The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

34
This article was downloaded by: [University of Birmingham] On: 14 November 2014, At: 23:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Strategic Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjss20 The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps C. Christine Fair a & Shuja Nawaz b a Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University , Washington, DC, USA b South Asia Center, Atlantic Council , Washington, DC, USA Published online: 24 Feb 2011. To cite this article: C. Christine Fair & Shuja Nawaz (2011) The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps, Journal of Strategic Studies, 34:1, 63-94, DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2011.541765 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2011.541765 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

Transcript of The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Page 1: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

This article was downloaded by [University of Birmingham]On 14 November 2014 At 2358Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number 1072954Registered office Mortimer House 37-41 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JHUK

Journal of Strategic StudiesPublication details including instructions for authorsand subscription informationhttpwwwtandfonlinecomloifjss20

The Changing Pakistan ArmyOfficer CorpsC Christine Fair a amp Shuja Nawaz ba Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign ServiceGeorgetown University Washington DC USAb South Asia Center Atlantic Council Washington DCUSAPublished online 24 Feb 2011

To cite this article C Christine Fair amp Shuja Nawaz (2011) The ChangingPakistan Army Officer Corps Journal of Strategic Studies 341 63-94 DOI101080014023902011541765

To link to this article httpdxdoiorg101080014023902011541765

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor amp Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the ldquoContentrdquo) contained in the publications on our platformHowever Taylor amp Francis our agents and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy completeness orsuitability for any purpose of the Content Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor amp Francis The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses actionsclaims proceedings demands costs expenses damages and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content

This article may be used for research teaching and private study purposesAny substantial or systematic reproduction redistribution reselling loan sub-licensing systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

forbidden Terms amp Conditions of access and use can be found at httpwwwtandfonlinecompageterms-and-conditions

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The Changing Pakistan ArmyOfficer Corps

C CHRISTINE FAIR AND SHUJA NAWAZ

Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown UniversityWashington DC USA South Asia Center Atlantic Council Washington

DC USA

ABSTRACT The Pakistan Army elicits many concerns about terrorism nuclearand the coherence of the state However very little is actually known about thisinstitution This article mobilizes unique data to address one important facet theArmyrsquos geographical recruitment base We find that the Pakistan Army has beensuccessful at expanding the geographical recruitment base while some groups(namely those who are native to Sindh) remain highly under-represented We alsofind that the officer corps is increasingly coming from urban areas We concludewith a discussion of the implications of these important shifts subject to thelimitations of our data

KEY WORDS Pakistan Army Changing Demographics Pakistan ArmyRecruitment

The Pakistan Army has governed Pakistan directly through militaryrule for more than half of Pakistanrsquos history since it becameindependent in 1947 The Army has governed indirectly for theremainder by manipulating and undermining civilian political partiesand other institutions and through pro-active manipulations ofdomestic political developments The Army has long justified itspreeminent role in the state by arguing that it alone is the soleinstitution capable of protecting Pakistan against external threats posedby India and against internal threats posed by centripetal ethnic fissuresand sectarian conflict With the exception of notable and extraordinaryperiods in Pakistanrsquos history Pakistanis accept this role and hold theArmy in high esteem1

1Following the 1971 war when the Pakistan Army lost Bangladesh antipathy towardsthe Army was prevalent In 2007 Pakistani regard for the Army again plummetedowing to President Pervez Musharrafrsquos unpopular policies including alignment withthe US-led global war on terror the military operations against domestic militants and

The Journal of Strategic StudiesVol 34 No 1 63ndash94 February 2011

ISSN 0140-2390 PrintISSN 1743-937X Online11010063-32 2011 Taylor amp Francis

DOI 101080014023902011541765

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Yet the Pakistan Army discomfits many analysts and policymakersoutside of Pakistan for several inter-related reasons some of whichhave little empirical basis but persist nonetheless First the PakistanArmy is assumed to be the custodian of the countryrsquos nuclear weaponsprogram with a demonstrable nuclear proliferation track recordHowever the National Command Authority is actually charged withthis task2 The notorious activities of AQ Khan since the 1970sunderscore Pakistanrsquos intent to engage in subterfuge to acquire strategiccapabilities Pakistanrsquos relationships with Iran China and North Koreahave been characterized by extensive nuclear andor missile technologyproliferation with presumed army sanction Second along with theintelligence agency it oversees ndash the Inter-Services IntelligenceDirectorate (ISI) ndash it has raised nurtured and employed Islamistmilitants to secure its interests vis-a-vis India and Afghanistan since1947 and 1960 respectively with varying intensity Third the PakistanArmy plays a pivotal ndash but controversial and highly criticized ndash role inthe US-led efforts to contend with the threats posed by Al-Qarsquoeda andthe Afghan Taliban3

failed domestic policies with respect to energy and the economy among other concernsSince then the Army has recovered its standing See International Republic InstitutelsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 Julyndash7 Augrsquo 1 Oct 20095wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_July_15-August_7_2009pdf42Command and control has been formalized through the creation of the NationalCommand Authority (NCA) in 2000 NCA is the countryrsquos topmost decisionmakingbody on issues pertaining to Pakistani nuclear affairs including nuclear use Its ten-member body is headed by the countryrsquos president and also includes the prime ministerand army chief of staff However the army-dominated Strategic Plans Directorate(SPD) is responsible for oversight of the nuclear weapons program SPD is currentlyheaded by a retired army lieutenant general It acts as the secretariat of NCA and hasthe responsibility for the implementation of policies and measures relating to thenuclear arsenal See International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear BlackMarkets Pakistan AQ Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks A NetAssessment (London IISS 2007)3See US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism USOversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo(Washington DC GAO 2008) John D Negroponte Deputy Secretary of StatelsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous AreasrsquoTestimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 20 May 2008 PeterBeaumont and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New classified USdocuments reveal that mass infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan insurgents ishelping latest offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4 Ann Scott Tyson lsquoA Sober Assessment ofAfghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50 Spike in Attacks in EastrsquoWashington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyncontentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

64 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Fourth in recent years the Pakistan state has come under direct attackfrom domestic militants operating under the moniker lsquoTehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistanrsquo (aka lsquoThe Pakistani Talibanrsquo (TTP))4 Elements of the TTPhave attacked military paramilitary police and other governance targetsperpetrated a suicide bombing campaign against government entities andcitizens alike and seized pockets of territory in the Pashtun belt and setup parallel structures of government These events have precipitatedfurther concerns with varying degrees of validity about the stability ofthe state and its strategic assets These concerns have been mitigated insome measure by the Armyrsquos redoubled military efforts in 2009 to regainlost territory5 However the international community is not confidentthat the Army will succeed against the TTP much less commit to tacklingthe Afghan Taliban or other militant groups that have been affiliated withPakistani intelligence in the past

