This takes me back to a heated discussion at one of the track II meetings that were common in the more contentious years of India-Pakistan relations. Since these meetings, between Indian and Pakistani analysts, retired (and sometimes serving) generals and diplomats, followed Chatham House rules, it is not fair to name names or dates. But at one of these, I asked a very distinguished group of Pakistanis why they accorded such a privileged place to their army in their power structure? The answer was prompt: the army keeps our country together, and your guys away from our territory. Without the army — and its predominant place in the power structure — there will be no guarantee of preservation of either our national interest, or our territorial, or ideological frontiers.

My argument that facts and history established exactly the opposite did not quite cut ice. Not only was this almighty army unable to prevent the dismemberment of Pakistan into two halves in 1971, it actually contributed to that calamity. This was a blow to both the territorial and ideological integrity of Pakistan as, with the majority fighting to win a separate nation, the Bangladeshis had questioned the very basis of the two-nation theory. Further, if territory was so important, did Pakistan now have more, or less, of Kashmir than it was left with when ceasefire was called in 1948? The same army had lost it Siachen, and also territories in Kargil and beyond, that India nibbled in 1971. So what exactly had the army contributed that it deserved such an exalted, revered, domineering position in Pakistan’s society and politics?

... contd.