Akmal Hussain, The Dynamics of Power: Military, Bureaucracy and the People

The Dynamics of Power: Military, Bureaucracy and the People Introduction The available literature on the nature of state power in Pakistan has essentially examined how the state apparatus came to predominate over the political system. (Alavi, 1983; Hussain, 1990a; Jalal, 1990) Within the state apparatus, the bureaucracy and the military have so far been lumped together as co-sharers of the piece of the power-cake that has accrued to the 'state apparatus' as opposed to the political elites in civil society. The dynamics between the bureaucracy and the army, and the changing internal balance of power within the state structure itself have hitherto not been analysed. It would be useful to examine these dynamics, since the bureaucracy and the military are quite different institutions. They not only relate in differing ways to civil society, but, it can be argued, have in fact moved in opposing directions in terms of the nature of internal changes. This chapter looks into the changing balance of power between the bureaucracy and military within the state structure. First, we examine the nature of the crisis confronting any authority that purports to govern. Next, intrainstitutional changes, as well as inter-institutional changes with respect to the bureaucracy and military respectively are analysed. Finally, the role of the people is examined, as a factor influencing the power structure when the institutions of civil society have been eroded. Economic Growth, Social Polarization and State Power At the dawn of Independence in 1947, Pakistan's ruling elite consisted of an alliance between landlords and the nascent industrial bourgeoisie, backed by the military and bureaucracy. The nature of this elite conditioned the nature of the economic growth process. However, the latter in turn influenced the form in which state power was exercised. Economic growth brought affiuence to the few, at the expense of the many. The gradual erosion of social infrastructure, endemic poverty and growing inequality between the regions undermined civil society and accelerated the trend towards militarization. Economic Growth ond Sociol Polorization While the average annual growth rate ofGNP fluctuated during the regimes of Ayub Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq and Benazir Bhutto, the overall trend of growing poverty and social and regional inequality continued. During the Ayub period (1960--69), the basic objective of Pakistan's development strategy was to achieve a high growth rate of GNP within the framework of private enterprise supported by government subsidies, tax concessions and import controls Investment targets were to be achieved on the basis of the doctrine of functional inequality. This meant deliberate transfer of income from the poorer sections of society, who were thought to have a low marginal rate of savings, to high-income groups, who were expected to have a high marginal rate of savings It was thought that by thus concentrating incomes in the hands of the rich, total domestic savings and hence investment could be raised. This strategy was put into practice during the 1960s. But while income was transferred into the hands of the rich, they failed to increase their savings significantly -thereby obliging the government to increase its reliance on foreign aid in order to meet its ambitious growth targets. The growth process in Pakistan during this period generated four fundamental contradictions. • A dependent economic structure and growth inflow of foreign loans (from USD 373 million between 1950 and 1955 to USD 2,701 million in 1965-70). • An acute concentration of economic power (43 families owned 76.8% of • all manufacturing assets by the end of the 1960s) (Hussain, 1988, 1990b). • Polarization of classes in the rural sector and a rapid increase in landlessness. While the incomes of the rural elite increased sharply following the Green Revolution, the real incomes of the rural poor declined in absolute terms. Per capita consumption of food grains among the poorest 65% of Pakistan's rural population fell from an index of 100 in 1963 to 91 in 1969. Similarly, according to a field survey, 33% of small farmers operating less than 8 acres suffered a deterioration in their diet. During the 1960s, as many as 794,042 small farmers became landless labourers (Hamid, 1974). • Growing economic disparity developed between the various regions (Hussain,1985). These consequences generated explosive political tensions which not only overthrew the Ayub government, bringing in Yahya Khan's martial law, but also fuelled the secessionist movement in East Pakistan which ultimately resulted in the formation of Bangladesh. During the Bhutto period, economic growth slowed down markedly Industrial growth fell from an average of 13% during the 1960s to only 3% during the period 1972-77. Similarly, agricultural growth declined from an average 665% in the 1960s to a mere 045% in the period 1970-76. At the same time, the nationalization of banks and credit expansion for financing loans to capitalist farmers and industrialists led to heavy deficit financing and an associated increase in the money supply. (Bank-note circulation increased from Rs 23 billion in 1971-72 to Rs 57 billion in 1976-77.) The sharp increase in the money supply during this period of virtual stagnation was reflected in a steep rise in the inflation rate: the wholesale price