These facts motivate many apprehensions about the Pakistan ArmySome analysts and policymakers have speculated that the Army maysplit imperiling the territorial integrity of the state as well as thesecurity of Pakistanrsquos nuclear weapons Variants of this uneasinessinvolve the Army cleaving with Islamist radicals and forming adangerous rump that supports Islamist terrorists and may providenuclear weapons or technology to terrorists More plausibly thePakistan Army given its long association with militant proxies may beunwilling to act against militant groups comprehensively This concernremains even though the Army has taken on those particular militantgroups that have attacked the Pakistani state Speculation about theimpact of the Armyrsquos sustained internal security operations upon themorale and discipline of the Army are cause for further unease6

The Army is also believed to be at the bottom of significant internaldiscord Speculation is rife that the Army is Punjabi dominated andseeks to protect Punjabi ethnic equities7 The presumed ethnicimbalance is posited as a source of ethnic strife in Pakistan8

4Hassan Abbas lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 1 2 (Jan 2008)5C Christine Fair and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec2009ndashJan 2010) 161ndash886Russ Wallen lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June2009 5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4 Shaun Gregory lsquoTheTerrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July 2009)7Mushahid Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally publishedin The Nation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604 Selig S Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquosEthnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html48Selig S Harrison lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 20085wwwnytimescom20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 65

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Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

66 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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nloa

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by [

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14

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r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

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14

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embe

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14

Page 2: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

forbidden Terms amp Conditions of access and use can be found at httpwwwtandfonlinecompageterms-and-conditions

Dow

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The Changing Pakistan ArmyOfficer Corps

C CHRISTINE FAIR AND SHUJA NAWAZ

Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown UniversityWashington DC USA South Asia Center Atlantic Council Washington

DC USA

ABSTRACT The Pakistan Army elicits many concerns about terrorism nuclearand the coherence of the state However very little is actually known about thisinstitution This article mobilizes unique data to address one important facet theArmyrsquos geographical recruitment base We find that the Pakistan Army has beensuccessful at expanding the geographical recruitment base while some groups(namely those who are native to Sindh) remain highly under-represented We alsofind that the officer corps is increasingly coming from urban areas We concludewith a discussion of the implications of these important shifts subject to thelimitations of our data

KEY WORDS Pakistan Army Changing Demographics Pakistan ArmyRecruitment

The Pakistan Army has governed Pakistan directly through militaryrule for more than half of Pakistanrsquos history since it becameindependent in 1947 The Army has governed indirectly for theremainder by manipulating and undermining civilian political partiesand other institutions and through pro-active manipulations ofdomestic political developments The Army has long justified itspreeminent role in the state by arguing that it alone is the soleinstitution capable of protecting Pakistan against external threats posedby India and against internal threats posed by centripetal ethnic fissuresand sectarian conflict With the exception of notable and extraordinaryperiods in Pakistanrsquos history Pakistanis accept this role and hold theArmy in high esteem1

1Following the 1971 war when the Pakistan Army lost Bangladesh antipathy towardsthe Army was prevalent In 2007 Pakistani regard for the Army again plummetedowing to President Pervez Musharrafrsquos unpopular policies including alignment withthe US-led global war on terror the military operations against domestic militants and

The Journal of Strategic StudiesVol 34 No 1 63ndash94 February 2011

ISSN 0140-2390 PrintISSN 1743-937X Online11010063-32 2011 Taylor amp Francis

DOI 101080014023902011541765

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Yet the Pakistan Army discomfits many analysts and policymakersoutside of Pakistan for several inter-related reasons some of whichhave little empirical basis but persist nonetheless First the PakistanArmy is assumed to be the custodian of the countryrsquos nuclear weaponsprogram with a demonstrable nuclear proliferation track recordHowever the National Command Authority is actually charged withthis task2 The notorious activities of AQ Khan since the 1970sunderscore Pakistanrsquos intent to engage in subterfuge to acquire strategiccapabilities Pakistanrsquos relationships with Iran China and North Koreahave been characterized by extensive nuclear andor missile technologyproliferation with presumed army sanction Second along with theintelligence agency it oversees ndash the Inter-Services IntelligenceDirectorate (ISI) ndash it has raised nurtured and employed Islamistmilitants to secure its interests vis-a-vis India and Afghanistan since1947 and 1960 respectively with varying intensity Third the PakistanArmy plays a pivotal ndash but controversial and highly criticized ndash role inthe US-led efforts to contend with the threats posed by Al-Qarsquoeda andthe Afghan Taliban3

failed domestic policies with respect to energy and the economy among other concernsSince then the Army has recovered its standing See International Republic InstitutelsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 Julyndash7 Augrsquo 1 Oct 20095wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_July_15-August_7_2009pdf42Command and control has been formalized through the creation of the NationalCommand Authority (NCA) in 2000 NCA is the countryrsquos topmost decisionmakingbody on issues pertaining to Pakistani nuclear affairs including nuclear use Its ten-member body is headed by the countryrsquos president and also includes the prime ministerand army chief of staff However the army-dominated Strategic Plans Directorate(SPD) is responsible for oversight of the nuclear weapons program SPD is currentlyheaded by a retired army lieutenant general It acts as the secretariat of NCA and hasthe responsibility for the implementation of policies and measures relating to thenuclear arsenal See International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear BlackMarkets Pakistan AQ Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks A NetAssessment (London IISS 2007)3See US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism USOversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo(Washington DC GAO 2008) John D Negroponte Deputy Secretary of StatelsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous AreasrsquoTestimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 20 May 2008 PeterBeaumont and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New classified USdocuments reveal that mass infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan insurgents ishelping latest offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4 Ann Scott Tyson lsquoA Sober Assessment ofAfghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50 Spike in Attacks in EastrsquoWashington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyncontentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

64 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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Fourth in recent years the Pakistan state has come under direct attackfrom domestic militants operating under the moniker lsquoTehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistanrsquo (aka lsquoThe Pakistani Talibanrsquo (TTP))4 Elements of the TTPhave attacked military paramilitary police and other governance targetsperpetrated a suicide bombing campaign against government entities andcitizens alike and seized pockets of territory in the Pashtun belt and setup parallel structures of government These events have precipitatedfurther concerns with varying degrees of validity about the stability ofthe state and its strategic assets These concerns have been mitigated insome measure by the Armyrsquos redoubled military efforts in 2009 to regainlost territory5 However the international community is not confidentthat the Army will succeed against the TTP much less commit to tacklingthe Afghan Taliban or other militant groups that have been affiliated withPakistani intelligence in the past

