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BRIGADIER Riazullah, a polite, persuasive communicator epitomising the category of ‘an officer and a gentleman’, was the DG ISPR when the army launched a massive PR initiative, dubbed ‘Glasnost’ by the media, after Gen Mirza Aslam Beg took over as army chief.
This initiative came after the death of the military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq in a plane crash and included military manoeuvres on a grand scale codenamed Zarb-i-Momin, which a large body of journalists — ‘trained and given khaki kits’ and rechristened ‘war correspondents’ by the ISPR — covered.
Most of the war correspondents were treated as would-be officers (addressed as Sir, dined in field officers’ messes and lodged in officers accommodation) and were in awe of the military by the time Zarb-i-Momin ended.
Just a little access and the massage of journalists’ egos earned the military friends for life. Even months later, some of them would spend afternoons sipping endless cups of tea at the Press Club reminiscing about how incredibly wonderful their experience had been with this new army.
With great charm and subtlety, within weeks of the start of the Zarb-i-Momin, an entire body of journalists had been convinced that Ziaul Haq’s political army had crashed and burned with him; its successor represented no less than a new dawn, apolitical and solely professional as it was.
Frankly, the army could not have chosen a better officer for the job as even some of us who had not been privileged enough to have acquired the war correspondent’s sobriquet also saw him as a friend. His gentle demeanour and openness made him immensely likeable.
Just a little access and the massage of journalists’ egos earned the military friends for life.
As a reporter with some five years in the profession my curiosity got the better of me and I managed to gatecrash the grand wedding of Gen Beg’s daughter at the KMC Baradari in Karachi. Brig Riazullah spotted me from a considerable distance, came towards me with his hand outstretched, welcomed me, thanked me for coming and took me straight to his chief and introduced us.
As the DG ISPR, considering that whatever few media people were invited were sent invitations through his person and office, there was no way that a sharp officer like him would not have known that I was not on any list. I was crestfallen and deeply grieved when he later died of cancer while still in uniform.
While the army’s image was being rehabilitated as an apolitical institution, one of its key organs was herding together all anti-PPP forces into the IJI to stop the march to power of Benazir Bhutto. That she still managed to form a government after the PPP emerged as the largest single party was nothing short of a miracle.
It took two weeks for the president and the military to realise the numerical impossibility of an alternative. Of course, she was not tolerated for more than a couple of years. What followed is now in the public domain thanks to the Asghar Khan case.
ISPR under the next three chiefs — namely Gens Asif Nawaz, Abdul Waheed Kakar and Jehangir Karamat — reflected the lack of their personal political ambitions and focused largely on professional issues.
The coming to office of Gen Pervez Musharraf again saw an overactive ISPR with one of the chief’s key confidantes, Brig Rashid Qureshi, posted as DG, who aggressively steered Kargil coverage and before that stories that Musharraf refused to salute Vajpayee during the Indian prime minister’s Lahore visit were also attributed to the brigadier’s sleight of hand.
After the overthrow of the constitutional elected government, when Musharraf’s role as chief executive had been endorsed by the Supreme Court, ISPR went into overdrive to project him, quite effectively, as a liberal reformist.
Despite this spin, the international community was treating Musharraf like a pariah — but then 9/11 happened. Pakistan and its military’s role were seen as crucial in the fight against Al Qaeda, and Musharraf suddenly went from pariah to a sought-after darling.
While Pakistan did indeed play a key role in the capture and degradation of Al Qaeda (while acquiescing in US drone strikes), it was cutting suicidal deals with the Tehreek-i-Taliban leaders in Fata by ceding territory and control to them, and spinning those as great victories.
DG ISPR Maj-Gen Athar Abbas found himself in a role similar to that played by Brig Riazullah when the transition was happening from quasi-military to civilian rule and excelled at the job by delinking the army from most of the decisions Musharraf’s took to perpetuate himself in power.
Gen Abbas made sure that senior journalists had access to the new chief, Gen Kayani and saw him in a favourable light, so much so that most of them ignored all the behind-the-scenes political nurturing and string-pulling of Kayani’s intel chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha.
Lt-Gen Asim Bajwa, the officer who currently holds the army’s Southern Command, came to the ISPR as a major general and was promoted to his current rank by Gen Raheel Sharif. Asim Bajwa is credited with painting Gen Sharif’s image as a larger-than-life figure.
He also won over a section of the media that now unquestioningly supports every step of his institution and attacks those as non-patriots who may have a legitimate question or two about a particular policy.
Gen Asim Bajwa also seemed aware of the importance of social media and his tenure saw the military’s critics (even of the non-enemy-funded variety) challenged robustly by little-known handles on Twitter for example.
Against this backdrop, the current DG ISPR offers the advice that there is no point looking back at the country’s 70-year history. He also says with an endearing smile: silence is also an expression. Sadly, we in the media can’t afford to express ourselves via silence. And history remains a solid fallback when ideas and topics are in short supply.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2017