index rose from 150 in 1971 to 289 by 1975 (Hussain, 1988). Although nationalization of industries and credit expansion enabled the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), then in power, to acquire the support of some of the urban petit bourgeoisie by providing jobs, licences and loans, the funds available were apparently not enough to enrich the entire petit bourgeoisie. In fact, the section of the lower middle class that did not gain from the PPP suffered an absolute decline in their real incomes due to the high inflation rate. It was this frustrated section of the petit bourgeoisie and the large lumpen proletariat stricken by inflation, that responded to the call by the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), an electoral alliance between nine opposition parties, for street agitation in March 1977. Although the apparent form of the street agitation was spontaneous, it had been orchestrated and given political focus at key junctures by the PNA, which charged the government with rigging the elections. This organizational and coordinating function was performed by trained cadres of the Jamaat-eIslami (party of the religious right), allegedly with support from the USA. The agitation was, of course, fuelled by the allegations that the PPP had rigged elections in several constituencies. The overthrow of the Bhutto regime and the subsequent hanging of the first popularly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan dramatically demonstrated the limits of populism within a state structure dominated by the military and the bureaucracy. The Fragmentation of Civil Society Each regime that has come into power in Pakistan has sought to legitimize itself through an explicit ideology. The Ayub regime propounded the ideology of modernization and economic development. The Bhutto regime sought legitimacy in the ideology of redeeming the poor (food, clothing, shelter for all) through socialism. It is an index of Zia's fear of popular forces, that he initially sought justification for his government precisely in its temporary character. If anything this was the ideology of transience - that he was there for only 90 days; and for the sole purpose of holding fair elections. It was this fear that impelled the Zia regime to seek (albeit through a legal process) the physical elimination of the one individual who could mobilize popular forces. It was the same fear that subsequently induced Zia to rule on the basis of military terror while propounding a version of Islamic ideology. Draconian measures of military courts, arbitrary arrests and public lashings were introduced. Thus the gradual erosion of the institutions of civil society brought the power of the state into stark confrontation with the people. Earlier in 1971, this confrontation had been a major factor in the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of an independent Bangladesh. Now a protracted period of martial law under the Zia regime served to brutalize and undermine civil society in what remained of Pakistan. As the Zia regime militarized the state structure, its isolation from the people was matched by its acute external dependence. In the absence of domestic political popularity it sought political, economic and military support from the United States. This pushed Pakistan into becoming a 'frontline state' in America's Afghan war, and became an important factor in further undermining civil society. The years between 1977 and 1987 saw a steady inflow of Afghan refugees into Pakistan and the use of Pakistan as a conduit for arms for the Afghan war. Two trends emerged to fuel the crisis of civil society: • A large proportion of weapons meant for the Afghan guerrillas filtered into the illegal arms market. • A rapid growth of the heroin trade. Powerful Mafia-type syndicates • emerged to operate the production, domestic transportation and export of heroin. Many Afghan refugees, who had taken over a significant share of inter-city overland cargo services, also became integrated into the drug syndicates. The large illegal arms market and the burgeoning heroin trade injected both weapons and syndicate organizations into the social life of major urban centres in Pakistan. At the same time, the frequent bombings in the North West Frontier Province during the late 1980s, because of the Afghan war and the weakening of state authority in parts of rural Sindh, served to undermine public confidence in the basic function of the state: that of providing security of life for its citizens. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that more and more people should begin seeking alternative support mechanisms in their communities to obtain redress against injustice and to achieve security against a physical threat to their persons and families. The proximate identity or group membership through which the individual seeks such security can be an ethnic, subreligious, sub-nationalist or biradri (kinship) group. Civil society has now begun to become polarized along vertical lines. Each group -whether ethnic, sub-religious, sub-nationalist or biradri has an intense emotional charge, as well as a high degree of firepower derived from the contemporary arms market. The Crisis of Development In the context of development, governments in Pakistan are faced with a crisis that has four features: • Economic growth has been associated with poverty, and in some areas growing poverty. Almost 40% of the people are unable to obtain 2,100 calories a day per person. There has been impressive GNP growth (5.5% annual growth rate during the Ayub period, 6.5% during the Zia regime, and just over 5% during the brief tenure of the Benazir Bhutto government). Yet, after 43 years, a substantial proportion of the population remains deprived of even the minimum conditions of human existence (Hussain, 1988). As much as 64% of the population lack access to piped drinking water. The percentage without 'safe' drinking water is probably larger, since piped drinking water frequently carries bacteria. The housing situation is so bad that 81% of the housing units have on average 1.7 rooms which are inhabited by on average 7 persons. Finally, the literacy rate of 28% is amongst the lowest in the world, and the standards of those few who make it to college are spiralling down at a dizzying pace. The overall consequence of these features is a growing pressure on a fragile democratic polity. A significant section of the population perceives that there is nothing for them in this growth process -which becomes a factor in the resurgence of sub-national groups. Consequently, a new conflict may be emerging between centralized state structures and a polarized polity, associated with a heightened level of violence in society. • .The second element in the crisis is the rapid urbanization rate. Given current trends, the urban population is expected to double over the next decade and, what is worse, it is likely to be concentrated in large cities. With the prohibitive cost of providing basic services in large cities and the financial squeeze on the government, a growing proportion of the urban population would be deprived of even minimum civic services. Thus, the percentage of urban population living in unserviced localities (called katchi abadis) is expected to increase from today's 25% to 65% by the end of this century.5 The level of social stress and associated violence may become difficult for any future government to handle. Thus, policies for slowing down urbanization and for increased investments in basic services are imperatives for sustainable development. • .The third element of the existing development process is rising debt. With existing levels of indebtedness, and government expenditure on unproductive purposes, an attempt to accelerate GNP growth substantially could land Pakistan with an intolerable debt-servicing burden. Latin America can serve as an example of what can happen when high growth rates are attempted with high levels of debt. The total debt in just four Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela) was over USD 282 billion in the early 1990s, or two-thirds of the outstanding loans of banks to all developing countries. When debt-servicing burdens in Latin America rose, the creditors enacted a squeeze which slowed down GNP growth to a point where real per capita income actually declined in some cases. In Pakistan today the situation is not as acute as in Latin America. Yet, debt servicing as a percentage of foreign exchange earnings is already 25%. An alarmed IMF has introduced a credit squeeze which is already slowing down the GNP growth rate in Pakistan. • The fourth feature is the rapid erosion of the natural resource base: the depletion of forests, desertification resulting from soil erosion and salinity, the rising toxicity levels of rivers due to untreated disposal of industrial effluents, while rising levels of air pollution are not only making the present hazardous, they also limit the possibility of escaping from the poverty trap in the future (Qutub, 1991). Failure to devise a strategy capable of coming to grips with this development crisis has been an important factor in social polarization and the resultant difficulty in strengthening democratic institutions, particularly a democratic culture. The deepening of this economic and social crisis presents a challenge of governance to the three centres of power that purport to govern in Pakistan: the civilian political elite (through parliament and its executive authority), the bureaucracy and the military. The relative power that each of these protagonists is able to wield may depend on the effectiveness with which it can provide solutions to this crisis. In the next section, we will see how the balance of power within the state structure has shifted from the bureaucracy towards the military. The Changing Internal Balance in the Structure of State Power The changing relationship between the military and bureaucracy, the two vital elements of the state apparatus in Pakistan, can be understood in the context of three analytically distinct but interactive processes. These are in turn conditioned by the dynamics of Pakistan's security environment and its foreign policy priorities, particularly its relationship with the United States. • Changes in the internal sociology of the military and bureaucracy, associated with changes in the social origins of officers in these two institutions. • Changes in the professional quality of officers and the internal cohesion of the institutions. • The balance of power between the state apparatus on the one hand, and such institutions of civil society as parliament, political parties, media and various fora of public expression, on the other. In this section we will examine how these three processes have influenced the dynamics within and between the bureaucracy and the military. Over the past three decades, the social origins of both the