These facts motivate many apprehensions about the Pakistan ArmySome analysts and policymakers have speculated that the Army maysplit imperiling the territorial integrity of the state as well as thesecurity of Pakistanrsquos nuclear weapons Variants of this uneasinessinvolve the Army cleaving with Islamist radicals and forming adangerous rump that supports Islamist terrorists and may providenuclear weapons or technology to terrorists More plausibly thePakistan Army given its long association with militant proxies may beunwilling to act against militant groups comprehensively This concernremains even though the Army has taken on those particular militantgroups that have attacked the Pakistani state Speculation about theimpact of the Armyrsquos sustained internal security operations upon themorale and discipline of the Army are cause for further unease6

The Army is also believed to be at the bottom of significant internaldiscord Speculation is rife that the Army is Punjabi dominated andseeks to protect Punjabi ethnic equities7 The presumed ethnicimbalance is posited as a source of ethnic strife in Pakistan8

4Hassan Abbas lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 1 2 (Jan 2008)5C Christine Fair and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec2009ndashJan 2010) 161ndash886Russ Wallen lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June2009 5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4 Shaun Gregory lsquoTheTerrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July 2009)7Mushahid Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally publishedin The Nation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604 Selig S Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquosEthnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html48Selig S Harrison lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 20085wwwnytimescom20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 65

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Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

66 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

Dow

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

68 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

Dow

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

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embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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by [

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at 2

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embe

r 20

14

Page 3: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

The Changing Pakistan ArmyOfficer Corps

C CHRISTINE FAIR AND SHUJA NAWAZ

Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown UniversityWashington DC USA South Asia Center Atlantic Council Washington

DC USA

ABSTRACT The Pakistan Army elicits many concerns about terrorism nuclearand the coherence of the state However very little is actually known about thisinstitution This article mobilizes unique data to address one important facet theArmyrsquos geographical recruitment base We find that the Pakistan Army has beensuccessful at expanding the geographical recruitment base while some groups(namely those who are native to Sindh) remain highly under-represented We alsofind that the officer corps is increasingly coming from urban areas We concludewith a discussion of the implications of these important shifts subject to thelimitations of our data

KEY WORDS Pakistan Army Changing Demographics Pakistan ArmyRecruitment

The Pakistan Army has governed Pakistan directly through militaryrule for more than half of Pakistanrsquos history since it becameindependent in 1947 The Army has governed indirectly for theremainder by manipulating and undermining civilian political partiesand other institutions and through pro-active manipulations ofdomestic political developments The Army has long justified itspreeminent role in the state by arguing that it alone is the soleinstitution capable of protecting Pakistan against external threats posedby India and against internal threats posed by centripetal ethnic fissuresand sectarian conflict With the exception of notable and extraordinaryperiods in Pakistanrsquos history Pakistanis accept this role and hold theArmy in high esteem1

1Following the 1971 war when the Pakistan Army lost Bangladesh antipathy towardsthe Army was prevalent In 2007 Pakistani regard for the Army again plummetedowing to President Pervez Musharrafrsquos unpopular policies including alignment withthe US-led global war on terror the military operations against domestic militants and

The Journal of Strategic StudiesVol 34 No 1 63ndash94 February 2011

ISSN 0140-2390 PrintISSN 1743-937X Online11010063-32 2011 Taylor amp Francis

DOI 101080014023902011541765

Dow

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Yet the Pakistan Army discomfits many analysts and policymakersoutside of Pakistan for several inter-related reasons some of whichhave little empirical basis but persist nonetheless First the PakistanArmy is assumed to be the custodian of the countryrsquos nuclear weaponsprogram with a demonstrable nuclear proliferation track recordHowever the National Command Authority is actually charged withthis task2 The notorious activities of AQ Khan since the 1970sunderscore Pakistanrsquos intent to engage in subterfuge to acquire strategiccapabilities Pakistanrsquos relationships with Iran China and North Koreahave been characterized by extensive nuclear andor missile technologyproliferation with presumed army sanction Second along with theintelligence agency it oversees ndash the Inter-Services IntelligenceDirectorate (ISI) ndash it has raised nurtured and employed Islamistmilitants to secure its interests vis-a-vis India and Afghanistan since1947 and 1960 respectively with varying intensity Third the PakistanArmy plays a pivotal ndash but controversial and highly criticized ndash role inthe US-led efforts to contend with the threats posed by Al-Qarsquoeda andthe Afghan Taliban3

failed domestic policies with respect to energy and the economy among other concernsSince then the Army has recovered its standing See International Republic InstitutelsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 Julyndash7 Augrsquo 1 Oct 20095wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_July_15-August_7_2009pdf42Command and control has been formalized through the creation of the NationalCommand Authority (NCA) in 2000 NCA is the countryrsquos topmost decisionmakingbody on issues pertaining to Pakistani nuclear affairs including nuclear use Its ten-member body is headed by the countryrsquos president and also includes the prime ministerand army chief of staff However the army-dominated Strategic Plans Directorate(SPD) is responsible for oversight of the nuclear weapons program SPD is currentlyheaded by a retired army lieutenant general It acts as the secretariat of NCA and hasthe responsibility for the implementation of policies and measures relating to thenuclear arsenal See International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear BlackMarkets Pakistan AQ Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks A NetAssessment (London IISS 2007)3See US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism USOversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo(Washington DC GAO 2008) John D Negroponte Deputy Secretary of StatelsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous AreasrsquoTestimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 20 May 2008 PeterBeaumont and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New classified USdocuments reveal that mass infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan insurgents ishelping latest offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4 Ann Scott Tyson lsquoA Sober Assessment ofAfghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50 Spike in Attacks in EastrsquoWashington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyncontentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

64 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

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14

Nov

embe

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Fourth in recent years the Pakistan state has come under direct attackfrom domestic militants operating under the moniker lsquoTehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistanrsquo (aka lsquoThe Pakistani Talibanrsquo (TTP))4 Elements of the TTPhave attacked military paramilitary police and other governance targetsperpetrated a suicide bombing campaign against government entities andcitizens alike and seized pockets of territory in the Pashtun belt and setup parallel structures of government These events have precipitatedfurther concerns with varying degrees of validity about the stability ofthe state and its strategic assets These concerns have been mitigated insome measure by the Armyrsquos redoubled military efforts in 2009 to regainlost territory5 However the international community is not confidentthat the Army will succeed against the TTP much less commit to tacklingthe Afghan Taliban or other militant groups that have been affiliated withPakistani intelligence in the past

These facts motivate many apprehensions about the Pakistan ArmySome analysts and policymakers have speculated that the Army maysplit imperiling the territorial integrity of the state as well as thesecurity of Pakistanrsquos nuclear weapons Variants of this uneasinessinvolve the Army cleaving with Islamist radicals and forming adangerous rump that supports Islamist terrorists and may providenuclear weapons or technology to terrorists More plausibly thePakistan Army given its long association with militant proxies may beunwilling to act against militant groups comprehensively This concernremains even though the Army has taken on those particular militantgroups that have attacked the Pakistani state Speculation about theimpact of the Armyrsquos sustained internal security operations upon themorale and discipline of the Army are cause for further unease6

