AS the dust settles on the Peshawar school attack, our political sensibilities are slowly being jarred into action. A week ago there was virtually no critical comment on the proposal to effectively subvert constitutional rule and establish military courts. Over the past few days, the much-heralded ‘consensus’ has started to give way to much-needed opposition.

One need not recount the history of military courts in Pakistan — particularly during the dark Zia years — to understand the significance of suspending civilian legal processes. That our (colonial) legal system is terribly flawed, even anti-people, is well acknowledged. But it is not for nothing that we employ the refrain that the worst civilian set-up is infinitely preferable to the best military regime. The setting up of military courts would be a barely disguised step in the direction of dictatorship.

What I find startling is the lack of comment on the manner in which this whole set of developments has come to pass. For more than four months everything in Pakistan revolved around the Imran Khan regime-change brigade. From invocations of the (uniformed) umpire to open acknowledgment of the military’s role as mediator between the PTI and the government, it had become clear that the generals were slowly but surely reasserting their role as arbiter in the polity.

Regardless of which version of the narrative one prefers, Imran was, in one way or the other, flirting with the establishment — hoping to finagle a share of power at the centre in the process. In the second week of December, he had ratcheted up the pressure an extra notch by disrupting everyday life through successive protests in Faisalabad, Karachi and Lahore.

The worst civilian set-up is preferable to the best military regime.

Then the Peshawar attack happened, and the whole protest movement was called off in a huff. The suddenness of it all was not questioned by the pundits, all of whom were presumably moved by the imperative of closing ranks in the wake of the killings of over 100 children. PTI supporters were apparently less enamoured by the abrupt decision, but then where would the PTI be if Imran Khan’s infinite wisdom was not to be trusted under all circumstances?

In any case, with the benefit of hindsight it is surely necessary for those outside the PTI fold to reflect on the fact that, the apparent failure of the regime-change brigade notwithstanding, an extra-constitutional initiative to establish military courts has been ‘agreed’ upon by parliamentary parties — the same parties that Imran Khan was decrying as the primary impediments to his grand ‘change’ project.

Almost magically, Imran’s previously intractable stance on rejoining parliament has morphed into a toned-down assertion that his party’s members will consider retaking their place in the National Assembly so long as formalities related to the judicial commission are completed. One can only wonder why an assembly potentially willing to pass a constitutional amendment to facilitate the creation of military tribunals is so much less objectionable to one that until a few short weeks ago was consistently dismissed as a clearing house for looters and plunderers.

Pakistani power politics is, even at the best of times, a difficult-to-decipher game in which posturing and projection is every bit as significant as actual positioning. The truth is that the military institution still remains the most powerful player in this game, even if other institutional contenders have reared their head in recent times, and political correctness and social change now make it difficult for generals to play an overt and overbearing role in the polity.

Only those with a less than rudimentary understanding of this country’s history could remain ignorant of the various ways and means through which the men in khaki safeguard their interests and cut down democratic forces to size.

Indeed in the present environment one does not even have to be incisive to read between the lines to understand that the military is pushing hard for a ‘constitutional’ mandate that will empower it in much the same way as was done through constitutional amendments introduced during the Zia and Musharraf eras.

Whether or not it will succeed will depend on the sagacity of our bourgeois parliamentary parties, as well as the wider community of democratic forces. The PTI’s posturing and positioning — and it is not alone — confirms that the tradition of mainstream parties compromising with the generals is very much intact. If so-called ‘civil society’ also puts its weight behind the ‘all power to the military’ slogan the die will well and truly be cast.

If, however, the democratic gains that many observers claim have been made since the anti-Musharraf movement began in 2007 are to be consolidated, there can be no compromise on the proposal to militarise the Constitution. We need to build a more just order, not pave the way for khaki justice.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2015