Pakistan News
Democratic vs. Military Decision-Making
Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Pakistan’s decision-making process is heavily dominated by military leadership, rendering civilian politicians mere figureheads without real authority. Despite holding official positions, they lack the autonomy to implement policies independently, as the final say rests with the military establishment. This power-centric governance model has plunged the country into political and economic chaos, fueling regional alienation and insurgencies, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Balochistan, in particular, has faced insurgency for decades, and rather than seeing a decline, the conflict has intensified due to the systemic exclusion of genuine Baloch leadership from decision-making processes. This exclusion, coupled with the province’s chronic deprivation, including a lack of education, widespread unemployment, and entrenched poverty, has further alienated its people. As the state weakens, the military’s grip on Balochistan is loosening, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa faces a similar trajectory, with increasing instability and growing public dissent.
Faced with this deteriorating situation, politicians have repeatedly urged the military leadership to take corrective measures. They have called for steps to address political alienation, growing separatist sentiments, and widespread resentment toward the armed forces. Rather than proactively taking initiatives to integrate disgruntled elements into the mainstream, even the president, prime minister, federal ministers, and parliamentarians have found themselves publicly appealing to military leadership, reflecting their sense of helplessness.
However, the military remains fixated on securing national resources rather than focusing on governance reforms or public welfare. This widening gulf between civilian and military decision-making rendered the political leaders, regardless of their intentions, powerless, and their proposals hold no weight making the governance ineffective, with the democratic process reduced to a mere façade.
Civilian decision-making traditionally follows a structured and institutionalized process designed to ensure transparency, inclusivity, and accountability. Initially, issues affecting multiple provinces are identified clearly and subjected to comprehensive feasibility studies to evaluate economic, social, environmental, and political impacts. Extensive consultations with stakeholders—including provincial governments, subject matter experts, civil society organizations, and representatives from affected communities—then take place. These steps help ensure that diverse perspectives inform policy formulation.
Subsequently, identified issues are deliberated within the Council of Common Interests (CCI), where provincial heads strive to achieve consensus-based solutions. Following CCI deliberations, proposed policies or initiatives are opened to public scrutiny through structured hearings or open forums, allowing for direct feedback and community engagement. Once public input is incorporated, detailed policy frameworks are drafted and undergo formal legislative scrutiny, involving parliamentary debate, amendments, and voting. During implementation, continuous monitoring and periodic evaluations ensure policies remain effective and aligned with national welfare, reinforcing governance in a diverse and complex country like Pakistan.
In stark contrast, military decision-making operates on a rigid and centralized model, shrouded in secrecy and primarily driven by hierarchy and discipline, with the primary objective to identify the enemy and neutralize it, whether civilian or military. Once a decision is finalized by the army chief or top military commanders, it is communicated through clear, concise orders, and swiftly executed without extensive deliberation or civilian engagement or caring for consequences.
This contrast between civilian and military governance underscores why democratic nations flourish. Countries with strong democratic institutions prioritize long-term stability, economic progress, and national development. India serves as a prime example. Since independence, it has upheld civilian supremacy, allowing democratic institutions to mature and drive sustained economic growth. Despite facing numerous internal challenges, India has emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and is poised to become the third-largest global economy in a year or two. This success highlights the effectiveness of democratic governance, where elected representatives prioritize public welfare over institutional control.
Pakistan’s trajectory, however, has been the opposite. The military’s repeated interventions have crippled democratic institutions, rendering governance ineffective. The constitution is frequently bypassed, parliament remains weak, the judiciary is undermined, and the media is suppressed. The military has turned state institutions against the public, leading to widespread resentment. While it justifies its control by branding civilian leadership as corrupt, incompetent, and disloyal, its own policies have pushed the country toward economic collapse and social unrest.
Balochistan, once considered a region of unrest, has now reached a boiling point. The military’s continued repression and exclusion of local leaders have radicalized large segments of the population. The Baloch insurgency, which once operated on the fringes, now enjoys widespread local support, turning the armed forces into the primary adversary in the eyes of many Baloch citizens. Similar trends are emerging in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where militant groups have gained ground due to the army’s counterproductive policies.
Now, Punjab—historically the military’s stronghold—is also experiencing disillusionment. The army’s policies, particularly corporate land acquisitions, water mismanagement, and suppression of political voices, have alienated large sections of the Punjabi population. The military’s controversial decision to divert water from the Indus River Basin to irrigate corporate farmland in southern Punjab has further fueled deep resentment in the province of Sindh, which had termed it a stealing of their rightful water share. For the first time, a significant portion of Punjab and Sindh’s populations are beginning to view the army as a self-serving institution rather than a national protector.
Internationally, Pakistan’s foreign policy has also suffered due to the military’s dominance. Unlike its neighbors, which maintain stable and mutually beneficial relationships, Pakistan has strained ties with almost all bordering nations except China. Relations with India remain hostile, ties with Afghanistan are marred by conflict, and even Iran has grown wary of Pakistan’s policies. This diplomatic isolation is largely a result of military-driven foreign policy, which prioritizes security concerns over economic and diplomatic engagement.
True progress can only be achieved when governance is based on civilian supremacy, rule of law, and democratic accountability. Pakistan’s future remains bleak unless genuine democratic reforms are implemented. Free and fair elections, restoration of parliamentary authority, and judicial independence are critical to reversing the country’s downward spiral. If the current trajectory persists, Pakistan will continue to suffer economic stagnation, political instability, and social unrest.
The nation stands at a crossroads: either it embraces democratic governance and paves the way for prosperity, or it remains trapped in a cycle of military dominance and perpetual crisis. The choice will determine whether Pakistan reclaims its potential or continues to dig its own grave.
QUETTA: The business community in Quetta on Friday condemned India’s boycott campaign against Turkish and Azerbaijani products and the cancellation of travel tickets to these countries by Indian citizens, calling it a reflection of frustration over support extended to Pakistan by Ankara and Baku during the recent conflict.
Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Haji Muhammad Ayub Miriani, Senior Vice-President Haji Akhtar Kakar, Vice-President Engineer Mir Wais Khan Kakar and former QCCI president and business leader Haji Ghulam Farooq Khilji said that in light of India’s decision, “it is the responsibility of the government of Pakistan and the business community to come forward and establish strong trade relations with the brotherly Islamic countries — Turkiye and Azerbaijan”.
“The business community of Balochistan is ready to play a frontline role in this regard,” the leaders said in a discussion at the QCCI, adding that they “hope the government will also take steps for stronger trade ties with both the friendly countries”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/card/1911469
The business figures claimed that during the recent conflict, where Pakistan launched “Operation Bunyanum Marsoos,” India suffered “heavy losses” and is now “trying to cover up its failure by blaming countries like Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and China”.
They contended, “The Modi government and the Indian public, in fear of Pakistan’s allies, are now boycotting their products and cancelling confirmed tickets to their tourist destinations.”
They also emphasised Pakistan’s aspiration to expand global trade ties, noting that economic growth depends on international cooperation.
“Pakistan aspires to have good trade relations with all countries of the world and is striving for rapid economic growth, which is not possible without expanding trade,” they said.
The QCCI officials also said their organisation is working to resolve issues faced by industrialists and workers across various sectors, including import-export, agriculture, livestock and transportation.
“We affirm that the Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry will play a leading role in improving business ties with countries like Turkiye and Azerbaijan,” they concluded.
Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2025
Former foreign minister and PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been moved from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) on Saturday after he suffered heart pain, his lawyer said on Saturday.
Qureshi has been indicted in multiple cases pertaining to the May 9, 2023 riots and has remained behind bars since August 2023.
Speaking to Dawn.com today, Advocate Rana Mudassar, Qureshi’s lawyer, said his client suffered heart pain early in the morning after Fajr prayers. He underwent a medical assessment by prison doctors.
“He was shifted to the PIC by Rescue 1122 after his health failed to improve,” Mudassar said, adding that Qureshi was currently undergoing various tests at the hospital.
The PTI leader’s family had been informed about his condition, the lawyer added.
In July 2024, the PTI vice-president was indicted by a Lahore anti-terrorism court in a case registered by the Shadman police over allegedly attacking and burning the police station.
The same month, he was transferred from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to Kot Lakhpat on a police request. It had stated that frequent transportation of the PTI leader from Rawalpindi to Lahore was not feasible for the authorities as well as for the jailed ex-minister.
In November last year, a Lahore ATC indicted Qureshi and other senior PTI leaders in multiple cases relating to May 9 riots. The former foreign minister has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
To live along the Line of Control (LoC) – the volatile de facto border that separates India and Pakistan – is to exist perpetually on the razor’s edge between fragile peace and open conflict.
The recent escalation after the Pahalgam attack brought India and Pakistan to the brink once again. Shells rained down on both sides of the LoC, turning homes to rubble and lives into statistics. At least 16 people were reportedly killed on the Indian side, while Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, though it remains unclear how many were directly caused by the shelling.
“Families on the LoC are subjected to Indian and Pakistani whims and face the brunt of heated tensions,” Anam Zakaria, a Pakistani writer based in Canada, told the BBC.
“Each time firing resumes many are thrust into bunkers, livestock and livelihood is lost, infrastructure – homes, hospitals, schools – is damaged. The vulnerability and volatility experienced has grave repercussions for their everyday lived reality,” Ms Zakaria, author of a book on Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said.
India and Pakistan share a 3,323km (2,064-mile) border, including the 740km-long LoC; and the International Border (IB), spanning roughly 2,400km. The LoC began as the Ceasefire Line in 1949 after the first India-Pakistan war, and was renamed under the 1972 Simla Agreement.