The Army is also believed to be at the bottom of significant internaldiscord Speculation is rife that the Army is Punjabi dominated andseeks to protect Punjabi ethnic equities7 The presumed ethnicimbalance is posited as a source of ethnic strife in Pakistan8

4Hassan Abbas lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 1 2 (Jan 2008)5C Christine Fair and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec2009ndashJan 2010) 161ndash886Russ Wallen lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June2009 5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4 Shaun Gregory lsquoTheTerrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July 2009)7Mushahid Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally publishedin The Nation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604 Selig S Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquosEthnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html48Selig S Harrison lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 20085wwwnytimescom20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 65

Dow

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Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

80 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 4: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Yet the Pakistan Army discomfits many analysts and policymakersoutside of Pakistan for several inter-related reasons some of whichhave little empirical basis but persist nonetheless First the PakistanArmy is assumed to be the custodian of the countryrsquos nuclear weaponsprogram with a demonstrable nuclear proliferation track recordHowever the National Command Authority is actually charged withthis task2 The notorious activities of AQ Khan since the 1970sunderscore Pakistanrsquos intent to engage in subterfuge to acquire strategiccapabilities Pakistanrsquos relationships with Iran China and North Koreahave been characterized by extensive nuclear andor missile technologyproliferation with presumed army sanction Second along with theintelligence agency it oversees ndash the Inter-Services IntelligenceDirectorate (ISI) ndash it has raised nurtured and employed Islamistmilitants to secure its interests vis-a-vis India and Afghanistan since1947 and 1960 respectively with varying intensity Third the PakistanArmy plays a pivotal ndash but controversial and highly criticized ndash role inthe US-led efforts to contend with the threats posed by Al-Qarsquoeda andthe Afghan Taliban3

failed domestic policies with respect to energy and the economy among other concernsSince then the Army has recovered its standing See International Republic InstitutelsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 Julyndash7 Augrsquo 1 Oct 20095wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_July_15-August_7_2009pdf42Command and control has been formalized through the creation of the NationalCommand Authority (NCA) in 2000 NCA is the countryrsquos topmost decisionmakingbody on issues pertaining to Pakistani nuclear affairs including nuclear use Its ten-member body is headed by the countryrsquos president and also includes the prime ministerand army chief of staff However the army-dominated Strategic Plans Directorate(SPD) is responsible for oversight of the nuclear weapons program SPD is currentlyheaded by a retired army lieutenant general It acts as the secretariat of NCA and hasthe responsibility for the implementation of policies and measures relating to thenuclear arsenal See International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear BlackMarkets Pakistan AQ Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks A NetAssessment (London IISS 2007)3See US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism USOversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo(Washington DC GAO 2008) John D Negroponte Deputy Secretary of StatelsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous AreasrsquoTestimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 20 May 2008 PeterBeaumont and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New classified USdocuments reveal that mass infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan insurgents ishelping latest offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4 Ann Scott Tyson lsquoA Sober Assessment ofAfghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50 Spike in Attacks in EastrsquoWashington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyncontentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

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Fourth in recent years the Pakistan state has come under direct attackfrom domestic militants operating under the moniker lsquoTehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistanrsquo (aka lsquoThe Pakistani Talibanrsquo (TTP))4 Elements of the TTPhave attacked military paramilitary police and other governance targetsperpetrated a suicide bombing campaign against government entities andcitizens alike and seized pockets of territory in the Pashtun belt and setup parallel structures of government These events have precipitatedfurther concerns with varying degrees of validity about the stability ofthe state and its strategic assets These concerns have been mitigated insome measure by the Armyrsquos redoubled military efforts in 2009 to regainlost territory5 However the international community is not confidentthat the Army will succeed against the TTP much less commit to tacklingthe Afghan Taliban or other militant groups that have been affiliated withPakistani intelligence in the past

These facts motivate many apprehensions about the Pakistan ArmySome analysts and policymakers have speculated that the Army maysplit imperiling the territorial integrity of the state as well as thesecurity of Pakistanrsquos nuclear weapons Variants of this uneasinessinvolve the Army cleaving with Islamist radicals and forming adangerous rump that supports Islamist terrorists and may providenuclear weapons or technology to terrorists More plausibly thePakistan Army given its long association with militant proxies may beunwilling to act against militant groups comprehensively This concernremains even though the Army has taken on those particular militantgroups that have attacked the Pakistani state Speculation about theimpact of the Armyrsquos sustained internal security operations upon themorale and discipline of the Army are cause for further unease6

The Army is also believed to be at the bottom of significant internaldiscord Speculation is rife that the Army is Punjabi dominated andseeks to protect Punjabi ethnic equities7 The presumed ethnicimbalance is posited as a source of ethnic strife in Pakistan8

4Hassan Abbas lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 1 2 (Jan 2008)5C Christine Fair and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec2009ndashJan 2010) 161ndash886Russ Wallen lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June2009 5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4 Shaun Gregory lsquoTheTerrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July 2009)7Mushahid Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally publishedin The Nation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604 Selig S Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquosEthnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html48Selig S Harrison lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 20085wwwnytimescom20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 65

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Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

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embe

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Page 5: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Fourth in recent years the Pakistan state has come under direct attackfrom domestic militants operating under the moniker lsquoTehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistanrsquo (aka lsquoThe Pakistani Talibanrsquo (TTP))4 Elements of the TTPhave attacked military paramilitary police and other governance targetsperpetrated a suicide bombing campaign against government entities andcitizens alike and seized pockets of territory in the Pashtun belt and setup parallel structures of government These events have precipitatedfurther concerns with varying degrees of validity about the stability ofthe state and its strategic assets These concerns have been mitigated insome measure by the Armyrsquos redoubled military efforts in 2009 to regainlost territory5 However the international community is not confidentthat the Army will succeed against the TTP much less commit to tacklingthe Afghan Taliban or other militant groups that have been affiliated withPakistani intelligence in the past

These facts motivate many apprehensions about the Pakistan ArmySome analysts and policymakers have speculated that the Army maysplit imperiling the territorial integrity of the state as well as thesecurity of Pakistanrsquos nuclear weapons Variants of this uneasinessinvolve the Army cleaving with Islamist radicals and forming adangerous rump that supports Islamist terrorists and may providenuclear weapons or technology to terrorists More plausibly thePakistan Army given its long association with militant proxies may beunwilling to act against militant groups comprehensively This concernremains even though the Army has taken on those particular militantgroups that have attacked the Pakistani state Speculation about theimpact of the Armyrsquos sustained internal security operations upon themorale and discipline of the Army are cause for further unease6

