Pakistan: Landowner or military?

THE acquisition of land for military use has over the years become the acquisition of land for the military’s use: putting land acquired from private landowners to commercial use instead of for non-revenue generating, military purposes. And even where the land is put to genuine use for military purposes, the manner in which it is identified and acquired leaves a sense of a great privileged military class that can pick and choose from the very best alternatives — a class of super landlords that can have whatever it sets its heart on. Now, finally, a special Senate committee may begin to shine a light on the very opaque methods by which the military has come to own hundreds of thousands of acres of land and decide for itself what use to put it to.

To be sure, the sheer size of the armed forces means that its basic — and valid — needs will involve the legitimate and state-sanctioned appropriation at the market rate of many tracts of land. But also clear is that in the name of defence and national security, the military has built for itself a vast commercial empire that in fact detracts from the core training and preparedness that is required of any military. Take, for example, the particular issue the special Senate committee will also have a look at: the acquisition of privately owned land in Nowshera at knockdown rates by the military for building a firing range. Neither have the previous landowners been paid the market rate as required by the superior courts nor has the land been kept exclusively for the purposes it was acquired for. The Senate has been informed that presumably revenue-earning orchards also now stand on the multi-billion rupee tract of land.

The Nowshera case though is not even the tip of the iceberg. The most egregious example of publicly owned land put to private use for the enrichment of the military is the vast Defence Housing Authorities that have created enclaves of the super rich, all done in the name of creating an allegedly necessary incentive and rewards structure for army officers. In truth, however, it is a very public manifestation of the long-standing civil-military imbalance and the fact that the military is often seen as an institution that cannot be said ‘no’ to. But as the transition to democracy gathers pace, the old configuration of power must be challenged — and that will necessarily involve questioning how the military acquires and uses its assets, especially land. For too long even talk of the assertion of civilian supremacy was seen as an attempt to subjugate or humiliate the military. But it is really about constitutional subordination and the rule of law — where the military remains a strong force to carry out its core duties without taking undue advantage of its might.