WHAT is common between the incumbent chief secretary Punjab, chairman NAB, just retired chairman Federal Public Service Commission and our ambassador in Paris? It is their military background. They entered the civil services through a separate process devised for young military officers, bypassing the CSS examination.

Under this system, 10pc seats are given to armed forces in the DMG, foreign and police services. However, a minimum of two military officers must be inducted every year into each service. Since I belonged to the Foreign Service, my comments will largely be confined to that group.

The induction of military officers into the civil service started soon after the creation of Pakistan. However, this was supposed to be a one-time measure as Pakistan got only a few officers of the erstwhile ICS. There were hardly any inductions from the military in the 1950s. In 1960–61, Ayub Khan inducted eight young captains into the then CSP. After a long interlude, Bhutto inducted a large number of military officers in the civil and foreign services through lateral entry in 1972. However, the credit (or discredit) for institutionalising these inductions on a regular basis goes to Gen Ziaul Haq.

An esprit de corps is essential to every service, civil or military. The Foreign Service of Pakistan had assumed a fairly harmonious character by 1970. Bhutto’s lateral entry disturbed the harmony of this service group which had come to be considered as one of the best in the world. While the lateral entry did bring in its wake some bright officers, the induction of 100-plus officers to a cadre of about 200 had a demoralising effect. It affected the promotion prospects of regular officers. And for many years, the Foreign Service remained an inharmonious group.

Should military officers, even if retired, be part of the diplomatic corps?

The lateral entrants into the Foreign Service included 35 officers of military background. And then Ziaul Haq’s mandatory quota ensured that military officers would continue to come into the Foreign Service. All services, civil and military, keenly guarded their turfs.

A rear admiral, howsoever bright, cannot command an army division. Young civil servants cannot join the armed forces bypassing the ISSB tests. Then why are young military officers allowed to join the three services without taking the CSS examination? This aberration is reflective of lopsided civil-military relations in Pakistan. Officers coming from the two streams have very different educational backgrounds. It is quite difficult to retrain the hard-wired military officers who tend to see everything only in black and white.

Affirmative action is practised by many countries to help the underprivileged. In the United States, affirmative action was used to bring African-Americans into the services. In India, the Mandal Commission reserved a number of civil services seats for Dalits and Other Scheduled Castes. The provincial quota in Pakistan aims at giving equitable representation in services to all regions.

The question that arises here is whether the military officers are an underprivileged segment of our society. And as they are not, is their induction not in violation of constitutional principles? The Constitution stresses the globally accepted principle of equal opportunities for all citizens.

In the Foreign Service of Pakistan, the number of officers with military background now is about 75 in a cadre of around 500. This gives them a distinct identity of a sub-group and they tend to look after the interests of each other. This is an unhealthy development within a larger group that is Pakistan’s first line of defence.

In case a military officer wants to take the CSS examination, an NOC from the respective headquarters is needed. Such a request is invariably refused citing shortage of officers. But simultaneously the armed forces do spare some officers annually to join the civil services through a special procedure which is not so transparent.

At the moment our ambassadors in Bosnia, Jordan, Libya, Mauritius, Brunei, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Ukraine are retired military officers. This arrangement is now peculiar to a few security states like Pakistan. The EU countries refuse to accept our retired military officers as ambassadors. In the mid-1990s, Pakistan fielded Sahibzada Yaqub Khan as candidate for the director generalship of Unesco. He had good credentials but lost because of his military background. The international message was clear. Military officers, even if retired, should not become part of the diplomatic corps.

Gen Ziaul Haq, the brains behind military quota in civil services, is long gone but this peculiar legacy of his endures to this day. It is time to revisit this arrangement. Fairness and merit-based policies of induction are the need of the hour.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Published in Dawn, November 23th , 2014