The Army is also believed to be at the bottom of significant internaldiscord Speculation is rife that the Army is Punjabi dominated andseeks to protect Punjabi ethnic equities7 The presumed ethnicimbalance is posited as a source of ethnic strife in Pakistan8

4Hassan Abbas lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 1 2 (Jan 2008)5C Christine Fair and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec2009ndashJan 2010) 161ndash886Russ Wallen lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June2009 5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4 Shaun Gregory lsquoTheTerrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July 2009)7Mushahid Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally publishedin The Nation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604 Selig S Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquosEthnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html48Selig S Harrison lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 20085wwwnytimescom20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 65

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Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

66 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

68 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

70 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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ded

by [

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vers

ity o

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ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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Page 6: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Unfortunately there are few sources of empirical data about thePakistan Army despite these varied concerns about the Army and itsrole in Pakistanrsquos security and that of the region This essay employingunique and difficult to obtain district-level officer recruitment datafrom 1971 to 2005 explores an important aspect of the institution itsgeographical representativeness over time These data and this analysiscannot answer the most pressing questions about this institution Whilethese data may be the best available they are far from ideal These dataare district level not officer level Therefore we can only describechanges in the districts that produce officers over time We cannot inferanything about the characteristics of the officers themselves Despitethese debilitating data limitations this analysis empirically documentsimportant changes in the recruitment base of the institution and laysout some implications that may stem from these changes

The next section of this article lays out important methodologicalnotes and describes data limitations and analytical caveats The thirdsection provides a description of the recruitment process because thisessay is fundamentally about officer recruitment Because the currentcomposition of the Pakistan Army derives from past recruitmentpractices we discuss the historical lineaments of Pakistan Armyrecruitment and their enduring impacts upon current army compositionin the fourth section This section also describes past and current armyefforts to reshape its composition As will be evident in this section theArmyrsquos composition is not driven by a predatory Punjabi drive todominate the country The penultimate section presents the results ofour data analyses which demonstrate considerable change in thegeographic representation in the Pakistan Army This article concludesby discussing the implications of the changes we have observed subjectto the limitations of our data

Data Data Handling and Analytical Caveats

Shuja Nawaz acquired these data in hard copy in spreadsheet formfrom the Pakistan Armyrsquos General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as partof a historical account of the Pakistan Army9 A critical ndash but untestablendash assumption is that these data reflect the Armyrsquos efforts to collect andpresent authentic data This spreadsheet enumerates the annual numberof officers recruited from specific districts between 1970 and 200510

9Shuja Nawaz Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (OxfordOUP 2008)10Districts are the third layer of administration in Pakistan The most central level is thefederal government followed by provincial and finally district governments

66 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

68 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

70 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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Page 7: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

A fundamental but untestable assumption undergirding this study isthat the data are genuine and reflect actual army records11 The teamcannot independently verify the authenticity of the data Howevergeneral features of the data do accord with the general literature on thePakistan Army Specific data integrity problems are addressed whereappropriate herein12

Because the Pakistan Army data occasionally contained non-standard district identification misidentified provinces for a smallnumber of districts and because districts have changed over time due toreorganization and population growth the project team devised a seriesof rules to clean and reorganize the data to ensure maximum accuracyand comparability across time and across geographical areas13

This reorganization allowed us to merge the recruiting data with GIS(Geographic Information System) codes for the boundaries ofPakistanrsquos districts (This file detailing GIS district boundaries isreferred to as a lsquoshape filersquo This file is from Princeton Universityrsquos datalibrary and dates to 1995) Using this shape file we depicted shares ofrecruitment outcomes cartographically

Finally because the Army provided numbers of officers recruited fromparticular districts per year and because the total number of officersrecruited each year varied we converted district figures to lsquomarket sharesrsquo(We use this terminology because recruitment is a market and we want toknow the overall share of district recruitment as relative to the overallnumber of annual recruits) The share of any given district is defined bydividing the number of recruits for any given district by the total numberof recruits for the year (Figures 1 through 4 show the cartographicdepiction of shares by district for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005)

Because we have district-level not officer-level data we can onlycharacterize the districtsrsquo characteristics and not those of the officers Itcannot be facilely assumed that any given officer has the samecharacteristics of his (or less likely her) district because the Army engagesin a selection process and because officers with a propensity for military

11Nawaz Crossed Swords12Two persons independently entered the data into Excel spreadsheets The teamrsquosquantitative analyst converted these two spreadsheets into Stata (a statistical program)and electronically compared the two independently entered datasets for officerrecruitment data This allowed us to identify and correct data entry errors in thespreadsheets to render them identical to each other and to the hard copy originals Theraw data contained many errors in spelling districts were sometimes put underincorrect provinces or (rarely) the Pakistan Army used a geographical area that wecould not identify in any census or district report The raw data file only correctsspelling13For more information about data handling and data cleaning please contact theauthors

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 67

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service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

68 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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14

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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Page 8: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

service may differ in fundamental ways from other residents of the districtThis is an lsquoecological fallacyrsquo problem that inheres in such a study ofcharacteristics of geographical areas of recruitment instead of individualcharacteristics While officer-level data is ideal for understanding changesin the officer corps in reality such data are unlikely to ever be available toresearchers inside or outside Pakistan Thus these data are likely to be thebest data that exist on the recruitment base of the Army Finally becausewe only have annual intake data we can only describe changes in theyearly intake of officers not the composition of the entire army

Overview of Army Recruitment Practices

Since this essay examines historical district-level data on officer intakeinto the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul (north ofAbbottabad in NW Frontier Province NWFP14) some description ofboth the PMA and the recruitment process is appropriate

Admission to the PMA is very competitive there are roughly 3000applicants nationwide for the roughly 320 cadet places in each regularlong course in the PMA15 Normally the PMA conducts two longcourses each year One cohort is inducted in the spring and another in

Figure 1 Annual Intake of Officers for All Provinces (1970ndash2005)Source In-house manipulation of army officer recruitment data

14NWFP is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) NWFP will be retained in thisarticle as this name was in use during the period covered by the data and our study15Brig (now Maj Gen) Khawar Hanif Defence Attache Pakistan Embassy 2007

68 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

70 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

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14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

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am]

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14

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Page 9: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

the fall The PMA normally has five courses running simultaneouslywith the regular two-year course being the longest16 After completingthe two-year long course the officer cadets are commissioned with therank of second lieutenant and are assigned to a particular arm of serviceand a regiment or battalion

