Unlike the practice in established democracies, the management of huge compendium of national security threats, some real, some perceived and some simulated, had always been the exclusive domain of the defense establishment in Pakistan. This practice got in vogue when the civilian leadership, due to their inherent flaws like inefficiency and corruption, virtually conceded this right to the military establishment of their own volition.

Consequently a significant part of national history was dominated by military dictators. Even during the democratic interludes that the country experienced, the ruling political parties always vied for the blessings and support of the defense establishment. The elections were generally engineered under the supervision of the security establishment. As such, governments thus instituted were democratic only in name. The defense establishment always called the shots in the foreign relations domain in particular.

There is an interesting and rather an intriguing element that authoritarian dispensations always draw their poetry from religious conservatism. They would always raise different specters at different epochs to serve their class interests. In the same context, many years after the creation of Pakistan, they redefined the ideology of Pakistan, claiming that Pakistan was created in the name of religion of Islam, which had no relevance with the objective resolution suggested by the father of the nation.

Observing the continued senility of the civilian leadership and a gagged media, the defense establishment assumed the role of a proxy server of analyzing and identifying national security threats, from time to time. To justify lavish budgetary allocations for defense, the specter of external security threat was strengthened from time to time. In the process the country had to fight three wars with India. Although defeated every time, the defense establishment, with the support of the religious right, always portrayed these defeats as victories. Consequently, the establishment always succeeded in maintaining the simulated threat to national security from India.

Evolution had to take its toll and enter the last military dictator in the person of General Pervez Musharraf, through a coup, presented to him on a platter by a naïve prime minister in the person of Nawaz Sharif. The details of the coup are a part of history and need not be repeated here. Pervez Musharraf, either artlessly or ignorantly or both, released all shackles of all media in the country. Now the jinni was out of the bottle. General Pervez Musharraf became the first casualty of media freedom. The second casualty to follow had naturally to be the perceived, contrived or simulated threat, (whatever we may call it) to national security from India.

It dawned on the defense establishment, like it dawned on the American leadership that “he who digs a well for others, falls in to it himself”. The Americans aided and abetted the military establishment of Pakistan to support the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Soviet forces. And the military establishment of Pakistan took it as a lifelong home work to make an alliance with the backward religious seminaries stuff for a future encashment in Afghanistan.

Due to the changed environments created by a free media, the defense establishment too has thrown away the heavy baggage of its past compendium of contrived national security to replace it with a somewhat realistic concept. Consequently the army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, candidly made it clear to all, more than once, that the threat to national security resides within the country’s boundaries and not outside. He obviously meant the religious extremism being sponsored by Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other sectarian outfits.

The change of policy came as a bombshell for the religious right who had always flourished under the military umbrella. There have been muted outbursts from the religious right against this change of heart on the part of the forces but no major reaction has so far been observed. But we cannot expect the religious forces to adjust their thinking in line with the army’s thinking, any time soon. Also in the political conglomerate and the civilian bureaucracy there are powerful niches, possessing thought processes in line with the religious right.

There had been much ado, nationally and also internationally, about the establishment of a clean and impartial Election Commission (ECP) as well as the caretaker setup, in according with the provisions of 18th constitutional amendment. But mindboggling irregularities are happening in the electoral processes in the knowledge of the above setups. Of course the personalities of the Chief Election Commissioner and the caretaker prime minister are above board. They are genuinely discharging their responsibilities in a scrupulously honest and impartial manner. But the shoe is pinching elsewhere. The ECP and the caretakers naturally cannot cope with the gargantuan task assigned to them, without the assistance of bureaucracy and lower judiciary. And it is also not possible for the main institutions to intimately scrutinize the job of the subordinate tiers.

In an article, by AmIr Mir, appearing in The News of April 24, it has been alleged that The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has failed to prevent 55 candidates from 20 districts of Punjab, belonging to 10 different sectarian groups, from contesting the general elections. This happened despite warnings of intelligence agencies that they were on terrorist lists and had also provided their names.

Here again the helplessness of the Chief Election Commissioner is so obvious. Here the roles of the Returning Officers (RO’s) and the concerned appellate levels of judiciary come in. The question arises as to how 55 people with obviously tainted backgrounds could get through the process? The answer obviously is that they had their lobbies all over the state machinery.

It is heartening to note that good legislations, befitting the democratic spirit, gave us a neat clean Election Commission and a neat clean caretaker government. It is also heartening to hear the security establishment renouncing their faulty view of advocating the Indian threat to our national security rather than the real threat being internal, as articulated by the army chief in the recent past.

The change of heart at the highest level of army leadership and the electoral reforms will go a long way in reforming the general outlook at national level. But the hiccups will persist till gradually the entire state machinery gets cleaned up over a protracted period of time. The religious right will fight tooth and nail to drag the policy of Indian hostility as long as possible. Also the defense establishment will not easily surrender the foreign policy domain to the elected governments, any time soon. One fact however is of course quite clear that the cat is out of the bag for good.

The terrorists have made a commitment to attack the rallies of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Awami National Party (ANP) and Muthida Qomi Movement (MQM). So far the terrorists have kept their promise and will maintain that stance indefinitely.

The TTP has distributed pamphlets threatening the people to keep away from the electoral process. Sure enough the pamphlets have been distributed only in Sind and KP.

They have made it abundantly clear that their targets are the PPP, the ANP and the MQM. That will not deter these parties from their path to secular democracy.

Indian hostility on the one hand and unchecked population growth on the other are the two ominous gifts of the religious right. A democratic process has been put in place. If we remain steadfast on the road to democracy, things will improve sooner than later.

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