In a stark departure from routine practice, and perhaps in accordance with the way things should be done, the Ministry of Defence (yes, we have one, with a minister, federal secretary and other paraphernalia to boot) and not the ISPR, issued a statement saying that there are several veterans’ bodies in the countries that are “masquerading as” representatives of retired military servicemen whereas they are nothing of the sort.
This, of course, comes in the aftermath of, amongst other things, some of the aforementioned bodies being actively campaigning against the incumbent government and, through a lot of oblique messaging, the incumbent military command.
The fact of the matter is that we have one of the largest militaries in the world. Our military, like all of them, has a pyramid structure, with most officers superannuating at various tiers, most of them lower down the ranks. That, coupled with the relative rank-inflation in staff postings, means that we have a huge number of retired officers, a lot of them belonging to some pretty senior ranks. It is not possible, therefore, for all such bodies to have any claim whatsoever of speaking for all, or even most, of retired officers. To that end, the Ministry’s distancing is correct; any confusion in the minds of the public should be put at ease in that regard.
However, it should also be pointed out that the retired officers are, legally, civilians. They are not supposed to follow the politics dictat of any chain of command. They should not be victimised for any political statement that they have made.
It would also be wise for the ex-servicemen themselves to undertake some introspection. Though many of the ousted PTI’s supporters are being accused of not having any ideals about the rule of democracy and the limits of powerful non-representative institutions but merely being unhappy at not being currently in the good books of the latter, nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the former servicemen. These former officers, while talking to members of the press at protests, lay bare just how little informed they are about constitutional propriety.
