The ‘PM Factor': Why Pakistan Army's Nuclear Red Lines Are Much Lower than India's

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23-05-2025

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The 'PM Factor': Why Pakistan Army's Nuclear Red Lines Are Much Lower than India's
Rahul Bedi
59 minutes ago
Pakistan's Punjabi leadership simply boosted the PMs' formidable and outsized influence over national security institutions and strategic policymaking.
Representative image of Pakistan Army officials. Photo: pakarmy.com.pk
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Chandigarh: In its combative and multi-dimensional engagement with nuclear-armed Pakistan, India is effectively confronted with a predominantly Punjabi mindset – one deeply imbued with a sense of its own omnipotence and invincibility.
This derives not only from Punjab's dominating size and population, but also from its historical and continuing ascendency over almost all pillars of Pakistani society like the military, bureaucracy and mainstream politics.
The Pakistan army, the state's most powerful institution, for instance, is disproportionately staffed by Punjabis – a legacy of British colonial recruitment policies for nearly a century till 1947 – and one that has only been furiously perpetuated thereafter.
Pattern of domination by the 'Punjabi Musselman' (PM)
This pattern of domination by the 'Punjabi Musselman' or PM also extended to Pakistan's vast paramilitary leadership, civilian bureaucracy, judiciary and political establishment, with Punjab province represented by 173 National Assembly seats, or more than half the total number of 336 seats.
Hence, collectively these institutions reflect and reinforce the outsized influence of PMs over Pakistan's national security, foreign and economic policies, as well its chauvinistic media discourse.
Their sway also extends into numerous other social, academic and intellectual spheres, and for the PM, nationalism is certainly not a quiet civic sentiment; it's a loud, strident and egotistical one-upmanship – an unapologetic and brash performance of dramatic Punjabi theatre played out on the national stage.
A handful of Pakistani analysts privately conceded – somewhat wryly – that this theatre mirrored a well-worn Punjabi dictum: if you've got it, flaunt it, or in other words, perceived strength and posture must be boldly and unapologetically displayed at all times.
India's strategic planners must recognise – if they haven't already – that PM dominance in Pakistan is not merely demographic – it is psychological and doctrinal, particularly during crises like Operation Sindoor.
In such critical situations, India confronts a military and hostile national culture shaped by Punjabi ideals of daleri (valour), ghairat (honour) and badla (revenge) – manifested through defiance, escalatory nuclear posturing and a refusal to negotiate, even in the face of setbacks.
This Punjabi-led power elite, forged by regional pride, celestial jazba (fervour) and entrenched institutional control over nearly eight decades, does not respond predictably to logic or conventional deterrence.
It reacts viscerally to perceived slights, especially when framed as challenges to its honour or moral superiority, by what many within Pakistan's ruling elite view as a hostile Hindu India.
Also Read: Asim Munir's Elevation to Field Marshal Likely to Disturb Military Norms, Succession Dynamics
Its strategic behaviour is shaped by a self-perpetuated siege mentality, marked by the narrative of manipulation and tactical cunning, rather than reasoned restraint.
Pakistan's predominantly PM military mindset consistently prioritises aggressive defence and national pride over compromise, restraint or quietly pursuing a path of peace and economic regeneration. Of its 16 Army Chiefs, seven (about 41%) have been Punjabis, and their tenures – most notably General Zia-ul-Haq's 11-year rule till 1988 and presently Field Marshal Asim Munir's – have often embodied this assertive ethos through cross-border confrontations, exaggerated levels of aggression and nuclear brinkmanship, or all three.
Accordingly, India's national security establishment must therefore approach all military crises with Pakistan with a clear understanding of these ethnic and psychological underpinnings.
It's up against Pakistani strategic behaviour, under PM leadership, that is driven less by calibrated calculation, but more by identity-driven posturing and an inflated self-image.
There is also the ingrained figurative notion of the 'muchh' or moustache, closely associated with respect, privilege, honour and above all machismo for Punjabi's. The allegorical muchh also represents national and racial ego with most PMs subscribing to the age-old adage of 'muchh nahi, te puchh nahi'. Translated this means: he who has no moustache has no standing.
In Pakistan's Punjab, loss of face is locally likened to cutting off ones moustache, widely considered an unpardonable insult that can, and often does, lead to prolonged feuds. There are innumerable folk tales that recount with great detail how an enemy was humiliated and humbled by having his physical moustache shaved off by an antagonist and the vendettas this spawned.
In 21st century nuclear and military terms this muchh stands for deterrence posturing, arms race and heightened military reaction to preserve this symbol.
Pushing reactive competitiveness with India to absurd extremes
However, Pakistan's PMs often push this reactive competitiveness with India to absurd – and at times, comical – extremes.
Since 2017, for example, both countries have been embroiled in a symbolic standoff at Wagah, vying to outdo each other in flagpole height. Pakistan's effort to hoist its Parcham-e-Sitara-o-Hilal higher than India's 410-foot tricolour has become emblematic of this almost theatrical rivalry.
This impulse for one-upmanship spills far beyond strategic and military arenas – whether in the tit-for-tat nuclear tests of May 1998, where Pakistan conducted six underground detonations to India's five, or in their parallel quests for advanced defence hardware and global political recognition.
The rivalry permeates everyday life with PMs claiming their mangoes, melons, and grapes to be sweeter; their singers, music, and television more refined; their fashion sense and hospitality more elegant and generous. They also assert – with some claiming credible evidence – that their people were more stylish, better-looking, and endowed with greater chutzpah than their Indian counterparts.
