Will the real Sharif please stand up?

Lt-Gen Bhopinder Singh

Civil-military shadowboxing is an old hat in Pakistan, with a brazen democracy-be-damned approach of the Pakistani generals who have formally ruled for 36 out of the 69 years of independence. In 1958, the first Pakistani President Iskandar Mirza dismissed the government of the day and appointed his Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan as the Martial Law Administrator, only to see Ayub depose Iskandar Mirza within 13 days and assume Presidentship. In 1976, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto handpicked a “safe” Mohajir, Zia-ul-Haq as his Chief of Staff — only to get executed by his protégé within two years. Later in 1991, Nawaz Sharif too would pull the wrong bunny out of the hat and install the third-in-line Pervez Musharraf as his Chief of Army Staff, only to get ousted and exiled by Musharraf by end-2000.

Circa 2016 is no different — serendipitous namesakes representing the two conflicting sides of the Pakistani establishment, with Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister in Islamabad to General Raheel Sharif ensconced in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, hardly 20 km down the Muree Road. Tell-tale signs of mutual and institutional discomfort between the two revolve around the appropriation as the principal voice on the two vectors that dominate Pakistani narrative, internal administration (read, security and corruption) and external affairs (ummah and Kashmir) — on both accounts, the politico/civil classes are on the backfoot against the steely frame of the ramrod straight, medal-chested and martially mustachioed Raheel Sharif leading the battle of perceptions, by miles. In feudal Pakistan, Punjabi lineage with a war-decorated family to boot (Raheel Sharif's elder brother Major Rana Shabbir Sharif, was the recipient of Pakistan's highest gallantry award, Nishan-e-Haider), rolls more generously in the desperate eyes of the Pakistani masses than Nawaz Sharif's stock that features, amongst other infamies, in the recent Panama expose.  

Pakistan's official warrant of precedence puts the Chief of Army Staff, Raheel Sharif at Article 6 or below 26 other constitutional appointments, (including some like Deputy Speaker to the National Assembly or Chairman Consultative Committee on economic policy and even below advisors and special assistants to the Prime Minister)  — however, constitutional propriety does not count for much in Pakistan and with Raheel Sharif making a dash to Washington, Riyadh, Beijing or Kabul at his free will to iron-fence the contours of Pakistani foreign policy, everyone knows who the real McCoy in Pakistan is. 

The first port of calling in Pakistan for the newly elected President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani in 2014, was the “Army House” and not the Prime Minister or the President. For a nation reeling under simultaneous tumults of economic, sectarian and terror related severities — it is critical to be seen as decisive, assertive and authoritative. His unmistakable fingerprints in devising the Zarb-e-Azb operations in 2014 to take on the might of the Taliban, devising the National Action Plan (NAP), bringing the rogue elements in Karachi under control and making his omnipresence felt from Baluchistan to the Swat valley has given him a cult-like status as the ultimate vanguard to all ills afflicting Pakistan.

Raheel Sharif has now upped the ante with a move that promises moral high ground vis-à-vis the politicos on the sticky ground of corruption — his recent dismissal from service of six army officers, including a Lt-Gen, a Maj-Gen, three brigadiers and a Lt-Col is unprecedented in the scale and seniority of the Stalinistic purge. Such an action is in sharp contrast to the dilly-dallying of the civilian authorities who tom-tom the dithering sub-continental line of "political conspiracy", whilst the hapless masses struggle to comprehend the legitimate brilliance of a Nawaz Sharif whose officially declared assets go up from Rs 166 million in 2011 to around Rs 2 billion in a span of four years (obviously, not including the Panama count). Such negative perceptions of civil/politico capabilities have allowed the open encroachment of the military uniforms in the judicial domain with the codification and institutionalisation of the supremacy through “general-heavy” apex committees, and no one complains. Credible conspiracy theorists attribute this undeclared coup of sorts to the backroom mechanisations that do not shy away from using the services of an alternative political platforms like Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaaf or Tahir Ul Qadri's followers to arm-twist Nawaz Sharif with a popular and pliant political alternative. 

The recent surge in Raheel Sharif's popularity has emboldened him to position his trusted confidantes in key positions like the ISI head, Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar or more crucially with the appointment of his fellow clansmen, Lt- Gen Naseer Khan Janjua as the NSA — the civilian corridors of powers are increasingly seeing burly soldiers who have shed their military fatigues and adorn the civilian-appropriate attires. The image overdrive for Raheel Sharif is carefully crafted, communicated and choreographed by the Army's public relations wings — Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) — timely snippets of the Army Chief and his swagger across the nation are regularly bombarded via a twitter handle that has the subscription equivalent to the combined numbers of the top three English newspapers!

Perhaps the only high-profile visitor to give General Raheel Sharif a miss in Pakistan was the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the subsequent confusion and frustration emanating from the perennial "one-step-forward-and-two-steps-behind" reality can be attributed to the limited mandate of the other Sharif, Nawaz Sharif to deliver on his word and intent — a reality check of the actual space for the civil/politicos to take independent decisions on domestic and foreign policy matters. 

Unlike the 1980s, when General Zia-ul-Haq appropriated religion as an means of relevance and assertion — it is a space that is now occupied by mullahs who are inimical to both the civil/politico classes, as indeed to the military and its generals —hence, the "moral high-ground" is the definitive space that subsumes the laundry list of woes besetting Pakistan's masses today (e.g. controlling bloody violence, corruption and secessionist tendencies). Fear of international opprobrium may restrain Raheel Sharif from doing a Pervez Musharraf immediately, but with the retirement deadline of Raheel Sharif in September 2016 looming large, the real Sharif may actually stand up soon, and formally so. 

The writer is a former Lt-Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry