A superb example of Kayani’s tightrope act is a speech he delivered in Urdu at the Pakistan Military Academy on August 13, 2012, during which he told his military audience: “Should extremists (intahaiparast) or terrorists (dahashatgardi) or the other militants we are battling prevail, we will be divided and move towards civil war. The army does not bear the sole responsibility for this struggle against extremists and terrorists; rather the entire nation must participate. We can only succeed if all are involved” (General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani Full Speech at PMA Kakul August 13th 2012, translated and paraphrased by author). However, not once did he use the word jihadist, which is the expression that these groups use to describe themselves. How are ordinary Pakistanis expected to understand the difference between these varied groups and support or denounce them in accordance with the state’s preferences? In practice, many cannot.
Ultimately, Kayani must confront the same challenges as Musharraf. While Kayani has urged Pakistanis to publicly resist those terrorists that are undermining the state and terrorizing Pakistani civilians, the government has remained committed to using Islamist proxies as tools of foreign policy and Islamism as a tool of domestic politics. Because the Pakistan Army persists in deploying the two-nation theory as the ideology of Pakistan and the civilizational conflict that framework suggests, the state continues to see Islamist militancy and political Islam as the best tools for securing its regional interests. Because the groups that service its foreign goals have deep ties to those that service its domestic goals and those that have regrouped to target the state, Pakistan will likely find it ever more difficult to manage the portfolio of Islamist actors who are variously allied with or against the state.
The dual challenge of containing some militant proxies while instrumentalizing and supporting others is evidenced by Kayani’s own engagement with these varied groups. When he was the ISI chief, he oversaw many of the controversial deals between the Musharraf government and the militants—none of which brought peace and most of which were broken before the ink had dried (International Crisis Group 2006b). However, Kayani was hesitant to declare full war on a set of militants who could one day work to advance Pakistan’s goals in India or Kashmir. Pakistan, usually working with the American drone program, acquiesces to killing these Pakistan Taliban leaders only when it becomes abundantly clear that they would not make peace with the Pakistani government (Mazzetti 2013). Given the army’s competing assessments of the relative costs and benefits of these varied militant groups, it is doubtful whether Kayani will be any more successful than Musharraf was at using Islam to contain the Islamist terror threat to the state while continuing to rely on Islam and Islamist militancy as tools of foreign policy and on “Islam” and the exclusive two-nation theory as instruments of social cohesion.
The Army’s Methods of Islamization
Over time, the Pakistan Army and its leadership have engaged in a number of active efforts to Islamize the force. As noted in the preceding section, after the 1977 coup Zia sought to Islamize Pakistan generally and the army in particular. Immediately after becoming army chief in March 1976, Zia replaced Jinnah’s motto of “Faith, Unity, Discipline” with “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad-fi-sibilillah” (Faith, Piety, holy war (or struggle) in the name of god9) (Kukreja 2003). Rizvi, however, argues that while the adoption of this motto reflected Zia’s personal religious inclinations, it was not a major departure from the Pakistan Army’s culture. Military education had always emphasized Islamic principles, teachings, and history as well as the careers of Muslim military heroes (Rizvi 2000a). It is likely that these concepts shifted over time. After all, such shifts are observable in the views of Islam espoused by generals Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf.
Zia, when he became army chief, set a qualitative new tone for the military and the role of religion in it. He was particularly sympathetic to Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and used his authority to allow the party to distribute literature among officers and enlisted men. This allowed JI to make inroads into the army and other services, and many officers began to overtly affiliate with JI and its founder, Maulana Abul A’la Maududi (Nasr 2001). Zia also permitted other Islamic groups, such as the Tablighi Jamaat, to expand their presence among army personnel. (Tablighi Jamaat is a revivalist group, dedicated to proselytization, which claims to eschew political activity.) Such freedom would have been anathema to previous army chiefs. Zia was the first head of state to attend Tablighi Jamaat’s annual meeting in Raiwind (in the Punjab, near Lahore), which encouraged several officers to openly associate with the group to demonstrate their piety (Rizvi 2000a, 246). Bhutto was reportedly dismayed by Zia’s pro-JI activities, even summoning him before the cabinet to explain himself. During his trial before the Supreme Court, Bhutto remarked, “I appointed a Chief of Staff belonging to the JI and the result is before all of us” (Nasr 2001, 97).
