AA Edit | Did Pak Army order Imran’s arrest? Bad news for India

The nationwide civil disorder that gripped Pakistan after the abduction-style arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan by a paramilitary force — rather than the police — on Tuesday is without precedent in the worryingly unstable, nuclear-armed, country.

While stability-threatening unrest in the wake of grave political events and economic crises is not new for Pakistan, rampaging mobs attacking the Pakistan Army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, and ransacking the corps commander’s residence in Lahore, raise questions about the very core of institutional coherence in Pakistan.

The Army seemed to be the one entity that held the country together. It ruled directly for half the time since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, and ushered in civilian rule while observing the formalism of parliamentary democracy as need arose. When unpopular or even popular civilian governments were toppled, typically with the Army’s nod, the public seemed to place its faith in the only institutional bulwark it was familiar with.

Is that still the case? This is a grim question for a country in which no Prime Minister has lasted the full term, each PM has suffered the ignominy of having to submit to the Army for key foreign and defence policy decisions, six of the 20 individuals who became PM were arrested or exiled, and one hanged to death.

Mr Imran Khan was picked up by the Rangers in a violent incident in the premises of the Islamabad high court as he was undergoing pre-appearance formalities. The Rangers do not have the power to arrest. Home minister Rana Sanaullah has said the former PM — ousted in April last year in a confidence vote after defections were induced — was arrested in a corruption case and handed over to the anti-corruption authorities (the National Accountability Bureau). A day before the dramatic and violent arrest, and even earlier, Mr Khan had publicly accused a general, a top intelligence officer, of plotting his assassination. The circumstances lead to the speculation that the arrest is engineered by the Army and is not linked to a corruption matter.

The economy had tumbled even when Mr Khan was PM, and retrieval seemed difficult. But he remained popular for a variety of reasons even after his relationship with the Army — widely thought to have made him PM — under the previous chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, soured completely. By now the economy is “on a ventilator”, to quote Dawn, a respected Pakistan newspaper. Arguably the country’s most popular — and volatile — politician is under arrest. The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif faces inner tensions and has few grounds for intrinsic stability. Under the rules of the game, such as they are in Pakistan, national elections must be held no later than October this year.

Can a credible election be held in these circumstances? As a desperate measure to retrieve, would the Army consider the risk of a takeover when the going is so bad and the economy at a virtual standstill, as this can entail courting further unpopularity? If civil unrest grows more intense and grips all the provinces, the disaster that can result will hit Pakistan hard and also have a direct bearing on neighbours — especially India and Afghanistan — just across the border.

A nuclear-armed country lacking an effective government and home to countless terrorist and extremist outfits possessing military training, experience and equipment, and masquerading as religious battalions, is bad news. India will need to be alert to every damaging possibility and not celebrate the misfortune of a difficult neighbour caught in a vortex. Dealing with an unstable and unpredictable Pakistan at our doorstep calls for sagacity and balance.