This Sheriff Ain't No Pushover

Nawaz Sharif’s outburst is the gambit of a man pushed into a corner. The Pakistani army has a pugnacious opponent.

- Pranay Sharma

Pakistani political leaders and army generals are mostly locked in a doomed, Daedalian relationship. Its 70-year history is replete with instances of politicians who were once propped up by the military being entangled in tussles over power-sharing with their backers. Invariably, they ended up as bad losers to the men in uniform.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the Berkeley- and Oxford-educated politician is perhaps the most conspicuous example.

As foreign minister to dictator Gen Ayub Khan, the suave politician was a chief architect of ‘Operation Gibraltar’ in Kashmir that led to the 1965 India-Pakistan war. On being sacked, Bhutto launched his own political outfit, the Pakistani People’s Party and later played a key role in discrediting Ayub, leading to his ouster. Subsequently, Bhutto managed to outsmart Gen Yahya Khan after Pakistan’s disastrous def eat in the 1971 war, even though he played a starring role in the intransigence that led to war and dismemberment. With Yahya’s inevitable exit, Bhutto managed to bounce back as Pakistan’s most popular leader. He ran the country, initially as president and later as prime minister, for seven years. Then, he fell foul of Gen Ziaul-Haq, whom he had appointed army chief. Gen Zia had him thrown out of power in 1977; two years later, he had Bhutto tried under ‘Operation Fair Play’ and executed him.

In subsequent years, Bhutto’s daughter Benazir also paid the maximum price when she opposed the then generals in office; the more fortunate ones only had to give up their political careers. However, irrespective of the politicians’ fate, the military establishment remained unaffected, their reputation unstained.