EVERY society assigns certain functions to its military such as the defence of the nation in times of war, and appropriate training in times of peace. But when military crosses the boundary and usurps the function of the civilian institutions, it is called militarism. Mark Thee of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo described militarism as “a state or a condition when the military tends to usurp roles and prerogatives in society which go beyond democratic legitimacy, intervening in internal (affairs) and imposing its will in external affairs.”
Unfortunately, Pakistan has been in the state of militarism since its inception. Army has always exercised excessive and, at times, illegitimate influence on civil governments, which eventually culminated in military rule. The trend continues till now with some sporadic civil rule, which provided a period of respite for the military. There are many reasons of militarism in Pakistan, the main being the British legacy. Britishers offered many advantages to lure the natives to join army, and, after independence, the army continued to enjoy not only the same privileges, but many more like concession in air and train fares, postings in civil departments on lucrative key posts, appointments of retired generals as governors, ambassadors and heads of corporations. Besides, they are given fertile agriculture land after retirement, and plots in posh colonies at nominal rates.
Another reason of militarism in Pakistan is our historical and psychological leaning towards authoritarianism and state-centrism. We had been under monarchical rule since time immemorial and then lived under colonial rule. In both the systems, people were mere subjects and not citizens with full rights. They were kept in the state of perpetual serfdom with the help of the army. Generally, subjugated nations justify their deplorable conditions with exaggerated glorification of their past. We also glorify our past by evolving a concept of an Islami mujahid, who alone was equal to seventy soldiers of the infidel army. Novelists like Abdul Haleem Sharar and Naseem Hijjazi imbibed this myth in people’s minds through their novels and it became a living reality. So when Pakistan came into being, people took our army as an Islamic army, forgetting the fact that it was an army developed by the Britishers to keep the locals under subjugation, and the army carried out this job with unconditional loyalty. In World War I, many Indian soldiers and officers fought under British officers. Of them, almost seventy thousand were wounded and thirty-six thousand were killed. They were so insulated from national sentiments that even an event as cruel as of Jillianwala Bagh did not create any unrest among the Indian soldiers and officers. Hence, it was in no way a Muslim army. But when Ayub Khan usurped power, people took him as a saviour — an incarnation of Muhammad Bin Qasim.
The other main cause of militarism is the intense conflict between the capitalist and communist blocks during the Cold War. The capitalist countries combated communism to protect liberal democracy, human rights, civil and personal liberties of the people. This goal they achieved, paradoxically, by installing authoritative and military regimes in Third World countries. Ruth Liger Sivord, a prominent writer, wrote a book titled World Military and Social Expenditures in 1989, in which she wrote, “In the Third World particularly, the intrusion of military authority in the political area has been a fast growing exercise .... out of total one hundred and twenty-four countries, sixty-four countries were ruled by military governments.” These military regimes trampled all the lofty ideals the capitalists countries claimed to be the champions of. The reality was that democratic governments in the third world did not suit the West. Hence they used these countries as hinterland for protecting their interests. We have the first-hand experience of Gen Zia, a military ruler brought to serve Western interests. Under his rule, human beings were publicly lashed. When people started the Movement for Restoration of Democracy, he crushed the movement ruthlessly by running tanks over the protesting masses, their crops, homes and villages. None of the champions of democracy and human rights uttered a single word against those brutalities because he was being used by them against so-called anti-democracy and anti-human rights forces in Afghanistan.
It was for the cause of democracy and human rights that the then US President Harry Truman started war in Korea and led sixteen nations into a ferocious battle. It was a hot war, but Truman called it a police action. He also wanted to extend the war to China. This ‘police action’ is understood as one of the most destructive of the twentieth century in which more than four million Koreans were killed, three quarter of them were innocent civilians. The fruit of this war was the regime of Syngman Ree, a more authoritative, autocratic and undemocratic ruler than the communist regime in North Korea.
After Ree, another dictator, ParkChung Hee, came in power with the blessings of the capitalist West. Though he modernized the country, he did not allow liberal democracy to flourish. After experimenting with limited parliamentary democracy in 1960s, he put an end to all such ‘inconveniences’ in 1972 and through bureaucratic authoritative measures made himself president for life. Parliament became a rubber stamp. Opposition leaders were either exiled or put in jails, intellectuals were muzzled and terrorized, and society was para-militarized: no democracy, no human rights, no personal liberties. People were not free but market forces were free and this was the freedom for which the Americans and his allies killed four million people. In comparison, the North Korean communist regime was labelled as “socialist basket case” and a Confucian-communist monarchy, among other things.
For combating communism, the US poured million of dollars into many Third World economies. The purpose of the aid was, no doubt, to eradicate poverty from those countries so that people were not lured by communists slogan of fulfilling the basic needs of the citizens. Instead, all that aid was siphoned off to strengthen civil bureaucracy, police and military, and to subsidize industrialists, who, in turn, helped the dictators to win elections. It created formidable state structure and made the people hostage to the state. This left little room for liberal democracy and paved the way for anti-democracy, anti-freedom and anti culture society. Above all, it paved the way for militarism.