Moreover, assertions of superiority also extended to claims that poverty is more visibly rampant in India, that Indians were less gregarious, and that PMs possessed a sharper wit, better humour, and a deeper sense of tehzeeb (etiquette).
In addition to being one of Pakistan's four provinces, Punjab – though geographically smaller than the sparsely populated, yet vast Balochistan – holds demographic dominance. As per the 2023 census, Punjabis comprise the country's largest ethnic group, numbering approximately 127 million or nearly 52% of Pakistan's total population of 241.5 million.
Remarkably, PMs constitute the world's second most populous subnational polity, surpassed only by the Han Chinese. Such demographic primacy contributes significantly to their entrenched sense of superiority, indomitability, and, at times, grossly misplaced Rambo-like overconfidence.
These shared attributes largely shape Pakistan's antagonistic, militant, and security-centric posture towards India. And, though the PMs drive this militarised approach, Pakistan other three Province –Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), and Baluchistan – tend to demonstrate relatively greater openness to economic engagement, cultural reconnection and overall peace with India.
Sindhis, for instance, with their small but affluent Hindu and even smaller Parsi communities, are generally more moderate. Karachi's business elites, in particular, and Muhajirs or Muslim migrants from India after Independence, have historically shown an interest in furthering economic and cultural ties with India.
In KPK, ethnic and tribal links to neighbouring Afghanistan create a different set of concerns. Many Pashtun nationalists have criticised the Pakistani Army's India-centric worldview, arguing that it diverts attention from pressing domestic issues.
Opposition within Pakistan to Punjabi domination
They have also periodically opposed Punjabi-officer led military operations in predominantly Pashtun areas, seeing them as exploitative, heavy-handed and brutal.
And Baluchistan, long marginalised and subjected to resource exploitation by the Punjabi-dominated federal government, has endured repeated insurgencies seeking greater autonomy.
Unsurprisingly, Baloch leaders often view India more favourably – as a potential counterweight to Punjabi dominance. Islamabad's Punjabi establishment, in turn, routinely accuses India of fomenting unrest in the province, further entrenching the mutual cycle of hostility and suspicion.
Federally administered regions like Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir/Azad Jammu and Kashmir and adjoining Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) areas too had, in recent decades grown increasingly resentful of Islamabad's PM-led centralised control.
Local Shia's further accused the army of Sinicising the region by settling PMs in the area with the aim of ultimately dominating the disputed territory.
Meanwhile, the history of recruiting PMs into the British Indian Army began in the aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion, which exposed to the British the risks of over-reliance on high-caste Hindus and Muslim sepoys from Bengal and Awadh, who proved duplicitous during the fighting.
In response, the colonial administration overhauled its recruitment strategy and formalised the theory of 'Martial Races' – patronisingly designating certain ethnic groups as naturally suited to soldiering.
Among these, the British turned decisively to Punjab, particularly PMs whom they perceived not only as physically robust but also loyal and inherently martial.
Also Read: India's Outreach to Kabul Amid Simmering 'Pashtunistan' Demand Could Give It Leverage Over Pakistan
By the early 20th century, PMs constituted over 50% of the British Indian Army, with 'dedicated' recruitment and cantonment centres established at Rawalpindi, Jhelum, and Sialkot.
And, of the 1.5 million Indian troops who served in the First World War, roughly 3,60,000 were PMs, alongside Sikhs and other so-termed martial races like Jats, Marathas, Dogra's, Rajput' and of course, Gurkha's.
The PM number nearly doubled during the Second World War, reflecting the continued reliance on Punjab to sustain Allied fighting manpower.
Following Partition, Pakistan received 33% of British Indian Army personnel and assets, but only 19 % of the overall population of united India and 17% of its economic resources. This, in turn, gave rise to the oft-repeated maxim, popular even today, that while other countries had an army, the Pakistan Army had a country.
Additionally, this military bequest almost completely buttressed PMs' dominance in the new Pakistan Army and the traditional recruiting hubs of Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Attock, and Sargodha continued to supply it recruits, and still do.
In essence, Pakistan's Punjabi leadership simply boosted the PMs' formidable and outsized influence over national security institutions and strategic policymaking., which shows no sign of abating.
There is, however, another worrisome aspect to the PMs' control over the army, which is that many senior personnel do not reportedly look upon nuclear weapons as mere deterrents in the abstract, but rather as credible instruments of use-especially under extreme tactical battlefield pressure.
PMs don't view nuclear weapons as mere strategic leverage
Their faith in 'full spectrum deterrence', which includes the use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) in response to conventional Indian military incursions onto its territory, remains rooted in a mix of Pakistani military doctrine and institutional culture that has been largely shaped by the ascendent PM lobby.
This faction looks upon TNWs-like the Nasr missile – not as weapons deterring nuclear war, but as instruments discouraging conventional war, implying their use in battlefield scenarios. Numerous PM generals and officials had, at varying times articulated, directly or indirectly, that Pakistan's nuclear red lines were lower than India's; not employing nuclear weapons when national survival or pride was at stake for the PM, equated buzdili, or cowardice.
In fact, former Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid, a PM himself, publicly declared in 2019 that Pakistan had 125-250-gram nuclear bombs to hit 'targeted areas'. His comments, echoed similarly over years by other PMs came amidst tirades by then Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on the possibility of a military confrontation with India over Kashmir.
So, in conclusion, Pakistan's ethnic PM military and broadly official mindset does not view nuclear weapons as mere strategic leverage; it believes in their conditional usability, rendering crisis management in the region highly hazardous during military standoffs like Op Sindoor.
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