Asim Munir tightens grip, but that fifth star could spell trouble for India

Business Standard

4 days ago

What can a Pakistan Army chief do with a fifth star that he couldn't with four? What can a Pakistan Army chief, master of all he surveys, do as Field Marshal that he couldn't as a mere General?
It's tempting to say, little more. This is just a bit more bling on his collar, cap, car, and, when he chooses, on his pulpit — a main battle tank. That must be the question also assailing his mind.
He knows that he can't have this fifth star and do nothing more with it. Should India worry?
The short answer is, India must always worry about the Pakistani army, and it does. Just that, there's this added concern and urgency with this bizarre promotion from within the 'system' — or maybe from outside it, depending on where you place Shehbaz Sharif in this arrangement.
What will he do with his fifth star, only for the second time in Pakistan's and the subcontinent's history? (Our three five-stars, Cariappa, Manekshaw and Arjan Singh were handed ceremonial batons). It is a phenomenon so rare for modern militaries that today, the only example in a country of some consequence would be Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Even the mighty Americans buried the exalted title with Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Bradley. He will surely want to do something with it. I might suggest taking a leaf out of Idi Amin's book and find some equivalent of his 'Conqueror of the British Empire.' But this isn't the time to be funny.
Firing his civilian government and taking over power would be so boring in Pakistan. He doesn't need that. All our politico-strategic analysis of Pakistan should henceforth be focused on this one central point. How will Field Marshal Asim Munir be different from General Asim Munir? What the General could do, we saw indicated in his speech to overseas Pakistanis on April 16 and in what happened in Pahalgam on April 22. The one promise in that speech he's yet to fulfil is, making Pakistan 'a hard state.'
Victory celebrations for propaganda apart, he knows his military has suffered a severe setback. Any yet unsubstantiated claims of downing Indian planes can please the population for a while. It is just that the pictures of the battered airbases — each one of them east of the Indus — and the big Jaish-Lashkar establishments reduced to rubble will endure. However much he thumps his chest, the additional jingle of that fifth star will not change those facts on the ground. He would want to do something soon to 'make amends'. In fact, he would need to.
I would go so far as to wager that he will do something sooner than we might have imagined. In the past, in a phenomenon described earlier as the Pakistani Army's 'seven-year itch', each major terror attack and the Indian response bought us about seven years of deterrence and relative peace. We will not get that kind of time now, because Munir hasn't got it. When he will act, what he will do, we can wargame — but can't be sure. There's only one thing I can say with certainty. If you are looking at six or seven years, I can tell you for sure where Munir will be. Politics, culture, and history of Pakistan indicate that it won't be a good place.
Before we get there, however, the awesome powers he amassed as a four-star deserve a look. He already had at his feet the civilian government he conjured to get 'elected.' Hear the fawning words, the body language, and see if there's anything prime ministerial about the younger Sharif brother in the presence of his 'sipahsalar' (commander-in-chief, as he was already addressing Munir before that fifth star). Cheerleader, court-jester, or a bit of both, take your pick. Munir has already been speaking on all key issues, including the promise of a trillion-dollar economy (currently $410 billion).
He's locked up Imran Khan, the only leader to challenge the army's exalted power. This, after he banned his party from contesting. The fact that Munir's preferred parties (the coalition led by PML-N) couldn't even win this one-horse race didn't matter; he installed them nevertheless.
The judiciary has caved in, especially as it conceded to the military courts the power to try civilians for some most serious offences, especially treason. He's already got his handmaiden Parliament, elected in an institutionally stolen election to rubber stamp amendments to mangle the Constitution and give himself an extended tenure. He's got it all sewn up. So, what's next?
See it from where the field marshal sits. If he looks seven years ahead, he would dearly hope and pray that statutory warning on mutual fund advertising applies in his case: Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. Because the past will tell him that every exalted army chief with political ambition has ended up badly: Disgraced in defeat, or exiled, prosecuted, even assassinated and, in some cases, three of the four. Ayub, Yahya, Zia, Musharraf, the four make a straight line.
To stretch this, even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became a dictator and shared the same fate. Munir's two predecessors, Qamar Javed Bajwa and Raheel Sharif were prudent in ultimately fading away, whatever power they exercised when in uniform. A Pakistani chief with the kind of power that Munir now has, no longer enjoys the luxury of thinking of retirement one day to play golf. That option out, Munir has the compulsion to do something with what the religious teacher in him might see as a god-given opportunity. I seem to be the chosen one, and if so, what is it that I was chosen to do?
His rise is sui generis even for Pakistan. The country has given us a chief who the civilian government appointed defence and home minister simultaneously (Ayub), then made him the chief martial law administrator, and who, in turn, fired the same civilian government to become president and, soon after, anointed himself field marshal. We've seen Yahya, Zia and Musharraf as garden variety military rulers all meeting one of these ends.
The last two also installed some kind of an elected government. This 'bonsai' phenomenon was Pakistan's unique contribution to political science. When the generals were not directly in power, they held it from outside. Again, that uniquely Pakistani phenomenon was called 'hybrid' government. How would you describe what we have now? A field marshal with a captive government and his only likely challenger in jail.
More than three decades back, when Nawaz Sharif was dismissed by the military establishment, he had said to me defiantly in an interview: 'What kind of system is this, addha tittar, addha bater (half a partridge, half a quail).' When he returns with a majority next, he said, he would make sure there's clarity. Either they (the army) should rule, or us (elected civilians).
I wonder how he would describe what he sees now, self-exiled from politics in his own country. How would you see this? An army chief elevated to field marshal, the most popular leader jailed for almost two years, and a farcically elected civilian government in power.
Do you remember Duck-billed Platypus from your class five biology class — the unique Australian organism with characteristics of a mammal, bird and reptile used to make the case for evolution between species? I know you are laughing, but please don't. This isn't funny. This is what Field Marshal Munir is now presiding over. He cannot have it all and do nothing with it. That fifth star is as much of a burden as the fake claims of victory. India had better be prepared. Munir doesn't have another 5–7 years. He could be back at our throats soon, even within the next 12 months.