Under Zia, Islamic training was introduced to the curriculum of the Command and Staff College. Cohen (1984) draws special attention to the lectures given there during the 1970s by Col. Abdul Qayyum; these were eventually printed in book format with a foreword by Zia. Qayyum encouraged officers to respect mullahs and maulvis and argued that these “clerical” figures—despite their widely varying degrees of religious scholarly achievement–could serve as a bridge that would unite an officer’s “Westernized profession and his faith” (Cohen 1984, 95).10 Qayyum urged students to make the Quran the base of their education.
Cohen considered the degree to which the Pakistan Army sought to part ways with the traditional practices of the Raj to achieve greater adherence to Islamic principles. He recounts that the regiments took on distinctly Islamic battle cries. The Pakistan Frontier Force, for instance, adopted “Nadar Hazar Ali!” (I am present before the Almighty). Signboards reminded recruits that “life and death are the same thing: and when the experiment of life is completed, then the eternal life—which we call death—begins.” Other boards declared, “Fighting in the name of Allah, fighting in the name of truth, is the supreme sort of worship, and anybody who does service in the armed forces with the intention of doing this job in worship, his life is a worship” (Cohen 1984, 38–39).
Zia undertook several measures during his tenure that had far-reaching impact on the role of Islam in the army. First, he mobilized conservative Islamist groups to legitimize his ever more problematic rule, simultaneously encouraging Islamic orthodoxy within the army. Zia’s government elicited popular support from Pakistanis by promulgating an ideology that linked both Islam and the country’s destiny to that of military regime (Ahmad 1996). Zia adumbrated the original formulation of Pakistan’s ideology, which emphasized the inherent relationship between Islam and the nation, by arguing that maintaining the military-led political establishment was “equally vital for the preservation of Islam and Pakistan. Thus [during Zia’s tenure] Islam, Pakistan, and the military regime became united in an indivisible trinity” (382). Under Zia, subtle changes in recruitment patterns took place within the army. Officers increasingly came from middle to lower socioeconomic strata as well as from the urban areas and small towns, where conservative Islamic ideology is more prevalent than in rural Pakistan. Thus, the values that Zia promulgated in the army were in increasing alignment with those of the new Pakistani soldier (Rizvi 2000a).
Zia also upgraded the maulvis’ status and required them to go into battle with the troops.11 Prior to his tenure, maulvis had been somewhat comical figures both within and outside the army (Rizvi 2000a). A maulvi is technically a religious scholar who has completed a formal course, lasting eight or more years, at a madrasa. In reality, few of those calling themselves maulvis or mullahs have completed this rigorous course of study; many have only a few years of formal religious education, and others are barely literate in any language. Traditionally, maulvis or mullahs have not received a salary, living instead by the generosity of the community they serve. The maulvis’ lack of genuine religious knowledge and social status encourages many Pakistanis—pious or otherwise—to see them as char
latans more worthy of derision than reverence. The persistent rumors of their pederast tendencies provide further fodder for the large number of jokes about them.
Under Zia, the degree to which officers evidenced a commitment to Islamic conservatism influenced their promotion paths, in part because he viewed faith as “an important part of the public profile of the in-service personnel” (Rizvi 2000a, 246). While officers’ private lives had always come under scrutiny, under Zia an officer’s piety and religious practice became a formal part of his assessment for promotion. This may have encouraged some officers to begin growing beards and to eschew alcohol—which had formerly been a feature of the officers’ messes prior to Bhutto’s banning of it from them (ibid.).
