In his public first address during the commissioning parade at Pakistan Naval Academy, Gen Munir said, “Pakistan is passing through one of her most critical junctures and this requires development of national consensus by all stakeholders to sail through the confronted challenges of economy and terrorism”. His worries regarding Pakistan’s failing economy as well as escalating terrorism are well founded, especially the latter as defeating terrorism is the constitutional responsibility of the army.

Economy and defence are undoubtedly interrelated, but however well-intentioned it may be, for an army chief to give a public call for “development of national consensus by all stakeholders”, is tantamount to transgression into political and legislative arenas. So, could this be a premeditated move on Gen Munir’s part to send a clear message  that he has no intention whatsoever of honouring his predecessor Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa’s public assurance that Pakistan army had resolved to keep away from politics?

Rawalpindi seems to have an obsession for delving into Pakistan’s economic affairs. In 2019, the then army chief Gen Bajwa held private meetings with business moguls purportedly to find ways to boost Pakistan’s economy. He also became a member of the newly created National Development Council for setting the country’s long-term economic policy, and while reporting this, Arab News aptly captioned the article, “New council puts Pakistan army chief in economic driving seat”, [Emphasis added], that said it all!

So, it’s not at all surprising that Gen Munir has decreed that economic issues will very much continue to remain under the army’s jurisdiction and Rawalpindi would not hesitate to intervene on fiscal matters. However, while Rawalpindi keeps expressing serious concerns about the country’s rapidly worsening economic conditions, its own defence expenditure remains inordinately bloated.  

A recent report published in The Express Tribune mentions that in the period from July to November 2022, cash-strapped Pakistan incurred an unbelievable expenditure of PKR [Pakistani Rupee] 2.2 trillion on debt servicing and defence, which is 107 per cent of the federal government’s net income.

Payment of interest on debt and expenditure on defence are unavoidable.  Yet, while adjustments in the case of debt servicing is difficult, there’s always a scope of substantial expenditure reduction on defence through prioritisation based on realistic assessment.  

However, despite Pakistan’s rapidly worsening financial situation, Rawalpindi has spent PKR 517 billion [which is 28 per cent more than the expenditure during the same period last year], and this princely amount excludes military pensions and expenses on the armed forces development programme.

Since the Pakistan Army was in ceasefire with the Indian Army and TTP, this extraordinary spike in defence expenditure during the current fiscal is curious. So, the message of the Pakistan Army chief is clear- while everyone in Pakistan should tighten their purse strings, this ‘advice’ doesn’t apply to Rawalpindi!   

On the issue of terrorism, Gen Munir has indirectly implied that it is burgeoning due to lack of “national consensus”, and not because of Rawalpindi’s inexplicable apathy. Coming at a time when there’s a massive public outcry against unabated terrorist activities in Pakistan, the army chief’s call is really confusing as the people of Pakistan have always wholeheartedly supported military action against terrorists.

On the other hand, it’s Rawalpindi that needs to explain its highly questionable actions. For instance, despite TTP’s extremely dismal history of honouring ceasefire agreements, why did Rawalpindi still enter into a ceasefire with this terrorist group and thus gave it time to refit and reorganise? Why did it unconditionally agree to release 100 jailed TTP fighters? When TTP continued to target security forces and kill civilians, why didn’t the Pakistan army abrogate the ceasefire?

Most importantly, when residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [KP] went on a more than one-month long anti-TTP protest during July-August this year, and this issue was even raised in the National Assembly, why did Pakistan Army’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations [ISPR] outrightly reject reports of large scale TTP presence in KP terming the same “grossly exaggerated and misleading”?

Furthermore, once ISPR acknowledged that “Presence of [a] small number of armed men on [a] few mountain tops between Swat and Dir has been observed [which are] located far away from population”, why didn’t the army drive out these terrorists?

By failing to do so, isn’t Rawalpindi guilty of abdicating its constitutional responsibility of ensuring security of its own countrymen? Isn’t it also true that news of Pakistan army holding dialogue with TTP was kept under wraps [even from legislatures], and came into public domain only after the then Prime Minister Imran Khan mentioned the same during a TV interview?

Pakistan’s economy is in tatters but this has had no effect on Pakistan army’s old habit of lavish expenditure in equipping itself to ward off a non-existent enemy. The people of Pakistan want  terrorism to end, but Rawalpindi believes in covertly mediating with terrorists, ‘buying’ peace by accepting ludicrous demands like unconditional release of convicted fighters and watering down the gravity of terrorist threats.

So, when Rawalpindi’s own outlook on economy and terrorism remains at a complete variance with public aspirations, isn’t it ironic that Gen Munir is exhorting others to “develop national consensus” on these issues?

