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Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Building cantonments to generate low-level employment is unlikely to change peoples’ perceptions of the military
President Pervez Musharraf recently inaugurated a cadet college in Okara. He also used the opportunity to announce other development projects for the area. This seems in line with the current strategy of the military (and the government) to undertake targeted development, especially in areas suffering from intense civil-military conflict. The military appears to believe that material development accompanied with a higher profile of the armed forces will not just improve the socio-economic condition of such areas but also change the peoples?T perception of the military. This is the Pannu Aqil model and the military now seems to want to replicate it in Okara and Balochistan.
The ISPR has been vociferously defending the army?Ts right to build a cantonment in Balochistan. It has also defended the right of the army to maintain its control over the controversial farms in Okara. As the director-general of ISPR put it: ?oThe needs of the Army will be decided by the Army itself, and/or the government will decide this. Nobody has the right to say what the Army can do with 5,000 acres or 17,000 acres. The Needs of the Army will be determined by the Army itself.?
Clearly, the army is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect its interests and establish its institutionalised presence in order to ensure that its verdict is understood.
In one way, of course, Okara and Sui are different cases. Okara is comparatively closer to the military?Ts traditional stronghold. In the past 10-15 years, induction into the army from small towns like Sahiwal, Okara and Faisalabad has increased. This is different from the 1950s through 1980s when the military predominantly recruited from 3-4 districts in North Punjab and the NWFP and two districts in Azad Kashmir. The expansion of the recruitment base to central Punjab also allows it to increase its visibility in such areas. In the case of Okara district, development work also makes sense because of the battering of its image that has resulted after the army?Ts standoff with the peasants on the issue of Military Farms.
The Pannu Aqil cantonment was established during the 1980s, at the time of an internal conflict in the province. An additional factor was the increased Indian threat to Punjab?Ts south. The Indian military exercise, Brasstacks, had exposed Indian operational planning regarding potential military conflict with Pakistan. Hence, Islamabad needed to strengthen its defences, especially around the possibly threatened area. However, this could be achieved equally effectively by building a military base rather than a cantonment.
A cantonment has a different structure than a base. While the latter involves basic facilities to keep military equipment, arms and ammunition with essential manpower, the former is a sprawling concept that includes and houses non-essential personnel as well. The concept of a cantonment is closer to that of a fort that quarters net interests of the force occupying and controlling the place. The dependence on the local population or interaction with them could vary depending on the perception of the controlling force. A lot of modern militaries have discarded the concept of a cantonment due to its high cost and bases are considered more affordable.
The cantonment increases stakes in an area without necessarily creating institutional linkages with the area. For instance, a cantonment might not necessarily bolster a local economy. Since supplies are generally centralised, a particular area might not necessarily benefit from a cantonment. In any case, Pakistani cantonments with their system of subsidised stores are always more attractive for shopping for a military family than those outside. However, there are indirect benefits to local economies as well, particularly if the cantonment is situated in a friendly area or the local population is sufficiently cooperative or subdued. In such cases, military families can boost certain segments of the local economy.
This might not happen in an unfriendly environment such as that prevailing in Balochistan. The environment will not be congenial for the army to initially establish a full facility. It would definitely not be a situation where military families could venture out into local areas without maximum security. The cost of securing such a place would be far higher and raises the questions of why a cantonment is required in Balochistan or what its impact will be.
The cantonment conforms to the new role of internal security. On numerous occasions, President Musharraf has talked about the greater threat being internal in nature rather than external. The threat in Balochistan, a province where one would observe interplay of various regional and extra-regional forces or tension between domestic players, is going to increase manifold in the foreseeable future. The GHQ wants to provide protection against any such threat that weakens the union. This is a model that seems to have worked in the case of Sindh. The decade or more of the Pannu Aqil cantonment has definitely altered the structure of Sindhi society and areas around the cantonment. Although the majority of the people are non-Sindhis, jobs have come to the locals at the lower level.
On the downside, in Sindh?Ts case, the army?Ts presence has helped dilute the mystical instincts of the society replacing the area?Ts existential Islam with hardcore, orthodox Deobandi Islam. This is a phenomenon that needs much greater data input to see how the army might have contributed to this transformation.
In the case of Pannu Aqil, the cantonment was built after the people were sufficiently subdued and harnessed through the use of force. This approach has been used elsewhere also, for instance, in India where East Punjab was controlled through counter-violence. But this strategy only works in the absence of any blatant post-conflict display of state force that always becomes more pronounced with the military?Ts presence. Islamabad was also helped tremendously in Sindh by the local elite that favoured the establishment for personal gains. Indeed, the elite in Sindh has benefited from its association with what are otherwise condemned in Sindh as pro-Punjab forces.
This methodology might not work in Balochistan where the elite demands greater share from the seemingly uncompromising establishment. A cantonment might not necessarily create friends among the local population, something that did not even happen in Sindh except in cases where the population was converted ideologically. There is a strong line that divides Pakistan into two: a pro-union and a pro-secessionist Pakistan or people that are ?~in?T versus those that are ?~out?T in terms of the benefits that accrue from the existence of this state of affairs.
The negative perceptions would not go away unless a cantonment offers more to the local population or provides a sense of ownership to the Baloch and the Sindhi. Employment opportunities at the lowest rung are not likely to make the population friendlier towards the concept of a cantonment or the armed forces.
The situation in Balochistan, in particular, calls for the use of a different socioeconomic development paradigm. A strategy that divides the spoils on the basis of a belief that the establishment in Islamabad has better knowledge of how things are to be done or should be done will remain counterproductive. Routing development through the provincial government with failsafe mechanism to ensure results would, perhaps, be the only way out of political chaos.
Dr Siddiqa is currently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington DC | 