To qualify candidates must be single and hold at last anintermediate degree (ie 12 years of schooling) and be between 17and 22 years of age17 Candidates with a bachelor degree (akalsquograduatesrsquo as they are known in Pakistan) must be between 17 and23 years of age Serving armed or civilian armed forces personnel arealso considered provided that they are between 17 and 23 years ofage18 Recruits must obtain a score of at least 50 percent in theirmatriculation (10th grade) or a Faculty of Arts degree (FA) or Facultyof Sciences degree (FSc) (12th grade) exams19 The initial testing andscreening occurs at eight regional selection and recruitment centers atPeshawar (NWFP) Rawalpindi Lahore Multan (Punjab) Hyder-abad Karachi (Sindh) Quetta (Baluchistan) and Gilgit (NorthernAreas) Eligible candidates next take an lsquointelligencersquo exam Candi-dates must score at least 50 percent in initial testing (For personsfrom Sindh and Baluchistan candidates must achieve a score of 45percent as described below) Successful candidates are next subjectedto physical and medical tests and a preliminary interview at therecruitment centers20

16The graduate course and the technical graduate courses (for signals and engineeringservices) run one year The integrated courses (for doctors and specialized masterrsquosdegree holders) and the womenrsquos courses run only six months Officers commissionedfrom the integrated course are inducted directly as captains in the Pakistan Army17Except serving Junior Commissioned Officers (ie warrant officers) of the armedforces who may be married18Pakistan Army lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4 There was also a (now defunct) JuniorCadet Course (JCC) co-located with the PMA and was designed to be a feeder schoolfor the PMA providing military instruction in addition to other subjects The JCCbegan in 1976 and was shut down in 1988 The aim was to compensate for the lack ofhigh quality candidates by preparing JCC entrants through intensive coaching19One enters an FA (or FSc) program after the 10th grade It is a two-year programequivalent to the 11th and 12th grades (In the United States this would be a highschool diploma) After satisfactorily completing the 12th grade students take astandardized test in their academic subjects Upon passing these examinations studentsare awarded a Higher Secondary (School) Certificate (or HSC) also known as an FA orFSc depending on their major This is also known as an lsquointermediatersquo degree20Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 69

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Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

70 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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Nov

embe

r 20

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

76 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

Nov

embe

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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14

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embe

r 20

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

14

the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

80 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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vers

ity o

f B

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ingh

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at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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Page 10: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Candidates who are selected from this interview process proceed tothe Inter-ServicesGeneral Headquarters Selection and Review Board(ISSB) in Kohat (south of Peshawar) or its ancillary centers inGujranwala Malir or Quetta Here candidates undergo four days ofobservation and testing to assess their intelligence psychologicalprofile leadership potential and physical fitness After the four-daytesting program at the ISSB successful candidates are recommended forthe PMA according to requirements issued by the Army GeneralHeadquarters and derived from regimental reports on shortfalls

Officer candidates generally are selected for the PMA based upon onmerit although the Army occasionally has relaxed standards toincrease recruitment among under-represented ethnic groups asdescribed below Those candidates who are selected for continuedprocessing following the written exam are called for a preliminaryphysical examination which is conducted at recruitment centersestablished throughout Pakistan Candidates are declared physicallyfit by a board of officers headed by a Brigadier21

In effort to attract more officers from Sindh and Baluchistan thePakistan Army relaxed the academic and testing requirements forrecruitment in the early 1990s The Army leadership sought to increasethe number of Baluchi and Sindhi officers despite their lesserqualifications rather than offer remediation to increase their qualifica-tions (This may have the unfortunate affect of increasing such officersrsquoattrition if they are relatively less qualified than others when they are upfor promotion) The Army has episodically decreased the testingrequirements for applicants from Sindh and Baluchistan who needed a33 percent (that is just passing) in their exams (These minimum levelswere raised later as discussed below) During the 1980s in effort toinduct Sindhi and Baluchi recruits more quickly into the PMA and thenthe Army the Army allowed the Sindhi and Baluchi recruits to study anabbreviated course at the now defunct Junior Cadet Course after whichthey could go to the PMA Sindhi and Baluchi applicants to the infantryenjoyed even further relaxed grading standards with respect to their FAFSc exams relative to other candidates22

Moreover Sindhi and Baluchi candidates recommended by the Inter-Services Selections Board were selected into the PMA irrespective oftheir rank on the lsquomerit listrsquo The merit list ranks applicants on the basis

21Official website of the Pakistan Army 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-comissionphp422The percentage scores of candidates in their Intermediate (12 year) examinations areplaced into grade levels A B C etc B is the standard minimum grade level except forareas that are being favored by an affirmative action policy Candidates from thefavored areas may be admitted with C grades

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of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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14

data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

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Page 11: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

of their cumulative test scores If the PMA required 300 persons for agiven class they would typically take the top 300 persons in rank orderHowever for Sindhis and Baluchis this was relaxed If a Baluchi orSindhi recruit were to be ranked at 320 for example they would begiven preference to someone else who is ranked higher on that list ThusBaluchi and Sindhi recruits were favored in two ways first theirthreshold scores for passing was lower than for others and second theyneed not be placed as highly on the merit list due to a quasi-quotasystem that is in effect for selection23

Subsequently the educational scoring standards were raisedalthough the authors could not obtain the exact year when thisoccurred Now candidates resident in Baluchistan the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) the districts of Kohistan Chitraland Dir and Tehsil (sub-district) Balakot of Mansehra in NWFPTharparkar and Tehsil Umerkot of Sindh Rajanpur Cholistan DesertDerawer Fort (also in Cholistan) Salamsar Mojgarh Dingarh ofPunjab and the Northern Areas can be admitted for preliminary testingwith a score of 45 percent in their intermediate examinations incontrast to 50 percent required for all others

Ethnicity and Pakistan Army The Weight of History

As is well known the Army sustains criticism about its overrepresentation of Punjabis and to some extent Pashtuns While thisethnic distribution reflects in part the population composition ofPakistan it also is a legacy of colonial recruitment practices inheritedby Pakistan These practices endure despite the Armyrsquos varied effortssince 1947 to move away from those traditions

One of the important concepts that continue to influence armyrecruitment is the problematic notion of lsquomartial racesrsquo24 The so-calledmartial races included Punjabis (from contemporary East and WestPunjab comprised of Sikhs Hindus and Muslims) Pashtuns (from theNWFP and the tribal areas) as well as the Gurkhas of Nepal Incontrast the British considered South Indians and Bengalis to be lsquonon-martialrsquo and sought to exclude them from military service Because theBritish were motivated by a desire to build an effective military toprotect their interests throughout the Empire rather than to develop anethnically representative institution they encouraged recruitment of

23Information provided to S Nawaz from Army General Headquarters24See Douglas M Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquoin D Marston and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia(Bloomington Indiana UP 2008) 34ndash52

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 71

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those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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14

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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am]

