Bobby builds, Bajwa inherits
Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (retd)
Nawaz Sharif has the dubious distinction of a fractious relationship with all five Chiefs of Army Staff he has worked with, including the three that he chose himself.
It started with his first handpicked choice of General Waheed Kakar (superseding four senior officers) in 1993 subsequently reneging and pressurising Nawaz Sharif to tender his resignation as the Prime Minister. The next General that Nawaz Sharif had to deal with was General Jehangir Karamat (choice of the previous Benazir Bhutto government), and soon the irreconcilable disagreement between the two flared up, leading to the general’s premature resignation.
Having burnt his fingers, Nawaz wanted to play absolutely safe. He superseded a ‘pliant’ Mohajir Gen Pervez Musharraf. He soon demonstrated his independent adventurism with Kargil and finally Nawaz Sharif was bumped off and exiled in a bloodless coup. In his third return to power in 2013, Nawaz had to ‘manage’ a cold and unpredictable Gen Pervez Kayani (chosen by his bête noire, Gen Musharaf in 2007). After he ‘hung his boots as promised (after an extension), Nawaz quickly pounced upon the opportunity to make his third personal choice in Gen Raheel Sharif.
Bobby (Gen Sharif’s pet name), like the new chief, was not the frontrunner and therefore seemed a ‘safe’ choice who could oblige! Except, Bobby too, would prove otherwise. He had lived his fairly illustrious military life in the shadow of his brother’s legacy, the late Major Rana Shabbir Sharif (recipient of Pakistan’s highest gallantry award, ‘Nishan-e-Haider’ in 1971 war).
Bobby was always struggling to ‘live up’ to the proud legacy of his elder brother, who incidentally was the batch mate of Gen Pervez Musharraf. Belonging to the proud martial stock of the Janjua clan, Gen Raheel Sharif was the quintessential Pakistani general - barrel chested, plain speaking and perceptibly nationalistic. Soon, he would follow the independent streak that typifies the generals in the ‘Army House’ in the manicured cantonment town of Rawalpindi, as opposed to the despised politicos in Islamabad.
Expectedly, General Raheel Sharif came into his own and decided on the national narrative by taking on homegrown terror (after the Peshawar school massacre) and started defining the contours of foreign policy with dashes to Kabul, Riyadh, Washington, Beijing etc. on briefs that went beyond military matters. A hapless Nawaz Sharif was often left suffering the indignity of making political retractions (post Ufa summit), policy flip-flops (with India) and getting lectured on domestic corruption (after ‘Panamagate’) by his Chief of Army Staff.
Today, with the ensuing ‘selective’ war on terror, the ‘Panamagate’ expose and the flaring volatility on the LOC, made the Pakistani armed forces and Gen Raheel Sharif in particular, the real McCoy in Pakistan. By keeping his word on retirement, Gen. Sharif has further strengthened his legacy, and importantly of the Pakistani armed forces. Bobby won all the battles against the politicos, and built-up the relevance and favourable perception of the parallel institution, the armed forces. Bobby ensured that he could indulge in leisurely game hunts, whilst, the institution retains the glint in its bayonets, without having to resort to unnecessary formality and complexities of a military coup d’état.
Gen Bajwa is the fourth time Nawaz Sharif has made a selection on his own. Unsurprisingly, his supposed apoliticalness and low profile ensured that he too, hopped over four generals. His credentials are eerily similar to those of Gen Raheel Sharif -- both were ‘dark horses’, both were IG (Training and Insp) before elevation, both are of Punjabi stock and supposedly, apolitical.
However, a careful analysis of the Pakistani military history bears out the deep institutional truth, of a close-knit decision-making network that operates through a guarded and consultative grouping of corps commanders, which toes its own line. The military institution is larger than the individual, and the institution takes care of its own – the brazen freedom afforded on Gen Musharraf is a testimony. Clearly, Gen Bajwa does not carry the operational scars of the Indo-Pak war (he joined the Baloch Regiment in 1980) or suffered a personal angularity like that of Gen Raheel Sharif’s family in the `71 war. However, his familial credentials of military upbringing are impeccable, with both his father and father-in-law having served in the Pakistani Army.
Gen Bajwa is the veritable inheritor of the well-oiled Pakistani military juggernaut, with carefully selected military men well ensconced in sensitive positions like the NSA (Lt Gen Nasser Khan Janjua) and the ISI chief (Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar) to oversee the seamless continuum of operations.
The present arrangement of an ostensible civilian government, with the reigns firmly in the hands of the burly military men works perfectly fine for the institution of the Pakistani armed forces. No perceptible change of strategic track is envisaged by the strategists in New Delhi. Nawaz Sharif has personally punted thrice before and got it terribly wrong. Gen Bajwa is the fourth time Nawaz has thrown the dice in a perennial power struggle that he has always lost, so far.
The writer is a former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry
