HAVING lived for decades under the shadow of controversy about its professional orientation, the Pakistan Army now has the opportunity to evolve a new character compatible with modern times and the needs of new strategic situation.

This will require taking hard decisions. The army will have to decide whether it wants to be the “guardian of religious frontiers” or it wants to pay prime attention to the basic duty of guarding national borders.

To some there is no clash between the two goals. Pakistan is an ideological state where Islam plays a vital role in national life, and guarding its frontiers necessarily means a commitment to be at the front-most frontiers of religion. This may be true in theory. Practice has been different.

While it began as an heir to the British Army and maintained that non-ideological professional outlook, the Pakistan Army’s orientation underwent a significant change during late seventies and the eighties. Under Zia-ul-Haq a full scale programme to Islamize the army began. The general discipline of the armed forces, which levelled all sorts of ideological proclivities through strict institutional order, loosened. Symbols of personal piety became as important as professional hallmarks. Bearded officers proliferated.

That change in the character of the armed forces was also induced by the regional situation. The fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan was conducted in the name of Islam, and because Pakistan had a central role to play in that war, it suited the strategic goals and objectives of the then military leadership to emphasize the religious factor at home. That was the time when the term jihad gained currency in Pakistan’s military jargon.

Moreover, there were corporate gains to be made from playing the religious card: it deepened links with countries like Saudi Arabia and made it possible for the Pakistan army to solidify aid ties with the Gulf countries. Domestically, of course it fitted perfectly into Zia’s interpretation of Islam to his political advantage.

The cumulative effect of all these factors was that part of the army, which previously prided itself on being a national force inspired and motivated by the sole concern of guarding national frontiers, developed a psyche that transcended the country’s geography. Zia years spawned a whole generation of military leaders who actually saw the Pakistan army as the army of Islam rather than the army of Pakistan.

Throughout the nineties a tense debate raged between two schools of military thought: one, the minority, believed that the Pakistan army commitment was to all “Islamic causes”, and the other, the majority, believed that no cause was greater than the national cause.

The majority view prevailed, but there was no systematic attempt to settle the debate, and institutionalize its conclusions, as to whether religion should be simply a motivational force, or be allowed to influence the strategic goals of the army.

The famous failed putsch involving major general Zaheerul Islam, Brig Mustansar Billa, and four colonels during the tenure of General Abdul Waheed Kakar in the early nineties, illustrated the danger of this unsettled debate.

These officers tried to take over the army and overthrow the civilian government using the name of religion. One of the biggest concerns of the leader of the group, Zaheerul Islam, which, according to him, made him attempt the double coup d’etat, was the “non-Islamic character of the army leadership and their closeness to the West”. He saw himself as a purifier of the polluted echelons of power. He and his associates were caught, tried, punished and dismissed from service.

There have been other examples, too, of generals thinking themselves as soldiers of Islam. General (retd) Javed Nasir, former head of the ISI under Nawaz Sharif government is one case in point. General (retd) Hamid Gul is yet another. They reflect a military mindset that has rejected the original mandate of the Armed Forces of Pakistan: nationalist force designed to vigilantly guard national frontiers. They see an overarching role for the Pakistan armed forces that must be at the forefront of all battles involving Muslims.

While the operational policy of the Pakistan army has, fortunately, never been inspired by such grand designs, public expressions of lofty religious goals by individuals have incurred costs.

At home it has bred confusion about the professional character of the armed forces and the nature of their duties. The argument that many are making in Pakistan today as to why General Musharraf did not stand by the Taliban and instead joined the coalition is influenced by the turbid thought that somehow the Pakistan army is duty-bound to defend the weaklings of the Muslim world. Such unreasonable demands would not have been made on the army in the first place if it was accepted to be a purely national army with no transnational role and motivated essentially by nationalist rather than Islamic concerns.

Moreover, the minority view of the army being an Islamic force has been a handle in the hands of Pakistan’s detractors to batter the country’s image with. Using links between religious-minded military men with religious parties and groups, Pakistan’s critics have always put the blame of most of the wrongdoings of these groups at the Pakistan army’s doorstep.

