CIVIL AND MILITARY RELATION IN PAKISTAN
(1988 -1999)
Submitted by:
Supervised by:
Sania Shah
Ms. Shazia Sultan
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
GOVERNMENT GIRLS DEGREE COLLEGE NOWSHERA CANTT
AFFILIATED WITH
WOWMEN UNIVERSITY MARDAN
Abstract:
The Period from 1988 -1999 in Pakistan was democratic in nature but on real ground it was run
by the military along with Bureaucracy. The civil and military Relation in Pakistan is always
complex This Era was the Power Struggle between the President ,Prime minister, military and
the judiciary. The democratic period of the time has been greatly effected by the military
involvement and foreign actors which derail democracy in Pakistan. The accidental death of
General Zia-ul-Haq in 1988 provided a chance for a democratic polity but, the politics of
immaturity, revenge and corruption had broken the dreams of political stability in the country.
The political system, working under 8th amendment of the constitution with extensive military
involvement in poltical process, caused for distrust between the head of the state and the heads of
governments. Consequently, none of the elected governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif
could be able to complete their constitutional term from 1988-99. Military, as an organized and
disciplined institution in the country, had not been ready to lose its political role and had taken
the opportunity for takeover, provided by the elected leadership, in 1999.
LITERATURE REVIEW:
(Rizvi, 2000) gives a detailed understanding on the role of military that how and why the military
intervene in Pakistan society and politics . He explain the causes which encourage the military
institution to undertake the political Power. He studied major themes with reference to three
clusters of factors; the dynamics of the civil society and the working of the political institutions
and processes, the military establishment and its organizational resources and professional and
corporate interests; and the interaction across the functional boundaries between the military and
the civil and its implications for the power balance in the polity. He further says, The weaknesses
of the civilian / political institutions and their inability to cope with diverse demands on the
political system make it convenient for the senior commanders to expand their role and even
assume power. However, military intervention is not necessarily and enduring remedy but it is a
part of the overall problems of weak civilian institutions and political decay. His work is mainly
about the corporate interests of the officer cadre. Their personal interests are dubbed national
interests. Unfortunately, his work has been more descriptive than analytical, and has taken the
military as a post- independence phenomenon.
(Mehdi, 2019) says that external and internal security problems have resulted in a predominance
of Military over all institutions. He says, threat from a conventionally superior India, the rejection
of Durand line by Afghanistan and the internal regional and ethnic assertions have also given
military an upper hand. Moreover, the discourse that the army has constructed about India as a
“Hindu” state that wants to undermine and annihilate the “Islamic” identity of Pakistan gives the
command in the hands of the army. He further says that, The control of Military over economic
resources has further consolidated their position which has resulted in undermining of other
institutions. The weaknesses of political parties to resolve their differences expose their
incapability of controlling power which gave the military an additional option to control power.
Defense and Foreign policy of Pakistan is the prerogative of Military, hence Military influences
and directs political change. The penetration of military in sectors like economy ,society and polity
creates an institutional imbalance where each sector is autonomous but dominated by military.
(Khakwani, 2003) says that The term “civil-military relations” with predominant emphasis on
“civilian supremacy” is conceptually inadequate to explain the situation in Pakistan, owing to the
specificity of its historical, cultural, and institutional situations. He says political regimes in
Pakistan are perceived to be less capable of defining, negotiating, and securing national strategic
interests as compared to military regimes. Hence, when compared with civilian ones, the military
regimes tend to be more determined, assertive, decisive, and risk-taking in shaping the state’s
domestic and foreign policies.
He focused on the accumulated history of civil-military relations and military intervention in
Pakistan, he observe the general trend of military intervention , that the trend of democratization
in Pakistan is non-linear. Instead of the end of an authoritarian regime being linked with the
installation and consolidation of a democratic regime, rather what has repeatedly happened is a
move back to square one—that is, again in the direction of intervention. The problem is how to
break away from or overcome this vicious circle . He said What is required are structural changes,
entailing the development of any one of the case of military intervention, administrative diversity
does exist and replaces the political pluralism in Pakistan—whereby common people satisfy their
needs and articulate their interests through formal and informal, social and other kinds of networks,
even in the absence of a political layer of management, effectively through more assertive and
determined civil and military bureaucracies.
He further says that, military government must widely be recognized not only as the government
but also as the lawful, the rightful government. Though the military regimes in Pakistan
invariably have been termed legitimate by the court and other self-defined electoral means,
nonetheless, in general these measures can never dispel the very impression of being illegitimate.
Thus he says once the military takeover is complete, all efforts are directed towards acquiring
legitimacy rather than the stated purpose of the takeover.
Pitafi(2021) says that civil-military relations revolves around the civil-military problematique, a
simple paradox in which “the very institution created to protect the polity is given sufficient power
to become a threat to the polity. He said Human history is filled with instances where militaries
are involved in direct seizures of political power and this is the traditional worry of civil-military
relations theory.He said that Making the military too powerful could also involve the military
draining country’s resources in a quest for ever greater strength, the military pushing the country
into unnecessary wars, or simply disobeying the civilian authority and pursuing its own interests.