In addition, an increasing number of officers and enlisted men received temporary postings in the militaries of the Persian Gulf, exposing them to orthodox (often Wahhabist) teachings (Rizvi 2000a, 245). Unfortunately, very little has been written about military-to-military cooperation during this period. In 1967, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a pact formalizing Pakistan’s role in the defense of the kingdom. Pakistani pilots flew Saudi fighter jets through the 1970s, and in the same period there were some 15,000 troops stationed there (Khalid 1989b). Khalid’s account differs from that of Lt. Gen. Faiz Chishti, who played a key role in Zia’s 1977 coup as corps commander of the X Corps in Rawalpindi. According to Chishti, Zia first announced that he had secured the cooperation of Saudi Arabia to send troops there in 1979. Zia gushed that they would be handsomely compensated. Chishti claims that he protested vehemently to Zia and argued: “We are not mercenaries. … If they are sent, it will lead to the destruction of the Pakistan Army” (Chishti 1990, 99). Chishti believed that the impact of serving in Saudi Arabia would be “thoroughly harmful to the Pakistan Army. Substantial benefits from enhanced salaries bred jealousies, disinterest in service often grew after a tenure in Saudi and the Sunni-Shi’a rift opened up too” (ibid.). Chishti claims that Zia acquiesced and did not send troops to Saudi Arabia until after Chishti’s retirement in 1980.
Rashid (1996) noted that in 1986 between 40,000 to 50,000 Pakistani military personnel were serving abroad, with the largest contingent stationed in Saudi Arabia. In the 1980s, Pakistan exported an entire armored brigade to Saudi Arabia,12 and as of 1986 Pakistan had one division (approximately 13,000 men), two armored and two artillery brigades (approximately 10,000 men), and several naval and air force personnel stationed there.13 In addition to these associations with Saudi Arabia, for a time Pakistani air force pilots could enhance their chances of promotion by flying with the United Arab Emirates Air Force.14 At least through 1999, Pakistan continued to provide technical and training assistance to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar (Henderson 1999).
Pakistan does not publicize its foreign deployments (with the exception of United Nations peacekeeping missions). Thus, it is impossible to verify its current deployments in the Middle East using public sources. Recent reporting suggests that in 2010 Pakistan deployed a battalion of the Azad Kashmir Regiment to Bahrain to train local troops. Pakistan also sends retired officers to augment Bahrain’s military capabilities. According to a recent report, Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani assured Bahrain’s foreign minister in March 2011 that Pakistan would dispatch more retired manpower to quell the unrest by Bahrain’s Shia majority against their Sunni rulers. This same report estimates that there are about 10,000 active and retired Pakistani military personnel currently in Bahrain (Husain 2011). The long association between the Pakistani armed forces and those of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf raises an important—if unanswerable—question: did exposure to these states, and to Wahhabism, encourage Islamism among Pakistani personnel posted there and among those who interacted with them, including their families? After all, those same individuals could have just as easily been put off by the decadence of their Arab hosts and the maltreatment of South Asians living in the Gulf.
The Pakistan Army’s varied efforts to Islamize the force had some successes. Stephen Cohen (1984), who performed his fieldwork in the late 1970s and early 1980s, cites one senior officer who told him that “expressions like the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ and the ‘glory of Islam,’ normally outside a professional fighter’s lexicon, were becoming stock phrases. … The Service Chiefs sounded more like high priests than soldiers” (87). One retired officer wrote that the cumulative effect of Zia’s policies was the “rise to religious orthodoxy among a cross-section of the armed forces. For this small group, ideology can be stretched to radicalism and takes precedence over professionalism. Their attitude needs to be countervailed otherwise it will erode the very foundation of a cohesive, professionally competent, and technologically adept armed forces” (Rizvi 2000a, 247).
The changing ethos of the military must have influenced the recruiting pool of the Pakistan Army’s officer corps and enlisted men. Individuals who rejected Zia’s vision or who were unwilling to pretend to accept it may have been less likely to join the army in the first place. Thus, Islamization could have taken place via top-down efforts by the army leadership but also through supply-side pressures that altered the attributes and attitudes of those seeking to join the officer corps. Needless to say, there are no data that allow us to evaluate any of these possibilities.
