After subduing the Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI), the next is the turn of the media, both print and electronic. According to the grapevine, certain commentators and opinion writers would be entwined into fake cases to quiet their voice.
The fake cases could be concocted police cases bordering on the Bhens Chori ka Muqadma (cow theft case). Any commentator or a writer can be nominated in a First Information Report for a cooked-up case to blackmail them into silence. The State finds this method easier and quicker to mute the dissenting voices.
Unfortunately, instead of dissociating itself from civilian matters, the Army is plunging into the civilian domain. The PTI workers are political workers who got misguided or misconstrued into constituting May 9. Let the dirty job of trying civilians be done by civilian courts (including anti-terrorist courts), and stop pushing the police into establishing cow theft cases against commentators and writers. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech
The cause of dissent is the army’s policy. The point is simple: when civilian courts are available to try and punish a civilian malefactor, the rationale for trying the offender in an army court is incomprehensible. It is not what the army desires, it is what the constitution enshrines.
On June 26, in an answer to a question in a press conference, the DG ISPR revealed that the army did not respond deliberately to the advance of the protesters on May 9. The reason given was that the Army wanted to forestall any chance for the political party’s playing a victim card afterwards. That is, the Army did not protect its assets just because, in case of a clash, some demonstrators would have suffered physically, permitting the PTI to cash in on the situation. It means that the Army’s withdrawal was not nominal, it was absolute. What wisdom!
On 30 September 2004, India had comfortably completed fencing the LoC in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region. After 15 years, on 5 August 2019, India announced to merge its occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir into the mainland, demonstrating it as the atoot ang (inseparable part) of India. Ajit Doval, India’s National Security Advisor, is said to have masterminded the merger. Article 370 was abrogated and Article 35-A was dissolved. Pakistan’s intelligence agencies failed to calculate the next step of India – engulf Kashmir. Doval’s office remained impenetrable.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office remained short of claiming that Pakistan let August 5 happen deliberately to expose the true face of India to the world. That is, if Pakistan had resisted the move physically, the world would have reproached Pakistan. By the same token of “wisdom”, Pakistan made an intelligent move and did not let India play a victim card. Certainly, Pakistan narrowly escaped from becoming an aggressor.
Nevertheless, ask Pakistan’s former COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and he would lay bare the real reason. Hamid Mir and Naseem Zahra shared General Bajwa’s thoughts with the audience in their respective talk shows. By the way, can anybody tell how August 5 will be mourned?
After the elapse of around four years, in 2023, there are no signs of Kashmir regaining its sovereign status. Hopes are now lost. The merger is perhaps permanent. Despite its heavy presence in Pakistan, the Army cannot do anything. It can just patrol the border and play politics internally. This year, from May 22 to 24, to the utter consternation of Pakistan, India hosted the third G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in Srinagar. Pakistan’s Foreign Office remained flabbergasted, and that is it.
The era of launching Siachen and Kargil wars to highlight the Kashmir issue is over. The desire of late Lt Gen Hameed Gul to resort to nuclear brinkmanship on the issue of Kashmir has also been buried in a nearby grave. On the loss of Kashmir, Pakistan’s Foreign Office bore the main brunt of embarrassment, luckily without venting funny excuses. The Army’s desire to run the foreign policy has rendered the Foreign Office ineffective and mostly unproductive. There are now mostly diplomatic robots who read out trite statements to pander to the psycho-emotional needs of the audience.
Now, the Army wants to run courts, and that, in the year when general elections are round the corner. Any opposition to the intent is being suppressed and oppressed. Dissenting commentators and opinion writers are the target. Only those commentators and writers are treasured who see eye to eye with the wisdom of laying a trap for the PTI on May 9. The snare personifies the success of the project, enticement: Accept there was a trap and admire the trap’s triumph. A denier must be booked in a cow theft case.
The DG ISPR cannot show his indifference to the phenomenon of one’s getting dry cleaned after holding a press conference censuring the PTI, as has been done by dozens of PTI politicians recently. No blinders are sold in the market. The DG ISPR’s parrying a question alluded to the phenomenon before the press was a howler. His prevarication made him the butt of a joke. In principle, an army general who is trained for fighting and not trained for facing the media should not hold a press conference. He cannot handle the press. The past policy of the Army to use a colonel (or a near-retirement brigadier) to deal with the press and hold press conferences was better. That policy must be revived.
The baseline is that May 9 does not permit the State to dismember or ban the PTI. It is unwise to reach such an extreme end even in a bout of anger and anguish. Doing so in the election year would have severe political repercussions, and the first of them would be the uncertain legitimacy of the elections. Over and above, trying the PTI workers in the army courts is bound to cultivate a wave of sympathy for the party. On top of it, Pakistan is reeling under a substantial debt. Pakistan has to pay around $2 billion a month for three years to come out of the debt overload. The Army’s insistence to try political workers in Army courts is bound to compound the political and financial crisis.
Unfortunately, instead of dissociating itself from civilian matters, the Army is plunging into the civilian domain. The PTI workers are political workers who got misguided or misconstrued into constituting May 9. Let the dirty job of trying civilians be done by civilian courts (including anti-terrorist courts), and stop pushing the police into establishing cow theft cases against commentators and writers. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
