I joined Army because I wanted to, forgive the cliché, serve the country even though at that time Gen Pervez Musharraf, a dictator and a usurper, was also serving the country. But back then my understanding of the words ‘dictator’ and ‘usurper’ was only superficial. Two years later I passed out foolishly regurgitating the oath that we were all made to undertake in front of a crowd that kept laughing derisively when certain parts were read aloud. It was a shameful act. But I was a coward. So, I passed out having undertaken the oath that none of us really cared about.
In 2007, Gen Musharraf declared a state of emergency under article 232 of the Constitution of Pakistan but then issued a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) which was an “extra-constitutional” act. The Supreme Court later said that Gen Musharraf had done all that “in the interest of the State and for the welfare of the people” and also stated “the fact that the Constitution was not abrogated, but merely held in abeyance”. Now, that’s semantic wizardry that Joyce would be proud of. I tried to remember whether the oath had mentioned any extra-constitutional things I was allowed to do in the interest of the State or for the welfare of the people but couldn’t think of any. All I could do was admire the General and his cohort for coming up with ‘merely held in abeyance’ as it showed their transcendence of the ordinary spacetime and their ability to create blackholes out of nothing. So, I kept serving the country. Because I was a coward.
In 2011, US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace from our Western border and flew all the way to Abbottabad, attacked a residential compound near PMA, killed Osama Bin Laden and flew back without anyone doing anything about it. The man-in-charge of doing something about such things at the time plainly told us we didn’t know what was happening when it was happening. The kind of explanation that you would accept under no circumstances if it were coming from a sentry standing watch on a guard post. But I took him on face value and went about serving the country. Because I was a coward.
In 2017, the elected Government of Pakistan issued a notification regarding the “guilty” few in the Dawn leaks case. A serving officer of Pakistan Army, promptly tweeted “the notification is rejected” making it quite clear to anyone with a bit of brain that we do what we do, that we get what we want to get, and that we are answerable to no one in this country. It was clear to me too by then. But I kept serving the country. Because I was a coward.
Then on December 17, 2019, a special bench of IHC handed over death sentence to Gen Pervez Musharraf for having committed high treason. Anyone who does believe that the Constitution of Pakistan is, or ought to be, inviolable and supreme must know what the Article 6 of the constitution states. One can argue about one or another legal technicality, whether the case against Gen Musharraf should have been lodged for what he did on 12 Oct 1998 instead of what happened in 2007, and whether many other people who committed high treason in the light of Article 6 should have been named in the case. But the fact remains that he was a dictator who acquired power through unconstitutional means and after having assumed the role of Chief Executive of the country went about legalizing what he had done with some pliant judges ready to grant him what he wanted. Gen Musharraf did commit high treason as defined in Article 6 of the Constitution, IHC judgement notwithstanding. That is my view.
After the judgement was passed, a serving officer once again issued a statement telling the nation that the decision by IHC had been received with “a lot of pain and anguish by the rank and file of Pakistan Armed Forces”. He also said that Armed Forces of Pakistan expected that justice would be dispensed in line with the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. I cannot speak for anyone else but I am still struggling to feel the “pain and anguish” that I am supposed to feel. But like the good soldier that I have always been whose loyalty, first and foremost, is to the institution rather than the Constitution of Pakistan or the Government or people of Pakistan or any other such trivial thing, I am determined to serve the country while at the same time trying to feel the “pain and anguish” and fake it if necessary. Because I am a coward.