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14

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embe

r 20

14

Page 12: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

those martial races and discouraged the induction of non-martialraces25

Apart from their beliefs about martial races the British sought toincrease recruitment from the NWFP in particular for geo-strategicreasons The NWFP was the outer ring separating the British colonialsphere of influence from that of Russia Afghanistan per agreementbetween the two imperial powers was the formal buffer between thetwo They negotiated the northern and eastern boundaries of theAfghan state to ensure that the empires of Russia and Britain did notshare a border For this reason Afghanistan was forced to accept theoddly shaped Wakhan corridor which provided a narrow band ofterritory between the two empires Both reasoned that the likelihood ofdispute would be minimized if they shared no border26

As a result of these demand-side considerations the British-IndianArmy predominantly drew personnel from the northern part of theempire and Nepal27 However the composition of the Armywas also shaped by several important supply-side considerationsstemming from the socio-economic standing and preferences ofpotential recruits The Punjab peasantry was facing difficult economictimes when the British entered the region Army service afforded thosepeasants opportunities to augment family income and insulate themfrom the vicissitudes of agricultural dependence Many of these recruitscame from the Salt Range (Potwar also spelled Potohar) regions ofnorthern Punjab (eg districts of Jhelum Rawalpindi and Attock-formerly Campbellpur) as well the areas adjoining the NWFP28 TheBritish encouraged peasant interest in the armed forces by grantingagricultural land as a reward for military service29

25The British remained convinced of the notion of martial races for most of their tenurein South Asia See Hassan Askari Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel 2000) Hassan Askari Rizvi Military State and Society inPakistan (London Palgrave 2000) Peers lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army inthe Victorian Erarsquo26See Barnett R Rubin The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation andCollapse in the International System (New Haven CT Yale University Press 2002) formore on this competitive history and the role of Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province27Rizvi The Military and Politics in Pakistan28Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan29In addition in 1885 the British-Indian government began developing an importantnetwork of canals to irrigate the Punjab which made those lands even more productiveand thus attractive as allurements into army service The British allotted these lands inreward for service to the Raj especially to ex-servicemen (both officers and ranks) Thenet impact of these policies made the Army an extremely lucrative profession for

72 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

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r 20

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The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

74 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

76 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Nov

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r 20

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Nov

embe

r 20

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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r 20

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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r 20

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

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ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

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ingh

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at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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nloa

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embe

r 20

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Page 13: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

The British resolved that by the time India and Pakistan becameindependent states on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively they wouldhave operational control of their own independent armed forces andthe colonial government formed a committee to execute thiscomplicated task30 While British and Indian stakeholders hotlydebated the process of dividing the armed forces in the end religionand territory guided the division of personnel While most men inservice could elect to join either the Indian or Pakistani military therewere important exceptions A Muslim from the area that went toPakistan could not opt for India and a non-Muslim in the territory thatbecame India could not opt for Pakistan There was no restriction forMuslims in India to join Pakistan or for a non-Muslim in Pakistan toopt for India While few non-Muslims opted to stay in Pakistan andcomparatively more Muslims chose to stay in India the communalviolence that marked partition compelled some to seek permission toreverse their decisions31

By 15 August 1947 the future disposition of the various units hadbeen assigned with the exception of those troops that were eitherabroad at the time of partition or those that were engaged in the PunjabBoundary Force both of which were divided later The ratio fordivision was 6436 for India and Pakistan excluding the Gurkhatroops which were divided between India and Britain32 This wasroughly the communal balance of Hindus and Muslims in undividedIndia

As noted above there were no purely Muslim regiments in India andmany of the units with large Muslim representation were in areas thatwere to become part of India While some of these Muslims could havechosen to move to Pakistan many chose to remain in India In contrastvirtually no Sikh or Hindu officers within Pakistanrsquos territory elected tostay in the Pakistan Army Consequently Pakistan did not receive anyregiments at full strength Generally as the smaller successor statePakistan was slated to receive substantially fewer personnel storessupplies and facilities33 Training institutions remained with the state in

Punjabi peasants seeking to improve their socioeconomic standing Rizvi MilitaryState and Society in Pakistan30For more information see Stephen P Cohen The Indian Army Its Contribution tothe Development of a Nation (Oxford OUP 1990) esp 32ndash5631Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Stephen P Cohen The Pakistan Army(Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984) Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema The Armed Forces ofPakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)32Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army CheemaArmed Forces of Pakistan33Cohen Pakistan Army 7

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 73

Dow

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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14

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r 20

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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14

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 14: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

which they were situated India retained for example the prized IndianMilitary Academy at Dehra Dun among other important schoolsPakistan retained seven army training centers including the StaffCollege (Quetta) and the Royal Indian Service Corps (Kakul)

In short Pakistanrsquos army was lsquoweak less organized and ill equippedDespite these institutional problems the new army soon had to performinternal security duties from the first day of Pakistanrsquos independenceMoreover it soon found itself embroiled in armed confrontation withIndia in Kashmirrsquo34

British recruitment policies bequeathed several problems to indepen-dent Pakistan Pakistan emerged with two wings West Pakistan (whichis today Pakistan) and predominantly Bengali East Pakistan (which istoday Bangladesh) In 1947 most non-Muslim Bengali officers andjawans (enlisted men) opted for India This meant that the EastPakistanis formed less than 1 percent of the total strength of Pakistanrsquosarmed forces which exacerbated mounting ethnic and political tensionsthat were emerging between Bengali-dominant East Pakistan and WestPakistan with its Punjab and Pashtun ethnic domination

While the bulk of Pakistanrsquos military personnel were from WestPakistan the west did not produce recruits equally The Punjab andNWFP continued to produce the majority of officers and cadres whileSindh and Baluchistan remained massively under-represented Thedistricts of Kohat Peshawar Campbellpur (now Attock) RawalpindiJhelum and Gujrat were the main recruiting areas for the PakistanArmy In those areas nearly every second family had some kind of tiesto the Army35

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was troubled by the extremeimbalance in army recruitment across the two wings of West and EastPakistan He appointed a committee to investigate why East Pakistanis(Bengalis) were inordinately underrepresented in the Army Thecommittee was also charged with finding ways of increasing therepresentativeness of the Army While the report was not made publicthe Army did take some steps Notably it raised two battalions of thenew East Bengal Regiment While some of these recruits came fromthe pioneer (construction) units or were Muslims who had served in theBihar Regiment of the united Indian Army some of the juniorcommissioned officers came from the Punjab Regiment As Bengalisbecame available the Punjabis were replaced These regiments weredistinct in that they were exclusively Bengali (Other regiments couldnot claim exclusive ethnic representation) In 1968ndash69 ten more

34Rizvi Military State and Society in Pakistan 5635Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Rizvi Military State and Society in PakistanCohen Pakistan Army

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exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

