Kamal Davar | Many Questions on Future of Pakistan’s’ jihadi General’: Will He Remain, or Fall?

It has been observed, across the world, that some dictators who manage to seize power from the legitimate authority within their nations display a streak of patriotism and hyper-concern for their country. But such altruism withers away after a short period of time as they begin to see themselves as even above their nation. That gets reinforced with the dictator getting a taste of absolute power, which is then hard to relinquish.

Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi is a good example of an idealist turning into a megalomaniac. Nearer home, in Pakistan, where the power-hungry Army has ruled, either directly or indirectly, ever since the country’s birth, dictators like self-styled Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Gen. Yahya Khan, Gen Zia-ul Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf all fall into this category. In recent years, though, the Pakistan Army has cultivated the strategy of allowing a semblance of democracy as a façade, while the levers of absolute power actually remain with the GHQ in Rawalpindi. The current Pakistan Army chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, has perfected the art of concentrating power in his hands and allowing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to run the virtually toothless elected government in Islamabad. It is common knowledge in GHQ Rawalpindi’s corridors of power, Gen. Munir is a great admirer of Gen Zia-ul Haq “K-2” strategy (Kashmir, Khalistan) to destabilise India.

After the ceasefire between the armed forces of India and Pakistan on Saturday, May 10, after four days of kinetic conflict, questions are being asked about Gen. Munir’s future. That Gen. Munir, widely known as the “jihadi general”, and believed to be the principal architect of the brutal Pahalgam massacre, where 26 unarmed tourists were murdered in cold blood by Pakistani terrorists, must explain to his nation and its people on what led him to initiate this brutal atrocity, which nearly took the two nuclear-armed neighbours to full-scale war, with all its potential consequences, besides causing unnecessary casualties to some people living close to the Line of Control. The fact that over two dozen innocent tourists were gunned down in front of their families on April 22 for the sole reason that they were Hindus clearly points to the inhuman and irrational mindset of the Pakistan Army Chief.

But before one examines the rationale of Pakistan’s all-powerful Army Chief behind his decision to risk his nation’s future by taking on a more powerful neighbour, it is worthwhile to take a closer look into this general's background. Asim Munir was born into a deeply orthodox Hafiz family (all of whose members can recite the holy Quran), with his father heading a madrasa (religious seminary).

Commissioned into the Frontier Force Regiment, Asim Munir rose to be the director-general of both Military Intelligence (MI) as well as Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) -- among the very few Pakistan Army officers who have headed both these intelligence outfits. He also had commanded XXX Corps based in Gujranawala. During Imran Khan’s prime ministership, after a short honeymoon between the two, he was sacked by Imran Khan as ISI chief. Gen. Munir never forgot this insult and, true to his character, worked zealously for Imran Khan’s ouster. Gen. Munir is also rather unpopular with the Pashtuns, both in Afghanistan and those in Pakistan, as he had supported the mass deportation of illegal Afghan refugees from Pakistan back to Afghanistan. He has been accused of intervening in politics and ruthlessly suppressing the cadres of Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf Party (PTI). In addition, even within Pakistan Army circles, Gen. Munir’s orders on the trial of civilians in military courts has been severely criticised both by the legal community and civil society alike.

Gen. Munir’s highly provocative remarks to a gathering of overseas Pakistanis in Karachi last month on how Hindus and Muslims were “two completely different nations” has been adversely commented upon both in Pakistan and around the world. In Balochistan, the insurgency seeking freedom from Pakistan for the Baloch people has assumed dangerous proportions. The inhuman handling by Gen. Munir and his military has caused further fissures between the Baloch people and the Pakistani state. Gen. Munir has come in for severe criticism regards the worsening track record of his Army and it is considered now a matter of time before a full-scale bloody insurgency sets in, where elements from the Afghan Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban and the Baloch rebels, in concert with each other, cause untold damage to Pakistan.

Though a majority of Pakistan’s senior Army hierarchy have been fundamentalist and overly religious in their conduct over the past decades, yet the earlier Army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, in the last phase of his tenure, had made the right noises in his statements of Pakistan improving relations with India.

With India’s Operation Sindoor now successfully over, many Pakistan watchers are now trying to gauge the future of Gen. Asim Munir in Pakistan. Through massive doses of “fake news”, Gen. Munir appears to have convinced the Pakistani public of his armed forces having conducted their recent operations against India well -- though the reality is the exact opposite. It can thus be stated that unless some major debacle suffered by Pakistan in recent days does not get unravelled, Gen. Munir’s continuance as Pakistan’s Army chief is more or less certain. But if a real revolt erupts within the hierarchy of the Army at GHQ (where it is already simmering), there could be trouble ahead for Gen. Munir. He might keep getting a series of extensions from a toothless Pakistan government, but that won’t save him if a rebellion breaks out.

Notwithstanding Gen. Munir’s future, many lessons have emerged in the past month for India, its armed forces and the entire government. It will be worthwhile to analyse all these in a dispassionate and professional manner and the shortcomings removed, as needed, for our security and well-being.

The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, was the first head of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency, and is a strategic analyst