Military islamisation in Pakistan and the spectre of colonial perceptions

Contemporary South Asia

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 141-160

  Daechsel, Markus ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN NUREMBERG   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COLONIAL LEGACY; ISLAMIC POLITICS; MILITARY GOVERNMENT;

PAKISTAN;

EID: 0031433697     PISSN: 09584935     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09584939708719810     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Jones, 'The military and security in Pakistan', in C. Baxter (ed.), Zia's Pakistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986); S. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); D. Khalid, 'The final replacement of parliamentary democracy'. Orient, Vol 20, 1979; Richter, 'The political dynamics of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan', Asian Survey, Vol 19, No 6, June 1979; L. Ziring, 'From Islamic Republic to Islamic State', Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 9, September 1984.
2. Jones, 'The military and security in Pakistan', in C. Baxter (ed.), Zia's Pakistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986); S. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); D. Khalid, 'The final replacement of parliamentary democracy'. Orient, Vol 20, 1979; Richter, 'The political dynamics of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan', Asian Survey, Vol 19, No 6, June 1979; L. Ziring, 'From Islamic Republic to Islamic State', Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 9, September 1984.
3. Jones, 'The military and security in Pakistan', in C. Baxter (ed.), Zia's Pakistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986); S. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); D. Khalid, 'The final replacement of parliamentary democracy'. Orient, Vol 20, 1979; Richter, 'The political dynamics of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan', Asian Survey, Vol 19, No 6, June 1979; L. Ziring, 'From Islamic Republic to Islamic State', Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 9, September 1984.
4. Jones, 'The military and security in Pakistan', in C. Baxter (ed.), Zia's Pakistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986); S. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); D. Khalid, 'The final replacement of parliamentary democracy'. Orient, Vol 20, 1979; Richter, 'The political dynamics of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan', Asian Survey, Vol 19, No 6, June 1979; L. Ziring, 'From Islamic Republic to Islamic State', Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 9, September 1984.
5. Jones, 'The military and security in Pakistan', in C. Baxter (ed.), Zia's Pakistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986); S. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); D. Khalid, 'The final replacement of parliamentary democracy'. Orient, Vol 20, 1979; Richter, 'The political dynamics of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan', Asian Survey, Vol 19, No 6, June 1979; L. Ziring, 'From Islamic Republic to Islamic State', Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 9, September 1984.
6. H. A. Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86 (Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1987); J. Mishra, 'Military regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh', India Quarterly, Vol 37, No 4; Dahiya, 'The military in Pakistan's political system', Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol 110, October-December 1980; V. Kukreja, Military Intervention in Politics (Delhi: NBO Publishers, 1985); M. Waseem, Politics and the state in Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1994).
7. H. A. Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86 (Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1987); J. Mishra, 'Military regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh', India Quarterly, Vol 37, No 4; Dahiya, 'The military in Pakistan's political system', Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol 110, October-December 1980; V. Kukreja, Military Intervention in Politics (Delhi: NBO Publishers, 1985); M. Waseem, Politics and the state in Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1994).
8. H. A. Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86 (Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1987); J. Mishra, 'Military regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh', India Quarterly, Vol 37, No 4; Dahiya, 'The military in Pakistan's political system', Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol 110, October-December 1980; V. Kukreja, Military Intervention in Politics (Delhi: NBO Publishers, 1985); M. Waseem, Politics and the state in Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1994).
9. H. A. Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86 (Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1987); J. Mishra, 'Military regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh', India Quarterly, Vol 37, No 4; Dahiya, 'The military in Pakistan's political system', Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol 110, October-December 1980; V. Kukreja, Military Intervention in Politics (Delhi: NBO Publishers, 1985); M. Waseem, Politics and the state in Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1994).
