It is time, for our own good, to analyse the circumstances leading to the creation of the “all-powerful” army rulers of Pakistan
The world knows, but can do little, because each nation unto itself on terror. Consensus on terrorism is simply impossible. Consequently, welcome to the world of a fanatic army’s terrorist state — the Army-ISI’s Pakistan. Indeed, for seven decades India has been facing the perfidy of this terrorist army and its illegal chiefs; illegal, because of their penchant for coups and forced, mala fide seizure of political power from bona fide civilian state rulers.
Although political and politicised today, the same pre-1947 Muslim officers of British Indian army were professionals and not politicians. They were professional keepers of “Christian-ruled”, “non-Muslim” and “non-Hindu” British India. Curiously, however, post-1947 the same professional Muslim officers of Pakistan played a leading role in destroying their new Muslim state, as can be seen from secession and consequential transformation of Muslim East Pakistan into an independent, sovereign, mainly Muslim Bangladesh in 1971. Although religion was shot dead by religion, yet apolitical, non-religious professionalism of Muslim soldiers of pre-1947 British Indian Army too succumbed at the altar of political perfidy and religious fanaticism in post-1947 Pakistan.
In fact, the birth of Bangladesh clearly showed Pakistan’s fanatic “religious Army’s” orgy of violence perpetrated on their own co-religionists thereby violating all canons of their own (purported) “constitutional law”. It is, therefore, time to analyse the circumstances leading to the creation of the “all-powerful” army rulers of Pakistan.
First, see the Pakistan Army Act 1952. It’s the military law which has an inherent and overriding power to prevail and trample on Constitutional sovereignty, through religion, it transpires. What’s strange is that it is the early civilian rulers who bestowed the Pakistani military with “special” and “unbridled” power. Why? Is it because of bitter linguistic rivalry? Between Punjabi and Urdu; Sindhi and Punjabi; Pashtun and Punjabi; Urdu versus non-Urdu and the far off, “majority” “Hinduized” Muslim East Pakistani Bengalis versus “minority” non-Bengali West Pakistanis? Or was the “political-space occupation competition” between the traditional Punjabi land-holding class and the perceived and potentially “land-grabbing” Urdu-speaking Mohajir refugees from North India migrating to West Pakistan the cause? Indeed, the cauldron appears a mystery of the civilian rulers’ political agenda albeit using a religious alibi. Yet, the Pakistan of 1952 still had the semblance of civilian rule as Ayub Khan had not seized power.
Whereas it was the upper class (non-Punjabi) Indian Muslims who spearheaded the politics of division and demand for Pakistan prior to 1947, strangely the Muslim officers and men of the undivided Indian Army, which also constituted a bulk of Punjabi-speaking Muslims, by and large, were not reported, or known, to be affected by the political lunacy of hatred and divisiveness. Here, grudgingly though, one has to acknowledge the seminal contribution of British imperialists for creating an apolitical and professional army consisting of men from various religions and divisions. Though done essentially to benefit British imperialists themselves, yet the fruits thereof are being enjoyed most by India. Pakistan has fallen by the wayside, becoming a victim of its army’s transformation from an apolitical and professional army to a revengeful, mindless political instrument overrunning and destroying the very state to which it belongs.
Be that as it may, let us go through a few sections of Pakistan Army Act 1952 to understand as to who and what all India will face in the foreseeable future: