Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir is planning to “build his own legacy” by “redefining the Pakistani state” even as he pushes his country to a “cycle of conflict” that will adversely impact their internal domestic politics, says well known Pakistani scholar Ayesha Siddiqa.
Author of the seminal work Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy’, Siddiqa is currently a Senior Fellow at the Department of War Studies in King’s College, London.
In an online interview with StratNews Global, she described Munir as unlike any of his predecessors.
“General Asim Munir is a different kettle of fish. He’s very different from his earlier generals, who were more thoughtful. This one is less thoughtful. And he’s trying to develop and build his own legacy. I mean, personally, as a Pakistani, I’m more worried about what this cycle of conflict will do to Pakistan’s politics,” she said.
Munir, she said, is making an attempt to “get back and reverse” from where his predecessor General Qamar Javed Bajwa had left. Munir took charge from Bajwa in November 2022.
Munir’s role as Pakistan’s Army Chief has taken centre-stage in India post the terrorist in Pahalgam, Kashmir on April 22 in which at least 26 civilians were killed. Preliminary investigations have suggested that the attacks were carried out by the terrorists backed by Pakistan.
A week before the attacks on April 17, at an event in Islamabad, Munir described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” while stressing that his country would “never abandon Kashmiris in their heroic struggle against Indian occupation”.
“Institutionally, he’s (Munir) trying to bring his own institution back, not just to, a pre-Bajwa phase, where Bajwa was, like, we don’t have money to fight a war. Let’s bury the hatchet. Let’s have a conversation,” said Siddiqa,
“So he’s not only bringing the institution back to pre-Bajwa, but I think what he’s trying to reverse is also, he’s creating his own legacy, his own system of governance. He is redefining the Pakistani state which no earlier army chief had done,” she added.
On the Pahalgam attack, Siddiqa said, “Whoever has done it probably saw that (India-Pakistan) relations are going to get downgraded. We have got ourselves in a black hole in terms of our relations from where recovery of relations even at a people-to-people level is going to be difficult.”
Munir Vis-a-Vis Zia
Munir, of late, has come under the spotlight for undertaking some actions that have an uncanny similarity with those of General Zia ul Haq, Pakistan’s Army Chief from 1976 till 1988. General Zia had ousted and later hanged then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and proclaimed himself President in 1978.
He introduced martial law and brought in significant changes to Pakistan’s legal and social systems, including the implementation of Islamic laws.
However, according to Siddiqa, “General Zia was more thoughtful. Do remember that the ‘80s was a very tricky period in India-Pakistan relations. From conflict over Siachen to Brass Tacks to Zarb-e-Momen, the two major military exercises, and the threat to Pakistan’s nuclear reactor, all of that was happening,” said Siddiqa.
She added, “Pakistan signalling to India that we have nuclear weapons and yet Zia-ul-Haq could come uninvited on cricket diplomacy. He was more thoughtful. This one (Munir) is not. This is not Zia’s legacy at all. This is a different man from Zia-ul-Haq.”
She also highlighted that in the event India launches an offensive against Pakistan or it does not, either way Munir will “emerge as a hero.”
“Probably Munir’s calculation is that India will not risk escalation beyond a certain point. And even if India attacks, he’s going to come out, looking like a hero in the attack. He hopes to have politically, socio-politically, militarily, gains,” she underscored.
Munir’s tenure ends in November and by fanning hatred against India and pushing both countries to the brink of war, he hopes to justify an extension for himself while making “temporary gains out of the conflict.”
“He is introducing his own system of governance. He has already given his own idea of what state – Hindus and Muslims can’t live together, bringing back the two-nation theory. He controls every single department. He’s going to be more authoritarian, more purges in the judiciary, perhaps. For example, defamation has now been brought under a system of military trial, and court martial,” said Siddiqa.
Khan and Munir had a major fallout with the former PM ousting him as the chief of Pakistan’s premier spy agency – Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – just eight months into his tenure. This incident ultimately led to Khan’s arrest, he continues to languish behind bars while Munir became the Army Chief.
The Pakistan Army experienced a major pushback from the people in 2023, even as protests against Imran Khan’s arrest swelled inviting global attention.
India-Pakistan ‘Confirmed Enemies’
Siddiqa, who has been to India several times representing Pakistan in her capacity as a scholar, believes that both nuclear-armed neighbours are having “very low trust deficit” and post the Pahalgam incident both are now “confirmed enemies and strangers” in the neighbourhood.
Therefore, she said, to mend the broken ties in the future both may need the intervention of a “third party”.
“We are at a moment of very low trust deficit. There’s this huge trust deficit. We will probably need major involvement of perhaps a third party to sit down and develop a framework for what will be the starting lines for a conversation. What will Pakistan have to demonstrate, what will India have to show at the lowest point when there is no trust?
“Let’s learn to live quietly in our neighborhood, without excessive talk, but with no conflict for maybe a decade and then we can start thinking about some conversation,” said Siddiqa.
“But sadly, we have come to a point, and in Pakistan, the political leadership is so weak … All of this hype (around war) is taking us into a corner where, we are now, kind of very confirmed enemies and strangers in the neighborhood.”
However, she ruled out any possibilities of an all-out war between India and Pakistan as both are nuclear-armed. She also mentioned that the biggest worry in Pakistan is the “presence” of terrorist organisations within the country.
“One has always been worried about the presence of militant organisations or terrorist organisations. And they shouldn’t have been there. But they’re there … The problem is that we (India and Pakistan) have not had a conversation since Pulwama and Balakot. We don’t understand each other. So now we’re stuck with a conflict and all of it has turned ideological, more ideological than territorial. This is very unfortunate,” she averred.