Hence, he says civilian government must be strong enough to protect the citizens but again, not
strong enough to become tyrannical.
He further says that, in the case of Pakistan between 1988 and 1999, there was overall discordance
between the three actors, however, the beginning of each electoral term saw unstable concordance
with military dominance. In the case of Nawaz Sharif’s PMLN, the partnership was voluntary in
the beginning as the party was supported by the Pakistan Army. Moreover, the initial partnership
between the PPP of Benazir Bhutto and the military was also voluntary; however, with increased
clashes, the unstable concordance turned into complete discordance. He said that unstable
concordance occurs when one of the actors does not have enough power to survive without the
partnership as was in the case of Pakistan when with the end of each electoral term between 1988
and 1999, any further disagreement from the less powerful civilian government, led to dismissal
or dissolution. As evident from the case studies, unstable concordance is not characterized as
discordance because across some of the indicators, there was still an agreement among the three
actors. It can have either civilian or military dominance (Pitafi, 2021).
Qurat-ul-Ain Bashir says that since Pakistan inception the elected institutions were unable to play
their proper role in politics and decision making. The elected institutions did not get the
opportunity to establish a stable political system due to supremacy and interference of hierarchical
institutions. In political sense civil-military bureaucracy remained more powerful than legislative
assemblies. The elected governments were weak and under the influence of the establishment as
democratic traditions were not nurtured. Repeated Martial Laws and bureaucratic interferences
created undemocratic traditions even in politics.
She further says that, the institution of military remained active in Pakistan due to non-professional
attitude of politicians. The political deadlocks were ended through military intervention which
became possible on request of politicians. The political role of military was due to power struggle
among political parties and in order to acquire power they needed its help. The In this decade the
civil bureaucracy was also the established political power of country and the whole responsibility
of derailed democracy could not be put on army. The civil-military bureaucracy was itself a party
which worked together for their interests. However, the shift of power in this party changed with
the attitude of elected governments.
The undemocratic practices were encouraged by undue political interventions of establishment;
which supported the theory that political instability was intentionally created by establishment.
Basically each time the (bureaucratic)President was the key figure in initiating the idea of dismissal
of government to the military bureaucracy. But it was also a fact that the Presidents would not be
able to topple the governments without the support of COAS. The cooperation between civilmilitary bureaucracy and power struggle between executive and establishment were the main
reasons for weakening the roots of democracy. In fact it was the concurrence of civil-military
relations that distorted the process of democratization. role of army in politics was partly by choice
and partly at the behest of politicians.
Zulfiqar,Amna , says that Civil-military relations in Pakistan are always in search of common
ground. Historically,military forces and civilian leadership in Pakistan struggle to find the right
balance and the civilian leadership has hardly commanded the gun. In new democracies the biggest
challenge is to develop democratic civilian authority, this challenge of influencing the democratic
civilian authority over the military forces remained critical.The discussion of CMR, the role of
media is extremely important especially during the wartime. Media, democratic leadership and
armed forces during the time of attacks develop a link which offers armed forces and democratic
leadership with support from the media. Moreover, press can build a narrative that affects the
views of the general public positively, particularly towards the actions exercised by both
democratic leadership and the armed forces. This analysis shows that for restoring peace and
development in Pakistan healthy CMR is a requisite. Because both the army and the civilian
government have to take equal/ similar and related measures to sustain peace and bring back
stability in the region. If the CMR would be strengthened only then we can bring all the
stakeholders to the table for peace, development and most importantly economic stability. It is
concluded that media has the power to maximize or minimize the coverage related to issues, the
role of media in creating an impact on the people is vital. The media should not misguide,
misinterpret and overemphasize any issue which can create some serious threats to the sovereignty
of the state. In this regard, there is a need for journalistic standards determined by the government
and the information ministry of Pakistan so that the passage of fruitful information could be
streamlined with high standard of freedom of expression.
Shaista Taj Zahir Shah Manzoor Ahmad analyze that Pakistan remained under military domination
for about 32 years (1958-1971,1977-1988 and 1999 to 2008). The continuous influence of military
overshadowed the civilian in one way or the other. The entire concept of the overall civil-military
nexus is broadly based on the fact of how to assure civil control over the military. During
Musharraf’s regime, various nonmilitary practices with the vested interest of the military as a
priority encouraged the military greatly while the civilians were kept in the background. But in
spite of such defiance towards the army, a sound political leadership could not be brought forward
to stand against military power and to keep them confined to their barracks. The civilian power
that as governed the country encompasses two families’ monopoly i.e. the Bhutto and Sharif. In a
nutshell, we can easily analyze that strong and mutually corresponding civil-military relations
should be the top priority for a developed, secure and economically developed Pakistan. Without
sound civil-military relation, we cannot imagine our country having a good name in the
international committee. Many things need to be clarified many relations with other countries need
to be analyzed and countless personal interests have to be buried just for the sake of the country.
Pakistan has the potential to become a modern stable state if serious reforms are taken. Sincere
leadership with visionary political insight and a harmonious understanding can drag Pakistan back
from the brink of crisis.