The recent propaganda blitz by Indian journalists suggesting that Pakistan airlifted its officers from Kunduz, where Taliban along with foreign fighters were holed up, is a recent illustration of this fact. That the story refused to fade away despite emphatic denials by Pakistan and by the international coalition against terrorism showed how deep the international misperception is of the kind of role Pakistan army plays in conflicts involving Muslims.

The same misperception lies behind the ceaseless debate about “jihadi elements” in the Pakistan army ready to take over “nuclear weapons and share the nuclear technology with other Islamic states.” The pre-conceived notions dominating this debate have been so strong that facts like Pakistan’s impeccable track record of nuclear controls, and the negligible numbers of the “jihadis in uniform” are not factored at all. The diplomatic complications that the debate has caused to Pakistan are for all to see: for years Pakistan has spent precious time and energy trying to dispel this impression and justify its credentials as a responsible state.

Much of this can change if General Pervez Musharraf builds on the momentum that is already visible towards redefining the role of Pakistan’s armed forces in the context of religion. He is uniquely poised to re-establish the parameters of the professional tasks of the army. The environment is already conducive. Those who had any illusions about the practicality of espousing transnational causes now know the possible costs of such ambitions in the shape of what could have happened to Pakistan if it had decided to side with the Taliban. The influence of conservative generals has been rolled back. A new generation of army leaders is in control. The time is ripe to refocus the military mind on nationalism rather than pan-Islamism.

WHAT appeared to be some sort of a calculated ambivalence about the post-Taliban Afghanistan emerged from an extended interaction with a number of visiting Chinese scholars representing the China Association for International Friendly Contact at a recent seminar at the Area Study Centre, Central Asia, Russia and China of the Peshawar University.

The Chinese ambivalence might have been a combination of muted relief over the reversal of the Taliban’s aggressively radical Islamic order and an apparent anxiety about the shape of things to come in that strife-torn land. The relief over the dismal fall of the Taliban without any resistance, whatsoever, was, in no way to be taken as a support for the Northern Alliance to succeed it.

During the talks, a reference was, made to reports alleging Pakistan’s role in stirring up trouble in Xingiang. However, China would not attach any credence to the reports. Whatever trouble had erupted there may not be attributable at all to the Pakistanis but to some non-Pakistani elements. As a preventive measure, however, China had deployed troops along its western border.

To a persistent and direct reference by Pakistani participants to China’s role as one of the ‘main’ supporters of the Northern Alliance through the Soviet-Afghan war and subsequently its recognition of the Rabbani government (1992-1996), the Chinese response could be interpreted either way — as yes or no. It was couched in terms of circumstantial exigencies.

Little exception was taken to China’s ideological support to the communist (quasi-communist) Shola-i-Javedan (Eternal flame) predominantly Maoist in orientation and Shitam-i-milli (Oppressed peoples) parties. Both had been up in arms against the royalist / republican groups as much as the foreign invader.

What came out, loud and clear, from a close and animated discussion revolving round the ‘exfiltration’ of the Taliban from Kabul may well be summed up in two words: good riddance. Depending on how the situation develops in the near future, China might want to retain a ‘working relationship’ with the regime in Kabul without in any way compromising its close, historical links with Pakistan. The same would be true of the Pak-Afghan relations. ‘No future government of Afghanistan can (or should) avoid Pakistan’s involvement.’ Pakistan, in the past, had a key role to play in Afghanistan and would continue with it in the future.

China’s principal concern and effort would be to preserve the integrity of Afghanistan as one country ‘at all events.’ China would want the UN to play a ‘much more active’ role in Afghanistan than its present one. There was a mention of the kind of role China would want the UN to play in Afghanistan.

To the question as to what role China would like to play in creating conditions conducive to the formation of a ‘broad-based’ government in Afghanistan, China’s main concern is to prevent the fragmentation of the country along ethnic, sectarian or geographical lines. Let there be no outside intervention as far as possible. Nothing would be more offensive to the Afghan psyche than any attempt at foisting an imposed order on them, no matter how veiled.

Besides Afghanistan, the minds of the Chinese scholars revolved round two main questions: first, How the ‘r