As the military is so powerful in Pakistan, it may be pertinent to note a characteristic of the men in khaki. It is that absolute rulers, which is what the military is there, enter what may be called the well of complacency as a consequence of their perception of omnipotence in the country. The higher rungs of the military descend further and further down the well, not noticing that with every descent deeper, the oxygen of reality becomes rarer. Thus the genuine popular unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan gets dismissed as “meddling by India”. The consequence is that instead of looking at the actual causes of the unrest and remedying the situation, Band-Aids are applied in the form of armed force. Applying such a presumed remedy only makes the unrest grow and cause greater manifestation of the violence directed against the army by the public. The action and reaction, both predictable, eventually will reach a point where the prospect of a breaking away from the structure of the Pakistani state becomes a reality. Neither the Pashtuns nor the Baloch are willing to accept the dominance over their lives by the military and its affiliates and friends. As is well known, the higher command of the military in Pakistan is dominated by Pakistani Punjabis, who majorly come from a corner of the province, Potohar. Even people in Punjab province are getting restive at the way in which they are being used to further the interests of the higher rungs of the military and their external masters, now almost entirely Chinese. Which is why the Chinese have become a hate object within a substantial segment of the population of Pakistan. Wherever feasible, they strip the mineral wealth of the country, giving a smaller share to accomplices of the army who facilitate the task. While the world outside (i.e. the unity of Pakistan) is crumbling, those who are deeper and deeper in the Well of Complacency sense nothing save what they have conditioned themselves to believe, which is that such unrest is a plot by India.
Entering into Wells of Complacency is not unique to the Pakistan military. Authoritarian rulers suffer from the same syndrome. Believing that they have established control through gerrymandering and worse, they go deeper and deeper into the well, in the process losing touch with reality. Next door, that is what happened to Sheikh Hasina, who was busy manipulating a fourth term and preparing the ground for her son to succeed her. Corruption and maladministration grew along with complacency, leaving her unprepared to face the torrent of unrest that forced her to flee to India. Farther afield, an example could be found in Syria, where Bashar Assad had to similarly flee in order to avoid being lynched by the ocean of mobs that rose against his ever growing misrule. Each such dictator has a small coterie of intimates around him or her, seeing the same faces every morning when coming to work until every evening, when the work for the day is over. Each member of the coterie busy themselves flattering the authoritarian ruler, while enriching themselves on the side. The public at large is taken for granted until they suddenly erupt into revolt. Unfortunately, those who seize control during such turmoil often turn out to be even worse than the dictator they have deposed, as appears to be the case in Syria and Bangladesh. While Syria descended into what can only be described as mass murder, especially of the Alawaites, the community Assad comes from, in Bangladesh the Hindu and Christian minorities were at the receiving end of hate and violence. In both countries, the economy slid into chaos, thereby intensifying public discontent. Unless a state government gets formed in West Bengal that is committed to preventing an influx of disaffected citizens of the neighbouring country, the situation will get worse. All depends on the coming Assembly polls in the state. In brief, complacency is the enemy of good government, a system committed to integrity and efficiency.