bureaucracy and the army have shifted, from the landed elite to a wider base in the urban middle strata and the burgeoning class of rural capitalist farmers.6 The latter class did include scions of some of the earlier feudal landlords who had transformed themselves following the Green Revolution of the late 1960s, when new, high yield varieties made owner cultivation with hired labour an economically attractive venture. However, these capitalist farmers also included many rich peasant families who were able to move up the social scale by reinvesting the increased profits that became available from farming (Hussain, 1988, Part IV). While the change in social origins of officers in both these institutions has tended in the same direction (a broadening of the social base), changes in the level of professional competence and indeed the internal institutional cohesion have moved in opposing directions with respect to the bureaucracy and military. Institutional Decay of the Bureaucracy During the past 40 years, Pakistan's bureaucracy has undergone a gradual process of institutional decay. Perhaps the single most important factor here has been a sharp decline in the intellectual caliber of the civil servant, caused primarily by the collapse of academic standards at colleges and universities, and by the institutional failure to provide high quality inservice training. To make matters worse, the best products of even the present poor education system do not normally sit for the civil service examination, but the structure of the civil service remains predicated on the now-unfounded assumption that the 'intellectual cream' of society applies for and enters the service. Having entered the civil service, these poorly educated young officers face a future in which there is an absence of rigorous formal education to equip them professionally for the tasks they are supposed to perform. Three institutions purport to provide a semblance for 'training' to the civil servant: the Pakistan Academy for Administrative Training, which gives courses to each crop of fresh entrants to the civil service; the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), which gives courses to officers at the middle stage of their careers (deputy secretary level); and the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC), which gives training to senior officers, federal joint secretaries and heads of departments. In all three institutions there is a virtual absence of a high-quality faculty, and reliance is placed on invited speakers who lecture and then leave. Courses are so superficial and participant evaluation so soft as to pose no great intellectual challenge. The decline in the intellectual quality of individual officers has been accompanied over the past two decades by an erosion of institutional decision-making mechanisms in the civil service. Political factions at various points in the political power structure interfere arbitrarily in a wide range of decisions -from transfers, promotions and dismissals of officers or judicial decisions by district commissioners on land disputes, right up to the issues of arrest of drug barons or approval of major projects. The integrity of institutional decision-making is often undermined by vested interests outside the civil service. This has resulted in increasing insecurity, corruption and on occasion demoralization of civil service officers. Such attitudes may have been reinforced by the large-scale dismissals of senior officers, sometimes on flimsy charges by successive regimes. For example, Ayub Khan dismissed 1,300 civil service officers in 1959 by a single order; then in 1969, 303 were dismissed by General Yahya Khan; during the regime of Z.A. Bhutto, as many as 1,400 were dismissed through a single order; and again in 1973, 12 senior civil service officers were unceremoniously removed. At a structural level the CSP (Civil Services of Pakistan) was the elite cadre within the civil bureaucracy and its members inherited the ICS (Indian Civil Service) tradition. The CSP cadre remained dominant in the bureaucracy and indeed over national decision-making, right up to the end of the Ayub period. During the subsequent brief regime of General Yahya Khan, the dominance of the CSP began to be broken by the military authorities. Subsequently, the regime of Z.A. Bhutto further eroded the internal cohesion and esprit de corps of the CSP by a policy of 'lateral entry' into the service. This meant that individuals politically loyal to Bhutto, whether from various government departments or outside the bureaucracy altogether, could be appointed to key civil service positions. During the regime of General (later President) Zia-ul-Haq, the position of the bureaucracy within the structure of state power was rehabilitated. Zia gave greater confidence to civil servants by putting an end to the device of 'screening' civil servants which, during the regimes of Yahya and Bhutto, was like a sword of Damocles hanging over in service bureaucrats, who could be dismissed or transferred at short notice. Senior bureaucrats now had relatively long tenures. In the regime of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, new stresses were placed on the structure of the bureaucracy as a result of the growing political conflict between a PPP government in the centre and the opposition IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance) government in Punjab, the largest province. The historically unprecedented