Despite the continuing momentum of democracy, the civil-military relationship is still problematically imbalanced. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Balochistan where the facts on the ground belie the rhetoric in the corridors of power.
The military insists that there are no “troops” in Balochistan. This statement is aimed at distancing the military from charges of human rights violations, especially relating to the “disappearances” of hundreds of alleged Baloch nationalist-activists, in the province by the FC, MI and ISI.
But the fact is that the FC and Rangers are military organisations just like the Pakistan Army, the only difference being that they are formally under the control of the Ministry of Interior while the latter reports to the Ministry of Defence, and their role is restricted to provincial duties while that of the army relates to all of Pakistan. The fact is that the Generals leading the Rangers and FC formally take their orders from the civilians, much like the army chief or the DG-ISI, but in reality take over-riding orders from GHQ and coordinate closely with the Corps Commanders in their region. The fact also is that all military organisations are obliged to come to the “aid of civilian power” under various laws enacted for the purpose. But when they do, they acquire a degree of autonomy and freedom from civilian accountability that is not allowed to the regular law enforcing agencies like the police.
Therein lies the rub. The military narrowly and exclusively defines “national security” and brooks no civilian dilution or enlargement of the concept. And it acts, openly and secretly, via GHQ or the ISI, to protect and defend it. This “national security outlook” is currently at the root of the “problem” of Balochistan: the military sees the Baloch nationalists as an arm of the Baloch separatist-insurgents, who in turn are viewed as anti-Pakistan proxies of foreign powers which must be crushed and eliminated.
But the civilian leaders in Balochistan or Islamabad recognize a deeper and more complex reality in the notion of “national interest”: the Baloch nationalist-insurgents are estranged civilian elements who have been pushed out of mainstream provincial or national politics for various reasons and have picked up arms to register their protest, in the process taking refuge in foreign lands and welcoming financial and military assistance from whosoever provides it for whatsoever reason. Under the circumstances, the civilians wish to woo them back to mainstream politics through a process of truth, reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Such problems are not unique to Pakistan. For example, there are insurgencies and separatist movements in India too – in Kashmir and the North-East — where the military and LEAs have been given extraordinary powers to deal with them. But few Indians talk of any military excesses there as opposed to the many who decry them in Pakistan. The main reason for this is that the notion of “national interest” which encompasses the notion of “national security” but is not restricted to it, is defined, defended and protected by the civilians rather than the military in India. More critically, the Indian civilians do so under consensually derived democratic norms and practices in which their military is subservient to them. In Pakistan, by contrast, the civil-military relationship is bedeviled by distrust, even hostility, because of repeated military interventions to subvert the civilian and democratic order. That is why, even when the military acts in aid to civilian power, the civilians are loath to accept the full consequences of its interventions. This problem is acutely perceived in Balochistan because its origins lie in the decisions taken by a Musharraf-military regime in the 2000s and its solutions have not been satisfactorily grounded in civilian times because of the continuing imbalance in civil-military relations during the Zardari interregnum.
This civil-military dilemma was reflected in the struggle of the Supreme Court to tackle the issue of the “missing persons” of Balochistan. On the one hand, the SC recognized the role of the military agencies and FC in picking up, interrogating and “disappearing” people. On the other, it was unable to put the blame squarely on them because of their formal subservience to civilian authorities during the Zardari regime. Much the same issue haunts the new Nawaz Sharif regime. It wants to promote a dialogue with the Baloch nationalist-insurgents with a view to ending their alienation and rehabilitating them in mainstream politics. But it doesn’t have a strong enough handle over the military to persuade, let alone compel, it to let go of its notion of national security.
The Sharif administration says it wants to redress the imbalance and seize the political initiative. But this is easier said than done. It would require the establishment of an institutional mechanism for formulating and implementing national security policy under civilian control in which the military and its allied agencies are key inputting and implementing stakeholders. Until this is done, ad-hoc briefings by the army chief or DGISI will yield nothing.