IT is a picture and an accompanying press release meant to send a message of stability and a healthy working relationship: before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif embarks on any visit with internal security or foreign policy dimensions, there is now the obligatory day-before meeting between the prime minister and the army chief, Gen Raheel Sharif.

So it was this Tuesday that before Prime Minister Sharif travelled down to Karachi, he met Gen Sharif and discussed issues of great import.

There is some sense to the message, given the near obsessive scrutiny by the media and sections of society of the state of the relationship between the leader of parliamentary democracy and the leader of the powerful army.

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Given institutional histories, Prime Minister Sharif can hardly be faulted for wanting to be seen to be close to and working with his generals, while Gen Sharif would equally like to send a message to his rank and file and officer corps that he is lobbying for the military’s institutional concerns at the highest levels.

There is though a point where symbolism needs to be matched by substance. And substance ought only to be measured in terms of the constitutional scheme of things and incrementally righting the civil-military imbalance in the country.

Consider, for example, the issue of Karachi. Where, really, is the civilian input today into the handling of the security crackdown in the city?

When the Karachi operation was launched in September 2013, there appeared to be significant civilian ownership and some clear political leadership — Prime Minister Sharif, the interior ministry, the Intelligence Bureau, all seemed to have some sense of purpose and resolve about them.

Today, examining the all-too-familiar picture of Gen Raheel seated on the left and the prime minister on the right during one of the army chief’s frequent visits to the prime minister’s office, is there any sense other than the military leadership is the one with the initiatives and the ideas and the civilian government simply acquiesces or indicates to what extent it can go along with the military leadership’s initiatives and ideas?

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

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