contention for power between the federal and Punjab Provincial Government often took the form of manipulating individuals or groups of civil servants. The use of bureaucrats as instruments of the political power struggle between the Centre and the province was manifested dramatically in two cases. The first concerned the federal government's decision to transfer to Islamabad five senior officers working in the Punjab Provincial Administration (the Inspector General Police, Superintendent Police, information Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary and the Chief Secretary in the Punjab). According to the federal government, these officials were misusing their power for the pursuit of political interests of the provincial government. The Punjab government initially resisted and then acquiesced to the transfer orders for four of the five officers. In the case of the Chief Secretary of the Punjab government, Anwer Zahid, the federal government's instructions to transfer him were successfully resisted by the then Chief Minister for Punjab, Nawaz Sharif. The second case concerned implementation of the federal government's People's Programme for Development (PPD). This envisaged providing basic services to the poor at the grass-roots level, such as schools, drinking water, brick-paved village streets and drains. The federal government, which had also provided the funding, attempted to run a set of development activities which normally fell within the purview of the provincial government as one of their projects. The provincial government decided to resist implementation of the People's Programme for Development, on grounds that it was an attack on their authority. This conflict created surrealistic scenes of villagers building roads and drains with bricks, while the local deputy commissioner sent bulldozers to demolish the construction and arrested the workmen on charges of disturbing public peace. The typical civil servant in Pakistan today is faced with formidable problems of poverty, social polarization, breakdown of law and order and erosion of infrastructure. He is presumed to be tackling these problems in an environment where often-conflicting demands from a still nascent political system are impinging upon an administrative institution whose internal stability and cohesion has already been undermined by the arbitrary and piecemeal interventions of successive regimes. To be able to function effectively in such a situation, Pakistan's civil servants would have to be individuals of considerable professional acumen, integrity and initiative. But few of them today could claim to be imbued with these qualities. Given the paucity of their education and institutional environment, they are, in most cases, incapable of even comprehending the nature of the problems they face, let alone conceptualizing, formulating and evaluating the policy interventions necessary to overcome them. Institutional Growth of the Military While there has been a rapid deterioration in the level of professional competence, and in institutional procedures for decision-making and an absence of effective methods of in-service training in the bureaucracy, the military has by contrast seen a significant improvement in each of these spheres. Unlike their peers in the civilian bureaucracy, military officers have to study, acquire new skills and pass examinations at each stage of the promo tion ladder. Over the past 40 years, Pakistan's military has developed a sophisticated educational infrastructure from military public schools, through specialized colleges for professional training in various fields of engineering, electronics and aeronautics, to high-quality command and staff training institutions. The two institutions in the latter category -the Command and Staff College Quetta (for Majors and Lieutenant Colonels) and the National Defence College Rawalpindi (for Brigadiers and above) -not only provide training in defence planning and war-gaming at the highest international level, they also enable officers to conduct interdisciplinary studies in national policy analysis in the fields of foreign policy, internal security and economic policy. The quality of the teaching staff, the methods of instruction, and the intensity and rigour of the study programmes make them into genuine centres of excellence. One of the senior instructors at the Command and Staff College, when asked about the guiding principle of their training programme, replied: 'To develop a mind that can think on its own, that does not take anything for granted.' It seems indeed ironic that the notion of the critical mind charged by the spirit of enquiry, which over the past 40 years has been gradually banished from educational institutions in civil society, now constitutes the basis of education in the higher military institutions. Officers study long hours, use the library intensively, engage in high-quality seminar discussions and write policy papers -all activities generally absent from the civilian sphere. It is not surprising that military officers trained at such institutions develop a far more sophisticated understanding of governance than any products of civilian educational institutions in contemporary Pakistan. Apart from the quality of intellectual training imparted to the military officers, the decision-making structure and coordination amongst the various services (army, navy, air force) have also improved. In the bureaucracy, contrary to service