Published in the period following General Zia-ul-Haq’s military coup in Pakistan and the nearly concurrent move of the Soviet forces to invade Afghanistan, a book became mandatory reading in the Pakistan army. Authored by a serving, career military officer, Brigadier S.K. Malik, who was well-schooled in modern, Western military theory, The Quranic Concept of War was originally published in Lahore and carried a Foreword by Zia. In it, Malik explains the concept of Islamic ‘Just War’ and reviews the exercise of Quranic warfare based on the examples of Prophet Muhammed’s military campaigns. Zia’s Foreword gave the book an official imprimatur, and it was noticed by the Indian military when it was republished in India in 1992.
The transformation of Pakistan's military under Zia's dictatorship was nothing short of revolutionary. In a mere decade, a professional, British-legacy institution had morphed into a bastion of Islamic ideology. Zia, a devout Muslim known as ‘Maulvi Zia-ul-Haq’ in some Pakistani military circles, saw Islam as the panacea for Pakistan's ills as well as the glue to hold the nation together. His Islamisation drive was neither superficial nor instrumental. The army's motto was changed from M.A. Jinnah’s “Unity, Faith, and Discipline” to “Faith, Piety, and Jihad for the sake of Allah”. Mandatory prayers, Islamic studies, and the proliferation of religious seminaries became the order of the day. Zia allowed the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic revivalist group, to spread their ideas among the soldiers.
During Zia’s time, the display of piety and Islamic commitment affected the promotion of officers. Outward expressions of Islamic piety, such as beard allowances, were introduced. Stephen Cohen, who conducted his field research on Pakistan army in the late 1970s and the early 1980s and wrote a book that was banned in Pakistan, noted that faith was “an important part of the private life of army officers and was always under the microscope, but during Zia’s time, an officer’s piety and worship were considered part of his official evaluation and promotion.” He gave examples of distinctive Islamic war slogans among the military to suggest a fusion of nationalism, religion and military service where plaques announced that “fighting in the way of God, fighting in the way of truth, is the highest stage of worship and serving in the armed forces is equivalent to a lifetime of worship.”
Pakistan’s army soon reimagined itself as the guardian of the ideological frontiers of the nation. Cohen studied the lectures of Colonel Abdul Qayyum during the 1970s, which were later published as a book with an Introduction by Zia. Qayyum encouraged the army officers to honour mullahs and maulvis because these “spiritual” figures can connect an officer’s “faith, profession and western education”. Cohen quoted a senior Pakistani military official saying, “Expressions such as ‘Pakistan ideology’ and ‘Islamic glory’, which are usually not part of the professional vocabulary of a military person, it has become a common phrase… the heads of military departments talk more like etymologist than a soldier.”
The consequences of this radical shift were profound and far-reaching. The Islamisation of the army had a ripple effect on Pakistani society at large. As the most powerful institution in the country, the military's embrace of conservative Islam lent legitimacy to extremist ideologies. The seeds of sectarianism and religious intolerance, sown during Zia's rule, would later blossom into full-blown extremism. Zia's policies created a generation of officers steeped in a particular brand of Islamic ideology. This affected Pakistan's foreign policy, particularly its approach to the Afghan conflict and its relations with India. The country has not come to terms with the consequences of a military that was reshaped not just by martial discipline but by the force of religious ideology. This makes it more difficult to separate religion from matters of State and security. As Pakistan gets dismissed as a basket case globally despite possessing nuclear weapons, the ghost of Zia's Islamisation haunts the general headquarters in Rawalpindi, a stark reminder of the perils of infusing the military with religiosity.
Pakistan should serve as a salutary example for other countries with similar legacies about the dangers of inculcating a majoritarian religious ideology into the military. It takes a lot to wreck an institution. Somehow, the Indian military, which had taken a distinctly different path from its Pakistani counterpart after 1947, does not seem to have learnt the lessons. Recently, the army chief, General Upendra Dwivedi, was seen with the defence minister, Rajnath Singh, propitiating a deity at a temple near Mhow where the minister was on an official trip. The army chief was in the attire of a traditional Hindu devotee and in an outward expression of religiosity by the top military officer, the picture was formally released on social media. It could very well have been a private visit to the temple but the official imprimatur is bound to have sent a message to the rank and file. Dwivedi’s picture was a far cry from the Sarva Dharma Sthal being a part of the army’s DNA that many officers used to boast of only a decade back.
Soon after, the general was seen at Prayagraj, purportedly to encourage and support the soldiers who had helped the civil administration during the Mahakumbh religious celebrations. This should not even come as a surprise because trips by senior military officers to the Amarnath cave and to Vaishno Devi, as well as public releases of these ‘official’ visits, have become de rigueur in the past decade. Such shifts are no longer noted as the armed forces focus on an idea of decolonisation that echoes the Hindutva framing of ‘1000 years of slavery’. It forgets that some of the units of the forces of princely states like Jaipur which became part of the Indian army post-Independence had won honours while fighting for the greatest empire India has produced in its history — the Mughal empire.
The shift was amply visible when the army started ‘Project Udbhav’ in collaboration with the United Service Institution of India. General Manoj Pande, the then army chief, said on the occasion, “The Project has delved deep into ancient texts such as Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and Arthashastra, which are rooted in inter-connectedness, righteousness and ethical values. Furthermore, it has explored the epic battles of the Mahabharata and the strategic brilliance practised during the reigns of Mauryas, Guptas and Marathas, which has shaped India’s rich military heritage.” No prizes for guessing the religious-ideological narrative being furthered by such an exercise, mimicking what Zia did with the Pakistan army.
These episodes did not elicit public outrage but the shifting of the iconic image of the surrender by Pakistani forces at Dhaka in 1971 from its prime location in the army chief’s office annexe earned public rebuke and condemnation. In a belated move after the embarrassment, the army moved the image to a supposedly “befitting place” in the Manekshaw Centre, which is not a patch on its previous placement. Equally significant is the new painting, Karam Kshetra, which replaced the iconic image. On the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh, you have a Brahmin, supposedly Kautilya, standing tall over a chariot with Krishna and Arjuna on the Mahabharata battlefield, directing a modern army towards the battlefield — insipid as art but apt for ideological messaging.
Spewing etymology, infusing religiosity in the name of tradition, studying mythological battles as military strategy and defending ideological frontiers — where have we seen this before? After witnessing how the journey went in Pakistan, the only words that come to mind are what Zia told Lieutenant-General Faiz Ali Chishti, who pulled off the coup d’etat in 1977: “Murshid, marwa na dena.”
Sushant Singh is lecturer at Yale University