• Home
• Video
• Books by Ikram Sehgal
• About

Operation Red Herring

As much as the Federal Government is taking pains to deny it, there is persistent confusion about the constitutional position about impending action by the Army in order to restore tranquillity to the troubled Province of Sindh. We have been corrected in one respect, an ISPR spokesman has confirmed that there is no such animal as BLUE FOX, this misnomer (with unfortunate connotations to the Operation BLUE STAR nomenclature given by the Indians to their ill-fated adventure in Amritsar against the Sikhs in 1984) was incorrect and was simply a speculative media creation about the proposed clean up exercise in Sindh. The Army is, meanwhile, fanning out all over the Province, both in the urban and rural areas, gearing up administratively and logistically for any future contemplated action. While the Army hierarchy has been in consultation with the Federal and Provincial governments about the parameters of its constitutional limits in Sindh, the Battle Procedure in the pre-operations build up has been deliberate and meaningful.

The Sindh Government seems to be bewildered about its constitutional identity even though it is assured of safe passage of its Annual Budget. The Muzzafar Shah regime is supposed to be the decision-maker of last resort in the Province, but for various purposes a deliberate stance of a dual-track policy has been adopted by the incumbents in a “between the devil and deep sea” situation. Essentially this has become a political survival game for Muzzafar Shah and the disparate coalition that supports him. The stakes are enormous and the consequences of failure in discharging one’s constitutional responsibilities are immense.

The Federal Government feels an undeniable need to keep the facade of civilian rule paramount. Since the Army’s action will be conducted under Article 147, this entrusts the responsibility for the targeting and apprehension of criminals onto the Army but leaves the further prosecution of the apprehended criminals in the hands of the civilian government. This is a counter-productive proposition. The Army is supposed to work under civilian authority in “Aid to Civil Power” insofar as the Army is technically empowered to apprehend those indicated by the Provincial Government and/or its subordinate civil servants, unless of course criminals/terrorists are caught red-handed in the commission of their crime/terrorist actions. Understandably, the Army hierarchy must be reluctant to accept this premise because the whole problem stems from the fact that the credibility of the urban administration itself has been badly compromised by heterogeneous criminal and/or anti-state elements. Article 147 thus puts the Army in an awkward role of seeming to countenance the misdeeds of those suspected by the public of gross misuse of power for personal and political benefit or sheer vindictiveness against real and/or perceived “enemies”. Even under Article 245 the Army would not really supersede civilian authority at will but the Federal Government knows that the Provincial Government’s credibility is already at a low ebb and may further recede into oblivion, leaving them at best as puppets on a shoestring, twisting with the wind. The Federal Government has created a democratic facade of sorts in a Three-Member Committee that will oversee the process of army action, the Committee being comprised of the Chief Minister, Commander 5 Corps and the IG Police Sindh. This is as transparent an exercise in futility that could be humanly conceived, the fig-leaf suits democratic nuances but will hardly paper over the ridiculous situation obtaining thereof.

Mr S M Zafar, a renowned lawyer and constitutional expert, has argued forcefully for enacting Article 245 of the Constitution that empowers the Army not only to target and seize those criminally responsible for the ever worsening law and order situation but also to set up courts to prosecute and judge them. In short, it combines the executive and the judiciary (which are supposed to be theoretically separate under the Constitution but are not in actual practice) under the umbrella of the Army’s authority in the designated area for a specific purpose against a small segment of the population. With the credibility of the civil administration in Sindh almost completely shot, there are in a general consensus in support of Article 245, the argument being that the restoration of mass confidence in democratic rule is only possible after a thorough cleansing in an authoritarian manner. Given that a major portion of the Sindh Police and parts of the civil administration have become integral to the problem in not only failing to cope with criminal activity but even to be seen collaborating with misdemeanours and/or condoning it, the writ of constitutional authority has been hopelessly subverted and thus compromised. In such cases only extra-constitutional means (or in other words, martial law) is the traditional option, not a particularly happy course given our sorry experience in the past. One can then easily understand why a man of the stature of S M Zafar is espousing an option that is just short of Martial Law. By advocating a course that keeps the Army subservient to Constitutional rule, he is obviating the possibility that Martial Law becomes the end result of the Sindh imbroglio.