rules, there is political interference in promotions, appointments and operational decisions. In sharp contrast to the bureaucracy, the military has not only strengthened and professionalized its internal decision-making, but has also increasingly insulated itself from involvement of civilian authority at both administrative and operational levels, even in spheres which could be legitimately regarded as the domain of civilian executive authority. For example, the Prime Minister can make appointments, promotions and transfers up to the rank of Lieutenant General under the law. Four-star generals or service chiefs are supposed to be appointed by the President. In 1988, when General Zia-ul-Haq, the then Chief of Army Staff, sent the name of Major General Pir Dad Khan to Prime Minister Junejo for signing the order of promotion to Lieutenant General, Junejo refused, on grounds that a general who was responsible for losing Siachin did not deserve to be promoted, and, in fact, suggested to Zia that Major General Shamim Alam Khan should be promoted instead. There was a deadlock on the issue, with Zia refusing to withdraw Pir Dad Khan's name. Finally, a compromise was struck and both Major General Pir Dad Khan and Major General Shamim Alam Khan were promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General. Another case that occurred under the public gaze involved the famous order by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to retire Admiral Sirohey. The officer in question had been appointed Chief of Naval Staff in 1986. Before his three-year term ended, he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCst) in 1988. But in 1989, the Prime Minister decided to retire him, on the following grounds: (1) whereas the President was the appointing authority for this rank of officer under the Constitution, the Prime Minister had the authority to retire him; (2) the retirement of Admiral Sirohey fell due three years after his appointment as Admiral, i.e. in 1989. The President, supported by the military, took the contrary view: namely, that Admiral Sirohey's retirement became due not three years after his appointment as Admiral but three years after his appointment as Chairman JCSC, i.e. in 1991; and that the President was both the appointing and the retiring authority. This contention became public and was reported in the press. Eventually, as a result of this pressure, the Prime Minister was obliged to let Sirohey quietly continue in office. The Afghan operation provides another example of the military achieving institutional insulation from civilian authority even where important foreign policy considerations were involved. This operation involved providing material support to Afghan Mujahideen more or less autonomously from civilian authority, even after the latter had signed the Geneva Accord which formally committed the Pakistan government to non-interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. Thus, the military has become increasingly sophisticated in terms of the quality of its professional expertise and the structure of decision-making, and has achieved greater insulation from interventions by civilian authority. At the same time, it has developed a powerful corporate image of itself. The officers owe their privilege, prestige and economic welfare to that organization. Even after they retire they know they will be looked after, with a whole range of military-run welfare societies, housing societies and manufacturing units where post-retirement service can be sought. Whereas morale and esprit de corps have risen rapidly in the army after the 1971 fiasco, the bureaucracy has undergone a gradual decline in its morale over the past three decades. Relations between Military and Bureaucracy Relations between military and bureaucracy over the past four decades have been determined partly by the differing internal processes of change in the two institutions and partly by pressures emanating from civil society, on the one hand, and the international environment on the other. We may discern four broad phases in relations between the military and bureaucracy. • 1951 to 1958. During this period there was an alliance between the bureaucracy and the army through the 'gang of four' consisting of Ghulam Muhammad, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Iskandar Mirza and General Ayub Khan. The dominance of the bureaucracy supported by the army vis-a-vis the political system can be judged from the fact that in April 1953 the then Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, who was an old bureaucrat, dismissed the Khawaja Nazimuddin government even though the Constituent Assembly had given it a vote of confidence. Soon afterwards, the Constituent Assembly met again and passed another vote of confidence, this time in favour of the new Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, who had been nominated to this office by the Governor General. Not only did the Governor General appoint the new Prime Minister, but he also nominated ministers of the cabinet and assigned to them their respective portfolios. Thus, state power effectively passed into the hands of the Governor General and the bureaucracy and military, whose interests he pursued. The function of the Constituent Assembly was reduced merely to rubberstamping his actions. • 1958 to 1968. There was a formal military takeover by General Ayub Khan in 1958 (a process that had begun in 1951). Soon after the coup