They just fade away

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani stepped down as chief of army staff on Friday. He passed on the baton, and, with it, the trammelling burden of responsibility, to his successor General Raheel Sharif. On that bright but crisp late-autumn day, which had the unmistakable hint of the advancing winter, he was presented a guard of honour in accordance with the ceremonial usage of the Pakistan military. But, on this occasion, it was not the usual replay of empty pageantry. It was much more than that.

It signified the termination of an unusually long and eventful six-year term of a man who had led the Pakistan Army away from the swamps and muddy places of national politics in order to re-establish the writ of the state in vast stretches of the country’s territory under the control of terrorist groups. Though the cherished laurels of complete victory are still to be won, the military operations in Swat and Malakand were spectacular successes and six of the seven tribal agencies are now relatively secure.

As Kayani passed through the gate of an action-packed career to a life of quiet retirement, in which the more fortunate find solace in intellectual pursuits and the companionship of ideas, one could not help but recall the words of General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964): “I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballad of the day, which proclaimed most profoundly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away. I now close my career and just fade away.”

Despite the controversy surrounding his unprecedented three-year extension in service, the embarrassment of the TTP attack on the GHQ in Rawalpindi on October 10, 2009, the shame of the May 2, 2011 US raid on Abbottabad to take out Osama bin Laden, the Salala incident of November 26, 2011 and an assortment of other setbacks, General Kayani will not ‘just fade away’ from national consciousness.

He will be remembered for strenuously keeping the Pakistan Army out of politics despite the horrendous mess the civilian leadership made of things. In a sense he was an incurable liberal. Kayani was too deep and too profound to indulge in ridiculously sloppy catchphrases such as ‘enlightened moderation’ as his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf, did. He understood all too well that the contemporary era is both complex as well as relative and cannot be reduced to a mere epigram.

To an extent Kayani may have played a role in altering the tragic course of Pakistan history since 1958. It was in that fateful year that the doctrine of necessity was invoked for the first time. The game-changer was the Dosso case which had the effect of validating the abrogation of the 1956 constitution by General Iskander Mirza. It is weirdly ironic that the next day Iskander Mirza was ousted in a coup led by General Ayub Khan.

Since then the constitution of the country has been abrogated, suspended or held in abeyance by successive military strongmen. But despite provocations, the most serious of which was the scandal surrounding the Mansoor Ijaz memo which broke news in October 2011, General Kayani displayed rare statesmanship.

The memo sought US intervention to prevent the possibility of an imagined military coup. Matters came to a head when former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced in sheer panic on two separate occasions on December 22, 2011 that “a state within a state” was unacceptable. Alarm bells were set ringing amid rumours of an imminent military coup.

Yet, barely a week earlier, Gilani publicly declared that his government and the Pakistan Army were on the same page. What had unnerved the prime minister were the unprecedented affidavits on the Mansoor Ijaz memo submitted to the Supreme Court by General Kayani and the director general ISI at the time, Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

In paragraph 10 of his deposition, Kayani affirmed that “there is no denying the fact that the memo exists,” and, furthermore, it had “been delivered and received by the US authorities.” The motive, he claimed, was to undermine the morale of the armed forces and this warranted a thorough investigation. In contrast, the stance of the civilian government was that the unsigned memorandum was completely bereft of truth and its only purpose was to pit key institutions of the state against each other. The issue, which could have had far-reaching consequences, has unfortunately been left hanging in mid-air. The Supreme Court is yet to give a ruling and the outrageous scandal is not even a feeble blimp on the radar screen of public memory.

It fell on General Kayani to display leadership and defuse the crisis generated by the unhinged prime minister. He moved fast with single-minded determination to dispel the “misleading rumours” about the imminence of a military coup. He not only affirmed that the army was fully aware of its constitutional obligations and responsibilities, but also asserted with the firmness of a committed man that “irrespective of all other considerations, there can be no compromise on national security.” The message to the PPP-led government was clear.

What emerged from that statement was General Kayani’s unswerving commitment to the constitution and this alone singles him out as perhaps the most outstanding army chief that Pakistan has ever had. He has been true to his oath: “I…do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan and uphold the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embodies the will of the people, that I will not engage myself in any political activities whatsoever…” The tragedy of Pakistan is that men in uniform have seldom abided by this solemn pledge.

Thus on October 7, 1958 when Iskander Mirza abrogated the 1956 constitution which had taken nine years to draft and bring into force, he stated: “It is said that the constitution is sacred, but more sacred is the country and welfare and happiness of the people.” Nineteen years later, after ousting the Bhutto government on July 27, 1977, General Ziaul Haq declared in his first press conference: “the constitution is just a scrap of paper which can be thrown in the dustbin at any time.”

A nation that does not learn from history is likely to repeat the mistakes of the past. Soon after the imposition of the emergency on November 3, 2007, and the simultaneous suspension of the constitution, General Pervez Musharraf did not bat an eyelid when he said during a television interview, “the country is more important than the constitution.” He has the dubious distinction of being the only army chief to have held the basic law of the land in abeyance not on one but on two occasions.

It is said that “society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.” Kayani was certainly not a dreamer – he was the ultimate realist and transformed the national security concept. For the first time ever, the enemy within was identified as the gravest threat imperilling the survival of the country. The fight against terrorism was correctly defined as ‘Pakistan’s war’. The main architect of this new thinking within the Pakistan Army is said to have been none other than its new chief, General Raheel Sharif. This bodes well for the future if terrorism is to be conclusively defeated.

Many years ago after Algeria had won its hard-fought independence, General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) came on French television and the question put to him was: “General, you are the sword of France, you are much more than that – you are France! Yet this obscure existentialist poet Jean Paul Sartre ridicules you. What have you to say?” There was a flicker of a smile on the face of the battle-hardened soldier and statesman as he replied: “Yes, my friend, I am France; but Sartre is also France!”

It is the same commitment to democracy and free speech that distinguishes General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani from all other army chiefs. One hopes that he will have bequeathed this legacy to his successor, General Raheel Sharif. Only then will durable political stability be established. If this is achieved, Kayani, despite his failings, will have earned a place in history and he will never ‘fade away’ from public memory.

The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly.

Email: iftimurshed@gmail.com