The LoC cutting through Kashmir – claimed in full and administered in parts by both India and Pakistan – remains one of the most militarised borders in the world. Conflict is never far behind and ceasefires are only as durable as the next provocation.
Ceasefire violations here can range from “low-level firing to major land grabbing to surgical strikes“, says Happymon Jacob, a foreign policy expert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). (A land grab could involve seizing key positions such as hilltops, outposts, or buffer zones by force.)
The LoC, many experts say, is a classic example of a “border drawn in blood, forged through conflict”. It is also a line, as Ms Zakaria says, “carved by India and Pakistan, and militarised and weaponised, without taking Kashmiris into account”.
Such wartime borders aren’t unique to South Asia. Sumantra Bose, professor of international and comparative politics at Krea University in India and author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, says the most well-known is the ‘Green Line’ – the ceasefire line of 1949 – which is the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank.
Not surprisingly, the tentative calm along the LoC that had endured since the 2021 ceasefire agreement between the two nuclear-armed neighbours crumbled easily after the latest hostilities.
“The current escalation on the LoC and International Border (IB) is significant as it follows a four-year period of relative peace on the border,” Surya Valliappan Krishna of Carnegie India told the BBC.
Violence along the India-Pakistan border is not new – prior to the 2003 ceasefire, India reported 4,134 violations in 2001 and 5,767 in 2002.
The 2003 ceasefire initially held, with negligible violations from 2004 to 2007, but tensions resurfaced in 2008 and escalated sharply by 2013.
Between 2013 and early 2021, the LoC and the IB witnessed sustained high levels of conflict. A renewed ceasefire in February 2021 led to an immediate and sustained drop in violations through to March 2025.
“During periods of intense cross-border firing we’ve seen border populations in the many thousands be displaced for months on end,” says Mr Krishna. Between late September and early December 2016, more than 27,000 people were displaced from border areas due to ceasefire violations and cross-border firing.
It’s looking increasingly hairy and uncertain now.
Tensions flared after the Pahalgam attack, with India suspending the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Pakistan responded by threatening to exit the 1972 Simla Agreement, which formalised the LoC – though it hasn’t followed through yet.
“This is significant because the Simla Agreement is the basis of the current LoC, which both sides agreed to not alter unilaterally in spite of their political differences,” says Mr Krishna.
Mr Jacob says for some “curious reason”, ceasefire violations along the LoC have been absent from discussions and debates about escalation of conflict between the two countries.
“It is itself puzzling how the regular use of high-calibre weapons such as 105mm mortars, 130 and 155mm artillery guns and anti-tank guided missiles by two nuclear-capable countries, which has led to civilian and military casualties, has escaped scholarly scrutiny and policy attention,” Mr Jacob writes in his book, Line On Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics.
Mr Jacob identifies two main triggers for the violations: Pakistan often uses cover fire to facilitate militant infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir, which has witnessed an armed insurgency against Indian rule for over three decades. Pakistan, in turn, accuses India of unprovoked firing on civilian areas.
He argues that ceasefire violations along the India-Pakistan border are less the product of high-level political strategy and more the result of local military dynamics.
The hostilities are often initiated by field commanders – sometimes with, but often without, central approval. He also challenges the notion that the Pakistan Army alone drives the violations, pointing instead to a complex mix of local military imperatives and autonomy granted to border forces on both sides.
Some experts believe It’s time to revisit an idea shelved nearly two decades ago: turning the LoC into a formal, internationally recognised border. Others insist that possibility was never realistic – and still isn’t.
“The idea is completely infeasible, a dead end. For decades, Indian maps have shown the entire territory of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India,” Sumantra Bose told the BBC.
“For Pakistan, making the LoC part of the International Border would mean settling the Kashmir dispute – which is Pakistan’s equivalent of the Holy Grail – on India’s preferred terms. Every Pakistani government and leader, civilian or military, over the past seven decades has rejected this.”
In his 2003 book, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace, Prof Bose writes: “A Kashmir settlement necessitates that the LoC be transformed – from an iron curtain of barbed wire, bunkers, trenches and hostile militaries to a linen curtain. Realpolitik dictates that the border will be permanent (albeit probably under a different name), but it must be transcended without being abolished.”
“I stressed, though, that such a transformation of the LoC must be embedded in a broader Kashmir settlement, as one pillar of a multi-pillared settlement,” he told the BBC.
Between 2004 and 2007, turning the LoC into a soft border was central to a fledgling India-Pakistan peace process on Kashmir – a process that ultimately fell apart.
Today, the border has reignited, bringing back the cycle of violence and uncertainty for those who live in its shadow.
“You never know what will happen next. No one wants to sleep facing the Line of Control tonight,” an employee of a hotel in Pakistan-administered Kashmir told BBC Urdu during the recent hostilities.
It was a quiet reminder of how fragile peace is when your window opens to a battlefield.
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