d'etat, Ayub Khan began to constitute a civilian structure of government which was formally established with the introduction of the system of 'Basic Democracy'. Under this system the President was to be elected not through direct popular vote but indirectly through an electoral college of individuals called 'Basic Democrats' (BDs) who, in turn, had been elected through elections to local bodies at the village level. Given the structure of political power at the village level, based on clans and biradris of the landed elite, the composition of this electoral college overwhelmingly favoured the interests of landlords and rich peasants. These influential landlords who were instrumental in getting the BDs elected had direct links with the bureaucrats. Thus, the BD system, in effect, constituted an instrument through which the bureaucracy could have an outreach into the village level clans and biradris, and could maintain the political system of the Ayub regime. During the Ayub regime there was a power-sharing arrangement between the Army and bureaucracy, with the bureaucracy the dominant partner. An important factor explaining why the internal balance of power within the state structure shifted into the hands of the bureaucracy after the 1958 military coup, was that both Ayub Khan and the military behind him recognized the experience and ability of the civil bureaucracy in wielding state power. Equally important was the fact that the bureaucracy at that stage could still boast of highly competent professional administrators inherited from the ICS tradition, and an institutional cohesiveness in its decision-making structure. • 1971 to 1977. During the early period of the military regime of General Yahya Khan (1969-71) the bureaucracy had been relegated to a relatively minor role compared to the military, in the task of governance. The bureaucracy had also been fragmented and demoralized by the dismissal of 303 civil servants during the regime of General Yahya Khan. The subsequent period under Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto saw the further fragmentation and demoralization of the bureaucracy. The new Bhutto government carved out from the bureaucracy a personalized chain of command through the appointment of politically loyal individuals in key positions. At the same time, an attempt was made to reduce the power of the elite CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) cadre of the bureaucracy. This was done first by purging I ,300 officers on grounds of misuse of power, and filling their vacancies with individuals personally loyal to Bhutto. These were drawn either from other sections of the civil administration or from outside the bureaucracy, by instituting a system of 'lateral entry', as mentioned under section 3.3.1 above. By thus short-circuiting the hierarchy of the CSP and penetrating it with the officers loyal to the PPP, large sections of the bureaucracy were politicized and made amenable for direct use by political forces. • 1977 to 1988. During this period President General Zia-ul-Haq stabilized and rehabilitated the bureaucracy, although it was very much a junior partner to the military in the task of governance. He created a clear demarcation of roles. The military formulated the policy and the bureaucracy was made responsible for implementing it. Although the General relied on the military for his power, even in the daily running of state affairs -there was a regular meeting of the Corp Commanders and Principal Staff Officers under the Chairmanship of General Zia-ul-Haq in his capacity as Chief of Army Staff, to discuss national policy –the General also maintained three senior bureaucrats as close confidants in the administration. They were Secretary General Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Interior Secretary Roedad Khan and Defence Secretary Ijlal Haider Zaidi. Up until his retirement in 1982, Agha Shahi was also an influential bureaucrat on whom the General relied to implement the foreign policy of what was essentially a military regime. The history of the changing balance of power between the army and bureaucracy in Pakistan shows a rapid increase in the weight of the military relative to the bureaucracy in determining national policy in foreign policy, economy and internal security. This shift was due not merely to the weakening of civil society relative to the state apparatus as a whole but, equally importantly, to the institutional deterioration of the bureaucracy as an arm of governance. The Structure of State Power and the People of Pakistan At Independence in 1947, the bureaucracy and the army held a predominant position in the state power structure relative to the institutions of civil society. This was due first to the form of the freedom struggle on the one hand, and the nature of the Muslim League on the other. Since the freedom struggle was essentially a constitutional one, the state apparatus of the colonial regime remained intact, albeit in a weakened condition. The bureaucracy, which constituted the steel frame of the Raj and the army, continued after the emergence of Pakistan to determine the parameters within which political and economic changes were to occur. However, as noted, the position of the military relative to the bureaucracy within the power structure became increasingly important, partly because of the different internal dynamics within each of these two institutions. The second factor in the failure to subordinate