families, compatriots and country to accept the rigours and sacrifices of a sustained struggle for them. The next few weeks will determine whether or not this unfortunate and hostile assumption is justified. Should it turn out to be correct, Pakistan will not survive for long and the people will have lost the country their fathers, grandfathers and forefathers sacrificed so much to make possible. The cynicism in me, accordingly, must give way to the belief that this miserable calculation is mistaken.
While it is always debatable when historical processes actually commence, the degeneration and failure of Pakistan, at the latest, started in earnest with the judicial murder of its controversial Prime Minister (PM) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by General Ziaul Haq in 1979. Ever since, the military – which played no role in the founding of Pakistan and a key role in bringing about the demise of united Pakistan in 1971 under General Yahya Khan – has sought to reduce the unanimously adopted 1973 Constitution to irrelevance although it is the legal and political foundation of the country. The 26th Amendment has rendered the Constitution a mockery of itself. Previous unconstitutional Provisional Constitution Orders were promulgated by the military. The 26th Amendment is an attack by parliament on its own enacted Constitution! How does this square with the pledge made by every Member of Parliament when taking the oath?
Just as the senior command of the Pakistan Army never developed any coherent or realistic strategy for the wars it fought, they never seriously tried to elucidate a political justification or ‘ideology’ for their grabbing of power and political control over the country. They have by and large used the resources of the country, not so much to defend and develop it as much as to politically and economically dispossess the people of Pakistan. Among the people of Pakistan are the vast majority of its soldiers who do not live in the palatial mansions of Defence Housing Societies. This has happened in one of the world’s poorest countries that needed all its actual and potential resources to build a middle income country. Only then would it have been able to cope with the survival challenges of the 21st century. Instead, its Generals, with honourable exceptions, have by and large stood in the way of such a national transformation by prioritising a praetorian security state over a democratic developing state. Budgetary priorities have as a result been corrupted beyond the economy’s capacity to bear.
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