Déjà vu

In the first corps commanders’ conference chaired by Pakistan Army Chief Gen Asif Munir which concluded recently, it was “resolved to fight against terrorists without any distinction and eliminate this menace as per the aspirations of the people of Pakistan”. The army’s decision to take the bull of terrorism by its horns was long overdue and hence should have served as a soothing balm for the country’s terrorism public.

 However, the public isn’t enthused and the reason isn’t hard to find. The assurance that Rawalpindi would “fight against terrorists without any distinction”, reminded the people of a similar promise which was made by the army eight years ago but was never fulfilled.

A poor track record

On 15 June 2014, the Pakistan Army launched ‘Operation Zarb-e-Azb’, anddescribed it as “a comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists who are hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan Agency”. This announcement was very well received by the people who thought that the Pakistan Army would walk it’s talk, and by acting against all terrorist groups across the board, finally end this menace.

A few days after Operation Zarb-e-Azb commenced, Director General [DG] of the Pakistan Army’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations [ISPR] told the media that “We are going after terrorists of all hue and colour”. Since ISPR had already made it amply clear that Zarb-e-Azb was “a comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists”[Emphasis added]. To the uninitiated, the DGISPR’s reiteration of the army acting against “terrorists of all hue and colour” may have appeared superfluous and hence, unnecessary.

Pakistan watchers, on the other hand, are well aware that since the Pakistan Army’s sincerity in its ‘war against terror’ has always been suspect, Rawalpindi perforce has to go overboard for concealing its duplicity on this issue. Furthermore, since the situation on ground belied ISPR’s claim that terrorists in North Waziristan had been surrounded and hence would have to either surrender, or face extinction, ISPR went into an overdrive to salvage Pakistan army’s professional reputation.

Soon after ‘Zarb-e-Azb’ commenced, it had become amply clear that certain dreaded terrorist groups having a large presence in North Waziristan were able to safely move out of this area-lock, stock and barrel, despite the Pakistan army’s claim of having blocked all escape routes. Since ‘the ones who got away’ were terrorist groups having links with Rawalpindi [like the Haqqani network], it was evident that they had been either tipped-off in advance or surreptitiously allowed a safe passage by the Pakistan Army. This inference is substantiated by the fact that even though the Pakistan Army claimed killing around 3,500 terrorists during ‘Operation Zarb-e-Azb’, not even one amongst the dead belonged to the Haqqani network!

Rawalpindi’s bluff called

Islamabad consistently denied providing safe sanctuary to Afghan Taliban leaders fighting US led coalition forces in Afghanistan. However, in 2016, the then Pakistani prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz admitted that “We have some influence on them [Afghan Taliban] because their leadership is in Pakistan, and they get some medical facilities, their families are here.”

However, it was only in 2018 that the then US President Donald Trump publicly called Rawalpindi’s bluff by tweeting, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help…”  [Emphasis added].

Subdued expectations

Fast forward to the present and we find that the Pakistan Army, which has now pledged “to fight against terrorists without any distinction”, hadmeekly accepted the ceasefire offered by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] and even released some of its dreaded fighters convicted for killing Pakistani soldiers and civilians. Not only this, it was also negotiating a peace deal with this very terrorist group which had the blood of 134 innocent Army Public School Peshawar school children killed in the 2014 massacre on its hands as well as the murder of hundreds of security force personnel and civilians.

With passage of time, people in Pakistan are realising that Rawalpindi is the main culprit in spawning the scourge of terrorism in the country.  In this regard, former Pakistani President and ex-Army Chief Gen Pervez Musharraf’s admission that “We poisoned Pakistani civil society for 10 years when we fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was jihad and we brought in militants from all over the world, with the West and Pakistan together in the lead role,” validates their assessment.

So, it’s obvious that public expectation that the Pakistan Army will earnestly address the spectrum of terrorism without any exception and deliver on its promise to “eliminate this menace as per the aspirations of the people of Pakistan” is extremely low. So, while ISPR may continue to blame “external forces” for trying to tarnish the image of the Pakistan army, the fact of the matter is that Rawalpindi has no one but itself to blame for its plummeting domestic popularity.

Let’s only hope that Rawalpindi doesn’t let down the people of Pakistan yet once again!

The multi-dimensional Russia-India cooperation will continue to strengthen, Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped in his New Year greetings sent to Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

In his messages, Putin stressed that in 2022, Russia and India marked the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations and, relying on positive traditions of friendship and mutual respect, the countries continue to develop their special and privileged strategic partnership.

Both countries, he said, continue to carry out large-scale trade and economic projects in addition to energy, military technology and other areas of cooperation, coordinate efforts in addressing important matters of regional and global agendas.

“I am confident that India’s recently started SCO and G20 presidencies will open new opportunities for building multi-dimensional Russia-India cooperation for the benefit of our peoples, in the interests of strengthening stability and security in Asia and the entire world,” said Putin.

(This article was first published in India Narrative)