Despite Zia’s efforts, Cohen (1984) found that the changes in the officer corps, while important, were in fact quite modest. He also found a considerable difference of opinion about Islam within the officer corps, mirroring the divergence of views about the origins of the state and the role of Islam in it. Cohen did find officers who were dissatisfied with the dawdling pace of military Islamization: in particular, a number of officers criticized the Staff College and army regulations as having a “distinct aroma of subjugation suited to a colonial power” rather than “reflecting a true Islamic equalitarianism” (96).15
Some senior army leaders, who came after Zia, feared that his policies had led members of the force to substitute “professionalism and discipline with Islam-oriented activism” (Rizvi 2000a, 247). Gen. Asif Nawaz Janjua, the army chief between August 1991 and January 1993, and his successors tried to push back the elements of politicized Islam within the force and reinstate prior traditions of “keeping Islam and professionalism together and treating the former as a component of the latter” (ibid.). But Zia’s successors still continued to acknowledge the role and importance of Islam within military ideology (ibid.).
Rizvi (2000a), anticipating contemporary concerns about the army, argued at the turn of the twenty-first century that the Pakistani military would face major challenges that millennium. First, it would have to ensure professional and cohesive disposition as the new breed of officers, who came up during the Zia years, take command. Second, it would have to maintain the delicate balance between Islam and service discipline as Islamic and Islamist groups continue to make inroads. No doubt Pakistan’s active utilization of Islamist militant groups as tools of foreign policy has given heart to some personnel within the army for whom abandoning jihad is very difficult (ibid.).
The Army’s Instrumentalization of Islam
Given the importance that successive military leaders have ascribed to the defense of Pakistan’s ideology, it should not be a surprise that the army’s professional publications regularly dedicate many pages to Islam, the ideology of Pakistan, and even jihad. At first blush, the prevalence of such topics in Pakistan’s professional publications is disquieting, given concerns over the Islamization of the army and its support for an array of Islamist militant groups. Having read the bulk of these publications dating back to the late 1950s, I suggest that authors employ these themes to serve at least three tightly interrelated objectives.
First, the army employs Islam as a means of unifying the country via an identity that can supersede ethnic affiliations and the fissiparous tendencies stemming from Pakistan’s ethnic diversity. Second, the army uses Islam to rally the citizenry in times of war and to prepare them to acc
ept adversity as well as the army’s continued domination of national affairs. Third, the army has used Islam to motivate soldiers by focusing on the purported supernatural advantages conferred by Islamic faith. Numerous authors writing in Pakistan’s military journals suggest that a pious Muslim can defeat his adversary even if outnumbered. These writings also essentialize the enemy, reducing him to the category of Hindu despite the fact that India’s armed forces include Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, and Parsees as well as Hindus. I discuss each of these objectives at greater length below, with reference made to specific essays in Pakistan’s professional military journals.
UNIFYING A DIVERSE COUNTRY ACROSS ETHNICITY AND CREED
In Pakistan’s defense literature it is evident that the army instrumentalizes Islam in effort to forge a coherent, national unity from a population rife with ethnic and sectarian dissonance. While conducting his seminal field research on the Pakistan Army in the late 1970s, Cohen (1984) observed that the army “moved immediately [after independence] to emphasize Islam as a unifying force” amid ethnic diversity and ethnic political demands (37). Six decades of Pakistan’s defense literature provide ample evidence to support Cohen’s claim. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that this goal continues to remain a crucially important reason for the army’s resort to Islam.
Several essays from Pakistan’s defense literature exemplify this belief that an Islamic ideology can build national character. That such themes dominate Pakistan’s professional army publications attests to the institutional importance attached to this goal and the presumed centrality of the army’s role in achieving it. One representative early example is Capt. Muhammad Bashir’s 1961 essay in the Pakistan Army Journal titled “National Character,” in which Bashir identifies several ills that stem from Pakistan’s economic, political, and social cleavages. Echoing the writings of his chief, Ayub, Bashir argues that ideology is necessary because “A nation’s ideology is its very soul; without it, it cannot exist. … [It] is an ideology which keeps a nation together and wards off disintegration” (52). He identifies Islam as the only possible ideology that could fill this role for Pakistan, because Islam alone “can bring people together and enable them to rise above provincial, racial and tribal jealousies. The cause of most of our troubles in the past has been that this idea which is the strongest unifying force, was relegated to the background” (52–53). Bashir argues that the ideal Pakistani citizen is the momin, or “man of unblemished character” (53), and he proposes developing this ideal citizen through imitation, fostering fundamental change in Pakistan’s cultural environment, and reorienting the educational system.
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