The President's New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen was not thinking of Pakistan some 200 years hence, when he wrote his immortal "The Emperor's New Clothes." But the Danish master's fairy tale may be enacted in a different way in the far-off land of General Pervez Musharraf.

After months, even a child in Pakistan may be able to see that the president is not really wearing the promised new clothes. Musharraf may indeed doff his military uniform, but very few can be expected to take his civilian clothes and their symbolism seriously. The majority public perception may not change, even if he changes his political philosophy along with his formal attire.

The revolution in the presidential wardrobe may cause some instant rejoicing in the streets, particularly by political parties that may call it their victory. But the people of Pakistan will not read too much into a merely sartorial change so long as the power behind the throne remain the same. And they would expect it to remain the same in each of the three possible changes.

* The first of these is the one envisaged in what was reported some months ago as a post-Musharraf "contingency plan" of Washington and subsequently revealed as a scheme backed by the general as well. Under this plan, Musharraf was to yield his place to another Bush-friendly army officer. There could be no better example of a non-change.

* The second scenario, which many currently contemplate, has the president changing his heavily bemedaled, beribboned persona for a homely image in a civilian suit. By doing this, of course, Musharraf will be taking his long-due retirement from the army, giving up his dual post without the courts acting to clip his wings.

No one is certain whether or when this will happen. The latest we hear is that Musharraf's own Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam) is now for his doffing the uniform, though it strongly opposed some days back the idea of bending to Benazir Bhutto on this issue. The former prime minister and chief of the Pakistan People's Party herself sounds non-insistent on uniform-shedding now, though she had earlier ruled out any relenting on it.

What is certain, however, is that, by becoming a "civilian" in this technical sense, Musharraf will not become any less of a military-backed president. The army will still remain his main constituency, and it will still call the shots. The Pakistan Muslim League, or PML (Q), founded by Musharraf in 2001 (two years after he took over power), has yet to prove it represents anyone but him.

* The third possibility is what may immediately appear a triumph for the pro-democracy movement in Pakistan. A transfer of power from a military dictator - which Musharraf remains despite the independence asserted by Pakistani media and the street protests the soldiers and the police cannot quell - alone will not constitute such a triumph.

As every Pakistan-watcher knows, the army has almost always been the dominant power in the country - even during its spells of civilian rule, accounting for less than half of its post-independence life. The army holds this formidable power because it is far more than a mere army. As Ehsan Masood, London-based Pakistani journalist and writer, puts it: "The Pakistan military is not just an apparatus of the state: it is the state."

Writing in April 2007, Masood talks of the mega slice of the country's economy the army controls (prompting Pakistani security analyst Ayesha Siddiqa Agha to refer to Musharraf's and other uniformed rulers' constituency as "Military Inc.") along with other major areas of national life. Masood points out that companies administered by serving military personnel provide Pakistan with a broad variety of goods and services - ranging from breakfast cereal, banks, insurance, oil and gas, radio, TV, an airline, airport services, construction, agriculture, real estate, as well as schools and universities."

While the estimated total worth of this economy is over $100 billion, the army has also become the leading Pakistani landowner over the years. By abusing the provisions of colonial laws, allowing military takeover of public land, the army has appropriated an estimated 11.58 million acres or 12 percent of the total state land. The land so acquired is distributed to military personnel at nominal rents. This essentially fraudulent practice has made the military a quasi-feudal class of formidable social clout.

The army has needed political power to retain its socioeconomic dominance. As noted before, it has remained the power behind the throne, ascending it only when civilian proxies seemed unable to serve its purpose any more. At all times , however, it has retained old political connections, while seeking to cultivate new contacts in the political structure and domain.

The army has been obliged to adopt, pursue and promote an ideology that has not served the cause of stability in Pakistan and peace in South Asia. It has carefully preserved its close ties with religious clerics and parties, and ensured that anti-India rhetoric remains an essential part of the repertoire of every political player. It made the breakup of Pakistan inevitable with the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, and it made the country's acquisition of an "Islamic bomb" inescapable.

The fate of Musharraf's uniform will make no difference to the fundamental fact of the military's place in Pakistan's power structure. The movement for civilian rule and democracy in the country will have to go beyond the general. Enlightened leaders of the movement will have to proceed into the particulars of the steps needed to ensure that the 550,000-strong army is restricted to its professional role in the future.

By all accounts, conditions are conducive for such an extension of the anti-Musharraf campaign. Weeks ago, the president was widely expected to proclaim a state of emergency and to unleash an army offensive against the pro-democracy agitators. This did not happen. One explanation, reportedly heard in knowledgeable Pakistani circles, is that the military advised Musharraf against the step, pleading its preoccupation with the increasingly nasty situation on the Afghan border.

Some see in this signs of a weakening of the army's loyalty to Musharraf. Many more, however, see a certain sagging of the military's morale, with the popular tide appearing to turn unmistakably against a continued political role for the army. Now may be the time for Pakistan to move towards a real transfer of power - a real triumph.

A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.

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