the state apparatus to the political system lay in the two basic characteristics of both the Muslim League before partition and the PPP during the two decades between 1970 and 1990. • .In the pre-Independence period both the Muslim League as well as the Pakistan People's Party were movements rather than parties. They were therefore unable to establish an organizational structure or develop a political culture on the basis of which people's power of the people could be institutionalized and used to subordinate the army and the bureaucracy to a stable political system. • The Muslim League in the decade before partition, and the PPP during the early 1970s, were taken over by landlords whose political interest lay in constraining the process of political development and, while ruling in the name of the people, in confining politics to a struggle for sharing the economic spoils amongst various factions of the political elite. The political elite in Pakistan has so far demonstrably failed to build within the state of Pakistan a modern democratic polity marked with social justice, as envisaged by the founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This would have meant building institutions through which the will of the people could become operative within the power structure, developing a political culture which could strengthen and sustain these institutions, and finally, initiating an industrialization process through which the people of Pakistan could make a contribution to the contemporary world. Members of Pakistan's political elite have generally preferred narrow personal gain to national interest, and have engaged in internecine quarrels fuelled with greed in situations which required unity and self-sacrifice for the nation. Yet, despite the failure of the political elite, the dominance of the military in the structure of state power and growing social polarization, it is remarkable that whenever the people as a whole have intervened, not only have they shown a high level of political consciousness but, it can be argued, their political maturity has grown over time. For example, in 1956 when Western powers were involved in a conflict with Nasser's Egypt, even though the government and the political elite supported the Western allied powers, the people of Pakistan came out on the streets in large numbers to voice their support for the nationalist struggle of the people of Egypt. Again in 1968, the people of Pakistan came out on the streets to express their opposition to the regime of Ayub Khan which at the political level had repressed popular aspirations, at the economic level had generated acute inequality between social groups and regions, and at the foreign policy level had compromised Pakistan's national pride in the Tashkent Agreement. After the Pakistan Movement, whose struggle for Pakistan resulted in the creation of a new state, the movement against the Ayub regime was the second great movement. It generated demands for social equality, justice and political representation of the dispossessed. It was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who articulated the deep-rooted aspirations of the people during this period: in a short time-span, he was catapulted into power in 1971. Yet, within six years the people had grasped the failure of Prime Minister Bhutto to build a state structure in which power could actually go to citizens at the grass roots; a political system within which the ruling People's Party could generate new leadership at several levels of society, and an economic system under which drastic measures could be taken to alleviate poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease. The disillusionment of the people with their beloved leader was expressed by their silence when the PNA led an urban revolt to destabilize the regime of Prime Minister Bhutto. However, the enduring contribution of Z.A. Bhutto in articulating the aspirations of the poor and in giving a new dignity and pride to the wretched of the earth was acknowledged by the people of Pakistan anguish expressed after his 'judicial' assassination. Benazir Bhutto took on the mantle of leadership in the struggle against the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, the people once again responded with both passion and heroism. The popular struggle against the dictatorship of the General culminated first in the 1983 movement and later in the unprecedented demonstration in Lahore on the arrival of Benazir Bhutto in August 1986. But then, within 20 months after the popularly elected Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had come into power, when the people once again went to the polls they expressed their dissatisfaction with the performance of her regime by voting in favour of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI Alliance), the multi-party political alliance formed against Bhutto the 1988 general elections. Thus it is that the people of Pakistan, the poor and downtrodden, despite the erosion of institutions of civil society, have nevertheless demonstrated a high level of political consciousness and emerged as a factor to be reckoned with. It is for this reason that the military, even when there was no apparent obstacle to the reimposition of military rule, after the death of Zia on 17 August 1988, sought a civilian dispensation within which it could exercise its power as a major actor, and through which the latent tensions of the populace could be defused.