In the circumstances, the Army’s role is quite clear, it is to restore law and order in general, not to take over the general administration. There are motivated reports being spread that either Article 147 or 245 would mean that the Province has been handed over to the Army. This is quite untrue, whatever Article is used, the Army’s role is limited to restoring the rule of law, it is not meant to replace civilian rule but to supplement it, as and where necessary. Those who suggest otherwise are criminally insincere to the whole exercise and are fighting a rearguard action for their own survival, it does not mean any skin of their backs if in the process the Army gets a bad name.

Very correctly, the Army has first moved to secure the civic facilities such as water and power in both the rural and urban areas, however it must not get involved in the running of such facilities. It must simply ensure that the socio-economic requirements of the mass public are kept functioning by those trained to do so. Freed from criminal intimidation these patriotic citizens will do their jobs. The lessons of the previous martial laws must not be lost on the Army. After letting the Army remove politicians from the administrative scene, the civil bureaucracy first compromised the shock effect of the Army as a deterrent by getting them embroiled in the routine and mundane, then proceeded to do what they felt like while the Army became the target of hate and abuse. The First Martial Law was most effective for a couple of years, thereafter late FM Ayub Khan’s closest aides were bureaucrats. In the Second Martial Law, Gen Yahya was soon surrounded by his own special coterie of civil and military bureaucrats while in the Third, Gen Zia was in the hands of the bureaucracy in all but name right from Day One of his 1977 July 5 Coup, accountability of public servants went out of the window. Due to rampant nationalisation by Bhutto during the period 1972-1977, the bureaucracy had discovered the power and comforts of commerce and industry, it proceeded to loot the assets of the nation with impunity, living off the fat of the land, till by 1985 we were well on the road to becoming economically bankrupt. The advent of democracy restored accountability of sorts and the process of dismantling the corrupt and inefficient public sector is now truly under way. Has any of the economic blame for the decade of Zia’s rule rubbed off on the bureaucrats in the same quantum as the approbation heaped on the Armed Forces?

Vested interests are desperately resorting to a “Heads I win, Tails the Army loses” ploy that will again put the Army in a no-win situation unless unselfish and patriotic political, military and civilian elements get together and sort out the issues within the parameters of the national mainstream. This means an immediate dialogue with the PPP. The correct message has to be given out over the national media to the masses that the two-fold objectives of the Army’s move in Sindh are to (1) restore law and order in the Province by eradicating/suppressing those criminal elements disturbing peace (2) restore the authority of the civil administration by identifying and bringing to book those elements in the civil administration and the general populace who are/have been collaborating/condoning with the criminals. A vast majority of the Provincial civil administration have only become unwilling collaborators due to criminal intimidation, by a process of interrogation and enquiry the hard core perpetrators of malfeasance have to be isolated at the earliest in an impartial manner. The Army must remain extremely sensitive to character short-comings among its own leadership, at all levels, if any. Defending one’s colleagues is very loyal, in the face of hard evidence to the contrary, it undercuts the credibility of those in critical appointments and exposes them to questions of their ability to remain impartial. Are we to have different standards for different people?

The Army’s move in Sindh is against a very small percentage of the populace, those who have (and are) resorting to terrorism, outright crime and political intimidation. A major part of the population remains very much within the purview of the existing civilian administration which cannot be absolved of their constitutional responsibilities because of the Army’s contemplated actions. There is an ongoing exercise which we can safely dub operation RED HERRING suggesting that the Province has been/will be handed over to the Army, that is a canard of which the mass population must be disabused at the earliest opportunity. The spreading of disinformation by vested interests has three-fold objectives, viz. (1) to discredit the Army, (2) absolve the civilian administration of its responsibilities and thus (3) deflect the Army’s force from the targeted objectives. These canards must not be allowed to gain any credibility. By whatever name the Federal Government calls the contemplated moves in Sindh, it will be only successful if the MISSION to the Army is clearly defined, the Army makes out a comprehensive blueprint for action and the implementation of that blueprint thereof is faithfully executed.

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.