10. H. A. Rizvi, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86 (Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1987); J. Mishra, 'Military regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh', India Quarterly, Vol 37, No 4; Dahiya, 'The military in Pakistan's political system', Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol 110, October-December 1980; V. Kukreja, Military Intervention in Politics (Delhi: NBO Publishers, 1985); M. Waseem, Politics and the state in Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1994).
11. For Althusser, ideology is a partially subconscious phenomenon which defines the role of the individual in a given society. See L. Althusser, Essays in Ideology (London: Verso, 1984), pp 36-51.
12. The interviewed include Prof. Lt. Col. Muhammad Yusuf Abbasi, Lt. Gen. Imtiaz Ali, Gen. Khalid Mahmud Arif, Gen. Aslam Beg, Lt. Gen. Ejaz Azim, Lt. Gen. Faiz Ali Chishti, Maj. Gen. Mustafa Hussain, Brig. Usman Khalid, Lt. Gen. Kamal Matinuddin, Maj. Gen. Aboobakr Mitha, Col. Gul Faraz, Col. Abdul Qayyum, Lt. Gen. Sayed Refaqat, Maj. Hamid Shafqat, Gen. Tikka Khan, Col. Sushil Kumar Tressler.
13. H. Shafqat, Political System of Pakistan and Public Policy (Lahore, 1989), pp 240-245.
14. Zia studied history at St. Stephen's College, Delhi; Refaqat studied mathematics at Sialkot College and Chishti studied economics at Ferozepur. Akhtar Abdarrahman attended Government College, Lahore. See Altaf Hussain Qureishi, Padayish se Shahadar tak (Lahore, 1988), p 40; Muhammad Yusuf, Khamush Mujahid (Lahore, 1991), p 32; and F. A. Chishti, Betrayals of Another Kind (London: Asia Publishing House, 1989), p 213.
15. Zia studied history at St. Stephen's College, Delhi; Refaqat studied mathematics at Sialkot College and Chishti studied economics at Ferozepur. Akhtar Abdarrahman attended Government College, Lahore. See Altaf Hussain Qureishi, Padayish se Shahadar tak (Lahore, 1988), p 40; Muhammad Yusuf, Khamush Mujahid (Lahore, 1991), p 32; and F. A. Chishti, Betrayals of Another Kind (London: Asia Publishing House, 1989), p 213.
16. Zia studied history at St. Stephen's College, Delhi; Refaqat studied mathematics at Sialkot College and Chishti studied economics at Ferozepur. Akhtar Abdarrahman attended Government College, Lahore. See Altaf Hussain Qureishi, Padayish se Shahadar tak (Lahore, 1988), p 40; Muhammad Yusuf, Khamush Mujahid (Lahore, 1991), p 32; and F. A. Chishti, Betrayals of Another Kind (London: Asia Publishing House, 1989), p 213.
17. G. H. Khan, Memoirs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp 69-70.
18. Altaf Hussain Qureishi, Padayish se Shahadat tak (Lahore, 1988), p 40. For a typical example of I. H. Qureshi's essentialist historiography, see The Pakistani Way of Life (Karachi, 1957).
19. Altaf Hussain Qureishi, Padayish se Shahadat tak (Lahore, 1988), p 40. For a typical example of I. H. Qureshi's essentialist historiography, see The Pakistani Way of Life (Karachi, 1957).
20. A term used by Ashis Nandy in his most influential essay 'The psychology of colonialism', in A. Nandy, The Intimate Enemy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp 1-64.
21. For a very interesting psychological interpretation, see Lewis Wurgaft, The Imperial Imagination (Middletown, PA: Wesleyan University Press, 1983), pp 66-68.
22. T. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp 138-144.
23. Ibid, pp 2-6.
24. See R. Guha, The Prose of Counter-Insurgency (1983), pp 1-42.
25. Wurgaft, op cit. Ref 10, pp 141-144.
26. Not surprisingly, colonialist authors such as Kipling have made scathing comments about the performance of these bodies, ibid, p 64.
27. Compare R. Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), p 38.
28. G. MacMunn, The Martial Races of India (London: Sampson Law, Marston & Co., 1933), p 2.
29. A typical recruitment booklet is J. M. Wikeley, Punjabi Musulmans (1915) (Reprinted Delhi: Manohar, 1991).
30. As recommended by Wikeley, ibid, p 6.
31. Photograph in Wurgaft, op cit, Ref 10, p 72.
32. Revealingly, the armies of the East India Company knew no such distinctions in uniform type.
33. Wurgaft, op cit, Ref 10, pp 32-41.
34. Interviews for a lively description see S. Hamid, Courage is a Weapon (Karachi, 1980).
35. S. Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp 9-15.
36. Ibid, p 152.
37. See P. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp 202-205.
38. Gilmartin, Empire and Islam (London: Tauris, 1988), pp 218-219.
39. Gen. Akbar Khan and others blamed the British colonial power and colonial minded Pakistani politicians for selling out national interests when reaching an interim settlement with India over Kashmir. Their actual intentions remain unknown. A number of suspected conspirators including poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz were sentenced to long terms in prison.
40. See for example: Pakistan Army Journal, Vol VIII, No 2, 1961; Vol XI, No 1, 1967.
41. See for example: Pakistan Army Journal, Vol VIII, No 2, 1961; Vol XI, No 1, 1967.
42. A typical example is Ihsan ul-Haq, 'The holy Quran on war', Pakistan Times, Defence Day Supplement, 6 September 1968.
43. Dawn, Defence Day Supplement, 6 September 1968.
44. Dar, 'Pakistan Army in the eighties', Nawa-i-Waqat, 5 January 1985.
45. All these points were mentioned in interviews. For a printed statement of Pakistani army traditions inherited from colonial times, see S. Hamid, op cit.
46. See photograph and text in T. Hussein, The Story of My Struggle (1991), p 122 ff.
47. S. Iqbal, 'Motivation of the Pakistani soldier', Pakistan Army Journal, No 2, 1966, p 10.
48. See Wurgaft, op cit, Ref 10, pp 11-16.
