WHAT will it take to slap our ruling civil and military elite out of its obsession with egotism, triviality and misplaced notions of honour? It can’t get more absurd. A nuclear-capable state with one of the largest standing armies in the world is held hostage by its home-bred terrorists. Now, on the one hand we have our ‘statesmen’ and generals bending over to appease those slaughtering soldiers and citizens. And, on the other, the same sages can’t stop frothing and preaching the pride and dignity of their respective institutions, parliament and the army.

Is parliament’s supremacy now entrenched with its members having proclaimed it in thundering speeches? Has the honour and dignity of the army been restored after the army chief fired warning shots amidst cheering commandos? We have lost more than 50,000 of us to violence. We have had heads of FC soldiers severed and used as footballs. Whether it is Fata, Karachi, Islamabad’s district courts or Rawalpindi’s sabzi mandi, the state’s writ is nowhere in sight. And yet our power wielders can’t stop their bickering to focus on our existential crisis?

There are no principles in question here. Our Constitution unequivocally provides for civilian control of the military. As a proponent of democracy or a student of our checkered history, one can take no exception to the suggestion that the military has no business interfering in politics. But that for the most part Pakistan has either been ruled directly by the military or with khakis pulling strings from behind the curtain is a matter of record. The question thus is not whether our historical civil-military imbalance needs fixing but what is the best way to go about doing so.

If putting the fear of Article 6 in the heart of every general was the surest way to block military coups, would we have seen one elected prime minister hanged and a second one expelled from the country post 1973? If Article 6 was the deterrent that could preserve and protect democracy, would we have had a serving army chief warn in unambiguous terms that the army “will resolutely preserve its own dignity and institutional pride” while reacting to the trial of a former army chief under the same Article 6?

It will take capable, confident and resolute civil and military leaders to fix our institutional imbalance, who possess the grit to make necessary compromises such readjustment will require of both sides. Transforming an army that perceives any challenge to its status as holy cow as a grave affront and a threat to its vital institutional interests, to one that has no saviour complex and willingly treats the law and the Constitution as binding legal instruments will not come easily. This will require instilling change in behaviour and mindset.

Such change will have to be led by generals who are convinced that prosperity and the future of Pakistan is contingent upon re-imagining failed notions of national security and national interest (and the military’s preponderant role in shaping them) that we have lived with for the last 67 years. But giving up power and privilege is not easy. And creating the overall socio-political environment conducive to fixing our civil-military imbalance is the responsibility of politicos and not generals. And that is where Nawaz Sharif and his coterie are failing miserably.

It is unfathomable that Musharraf, after three months of contriving every excuse under the sun to avoid indictment, would just show up in court with a new lawyer, get indicted, request to be taken off the ECL and make a farewell speech for public consumption, all without any assurance that he would be let loose after the indictment. If such assurance was indeed given on Nawaz Sharif’s behest and later dishonoured, and key members of his cabinet also elected to indulge in chest thumping after the event, the khaki leadership would obviously feel slighted.

If Nawaz Sharif was convinced that the Musharraf trial is the right thing to do and is key to fixing the civil-military imbalance, shouldn’t it have been conducted in the most solemn manner? The army chief could have been candidly advised that there would be no deal-making on the Musharraf issue. It could be ensured that the trial comes to be seen as one related exclusively to the rule of law, devoid of controversy and lacking manifestations of revenge — and is not used to engage in bravado or to draw political mileage.

The army chief’s posturing at Ghazi camp was essentially cathartic. Notwithstanding any sense within the military high command of being cheated by politicos post-indictment, the ISPR statement was essentially meant to vent the collective anger of the khakis. To respond by saying that khakis ought not feel angry over the Musharraf trial misses the point. In designing his policy and strategy vis-à-vis the Musharraf trial, the pressure it would bring to bear on the army chief from within his institution should have been a major consideration for Sharif.

Nawaz Sharif locked horns with an army chief in his first tenure as prime minister. He fired one in his second tenure and got ousted trying to fire a second. Has he still not learnt any lessons? And does he not realise that we are faced with barbarians already knocking down the gates? If there was ever a time when this country couldn’t afford a turf war between civvies and khakis, it is now.

The writer is a lawyer.

sattar@post.harvard.edu

Twitter: @babar_sattar