49. A. Jalal, The State of Martial Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
50. Cohen, op cit. has emphasised one aspect of British tradition for the shaping of Pakistani military identity which somewhat contradicts the picture we have presented so far. According to him, the Pakistan armed forces were very reluctant to get involved in politics because they believed that military matters and political matters belonged to two 'separate spheres'. Allegedly it was anathema for a professional soldier to do anything else but his job. Military intervention in Pakistan would therefore always be a hotly debated theme and not go well with a number of officers. I am very skeptical about the consciously restraining function of 'professionalism' for three reasons: (1) From 1947 onwards the military did establish a tradition of praetorianism rather than a tradition of civilian control. Whenever a coup d'état was staged or military rule extended over a long period of time these actions did not encounter visible dissent within the military. (2) Civilian supremacy did in British times never include indigenous politics. Officers trained in the Imperial Army were convinced that they had to obey whatever Westminster or New Delhi ordered them to do. At the same time they had great disregard for the abilities of Indian politicians. Cohen himself quotes Jinnah who, revealingly, found it necessary to remind army officers of their loyalty to Pakistan and of their subordination to civilian rule as early as 1948. (3) Even officers who regard themselves as democrats are usually strongly convinced that they can perform certain political tasks better than civilians. Military identity by and large bars them from appreciating the delicate task of finding out what has to be done. Instead, they believe, along Fazal Muqeem's lines, that the necessary is also the obvious, and that proper administration is superior to 'polities'. In an interview, Imtiaz Ali, military secretary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was very quick to recall instances of 'civilian failure' when coping with natural disasters.
51. M. A. Khan, Friends not Masters (London: O.U.P., 1967), p 68.
52. F. M. Khan, The Story of the Pakistan Army (1963), p 188.
53. Khan, op cit., p 77.
54. Immediately after the surrender of the Pakistan army in Dacca, a conference open for all officers was held in General Headquarters. The atmosphere was charged with violent accusations against the Yahya leadership. See S. Taseer, Bhutto (London: Ithaca Press, 1979) p. 130. 'Later, a group of younger officers around Brig. F. B. Ali planned a coup d'état to prevent both Yahya Khan and Bhutto from returning to power in West Pakistan. The circle was prematurely discovered and tried as the 'Attock Conspiracy Case'.
55. Chishti, op cit., p 59.
56. Iman, Taqwa and Jihad had been the title of a lecture series by Abdul Qayyum who was one of the religious experts in the army during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Qayyum recalls a meeting with Zia ul-Haq when Zia decided to use Qayyum's writings as the basis of his motto. For a more detailed discussion of Islamic themes, see A. Qayyam, On Striving to be a Muslim (Lahore, 1978); S. K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of Warfare (Lahore, 1979).
57. Iman, Taqwa and Jihad had been the title of a lecture series by Abdul Qayyum who was one of the religious experts in the army during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Qayyum recalls a meeting with Zia ul-Haq when Zia decided to use Qayyum's writings as the basis of his motto. For a more detailed discussion of Islamic themes, see A. Qayyam, On Striving to be a Muslim (Lahore, 1978); S. K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of Warfare (Lahore, 1979).
58. Official prayer meetings were not well attended. When it became obligatory to include a section about the religious beliefs of a soldier in performance reports, most officers passed meaningless standard judgements. It is illustrative that one key figure of the Zia era, Sayed Refaqat, did not perceive anything new in Islamisation. According to him, the Pakistan Army had been devoted to the practices of its religion from 1947 onwards.
59. Dawn, 6 September 1977.
60. See Zia's speech on the occasion of Pakistan day 1980, Islamic Council (ed), Shahid ul-Islam (1990), p 153.
61. Pakistan Times, 6 September 1983.
62. As quoted in Salahuddin, Pakistan's Progress . . . (1985), 16 f.
63. S. Burki, 'Pakistan under Zia', Asian Survey, 1988, pp 1083-1084.
64. A. S. Ahmed, Pakistan Society (Oxford: O.U.P., 1986), p 159.
65. See L. Pye, 'Armies in the process of political modernisation', in J. J. Johnson (ed), The Role of the Military in the Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962) in conjunction with S. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p 258 ff.
66. See L. Pye, 'Armies in the process of political modernisation', in J. J. Johnson (ed), The Role of the Military in the Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962) in conjunction with S. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p 258 ff.
67. Metcalf, op cit., pp 12-13.
68. Interview, Ejaz Azim.
69. Aslam Beg's successor Asif Nawas was well-known to be an officer of the Old school'. The present Chief, Jahangir Karamat, deliberately avoids anything which could be seen as an ideological commitment, including a religious one.
70. M. A. Rahman, Our Defence Cause (London: White Lion Publishers, 1976), p 195.