76 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

80 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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r 20

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 15: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

exclusively Bengali battalions were raised and recruitment to allbranches of the Pakistan military was opened to East Pakistanis36

In 1959 President and Field Marshal Ayub Khan reduced thephysical standards for recruitment into the Army in hopes of luring EastPakistanis to join the armed forces (The standards were not relaxed forthose in West Pakistan) While these efforts did increase the numbers ofBengalis across the Army (as well as the Air Force and Navy) Bengalisnever achieved a level of representation consistent with their popula-tion distribution which was nearly 50 percent of Pakistanrsquos popula-tion37

While Bengali numbers slowly increased the Army resisted furtherexpansion of Bengali representation at least in part because manywithin the army leadership cadre harbored considerable lsquodistaste for thequality of Bengali officers and other ranksrsquo38 The maltreatment ofBengalis and their lack of representation within the military was afestering problem that undermined the ultimate coherence of a unitedPakistan Those Bengali officers and other ranks that were in servicecomprised the backbone of the Bengali resistance during the civil war of1971 Despite clear warnings that its policies discriminated againstBengalis the Pakistan Army remained ambivalent whether Bengalisshould be lsquotaken into full partnership or completely eliminatedrsquo39

While the Armyrsquos anti-Bengali preferences are well known thereasons for the lack of Bengalis in the Army was not entirely demanddriven (eg imposed by the recruitment policies of the armed forces)Pashtun tribesmen enthusiastically joined the Army as did others fromWest Pakistan As the supply of willing recruits swamped the actualdemand for recruits (officers and jawans) recruiters could choose fromamong the best of them Bengalis who were often (or least assumed tobe by those in West Pakistan) physically smaller could not competegiven the prevalent and essentialized notions of martial prowessPerhaps if Pakistan faced a shortage of recruits the Army and otherservices would have been more interested in rethinking their facileassumptions about the connections between ethnicity and militarycompetence However it is not clear in the minds of historians of thePakistan Army whether Bengalis ever had the same level of interest inthe military Certainly the number of applications received from EastPakistanis was a full order of magnitude fewer than those from WestPakistan40

36Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan Cohen Pakistan Army37Ibid38Cohen Pakistan Army 4339Ibid40Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 75

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Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

76 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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nloa

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

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r 20

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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am]

at 2

358

14

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embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 16: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Because the Army ran the country for much of Pakistanrsquos existencebefore the 1971 civil war the exclusion of Bengalis was particularlyproblematic as they comprised a majority of pre-1971 Pakistanrsquospopulation Arguably the compulsion to have a nationally representa-tive army is direr when the Army directly or indirectly governs the stateUntil 1971 the lack of appropriate representation of the Bengalis was apre-eminent concern However from 1947 onwards there have beensimilar questions raised about the lsquomartial qualitiesrsquo of the Baluchi andSindhis Both Baluchistan and Sindh have at time hosted ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varying degrees of severity In both casesPakistan (under civilian and military leadership) pursued militaryresponses often with excessive force

The loss of Bangladesh the persistent complaints about Punjabidomination and the under-representation of Sindhis and Baluchi haveoccasioned concerns about further disintegration of Pakistan41

Motivated by such concerns as well as a need for an army that istruly representative the Army has tried to expand the numbers ofBaluchi and Sindhis with little apparent success

Importance of Representation in an All-Volunteer Army

The Pakistan Army is an all-volunteer force according to Article 39(lsquoParticipation of People in Armed Forcesrsquo) of the 1973 constitutionwhich says that the state lsquoshall enable people from all parts of Pakistanto participate in the armed forces of Pakistanrsquo42 Under the PakistanArmy Act of 1952 the state can introduce compulsory recruitment inan emergency but this has never been discussed or actively pursued43

Like most national armies the Pakistan Army generally aspires to be ndashand indeed considers itself to be ndash representative of the countryrsquos polityCertainly there is some debate and even evolution as to whatlsquorepresentativersquo means It is clear as the following exposition makesclear that this did not always mean comparable ethnic distributioneven if the Army has in recent decades become more sensitive to thisissue for reasons described herein As is true of all-volunteer forcesits ability to be representative of its population is derived from

41See Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo42See text of the 1973 constitution with the various alterations 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4 accessed 2 Dec 200843B Horeman and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey ofConscription and Conscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War ResistersInternational London 1998 5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4 accessed 2 Dec 2008

76 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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at 2

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14

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r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

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Page 17: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

demand-side constraints (eg the preferences of the Army) and supply-side constraints (eg the willingness of people to join the Army)

For several reasons the issue of representativeness of the PakistanArmy is important to the Pakistani state and institution of the ArmyFirst from the optic of citizenship and equal opportunity it isimportant that all Pakistanis be allowed (or at least believe that they areallowed) to participate equally in the obligations and rewardsassociated with military service44 The widespread belief that the Armyis an exclusive club of Punjabis and Pashtuns underscores the extent towhich the citizenry does not see the Army as a national institution evenif the citizenry generally holds the Army in high esteem especiallycompared to other national institutions45

Second and related to the first ethnic representativeness within thearmed forces is important both in preventing ethno-national strife butalso in contending with internal conflicts once they emerge Pakistanhas experienced several ethno-nationalist insurgencies with varyingsanguinity in Baluchistan Sindh and NWFP The Pakistan securityforces require adequate personnel who are familiar with the physicalterrain and who understand the local languages cultures and otherfeatures of the human terrain of the affected region Without suchassets the security forces cannot contend effectively with the rebelswithin its borders As noted below it is far from clear to what degreethe Pakistan Army leadership has shared this view and whenCertainly in recent years the Army has become more attuned to thisrequirement

There are important downsides to including within the Army co-ethnics of rebels Veterans of the armed forces may return to thetroubled areas and participate in the insurrection They could evenprovide training to the rebels Units drawn from the local area may alsobe unable or unwilling to act against combatant co-ethnics who mayinclude friends relatives or others affiliated through tribe or otherforms of allegiance Former or retired service members may evensympathize with the cause espoused by the militants and work to servetheir cause clandestinely

Third since the Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than halfof its independent existence and indirectly for the remainder the issue

44The Pakistan Army is still largely a male institution Women are mostly in the fieldsof health and education Pakistan is distinctive among countries in the Muslim world inthat it produced the first Major General Dr Shahida Malik became the first femaleMajor General of the Pakistan Army on 17 June 2002 She assumed the position ofInspector General of some 31 Pakistan Army hospitals45International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 77

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of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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r 20

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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14

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 18: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

of representation for the Pakistan Army is perhaps even more salientthan it is for other all-volunteer forces subject to robust civiliancontrol and which are not involved in governing their states This islikely to be the case because the military has developed over the lastsix decades a system of perquisites for its officers as well as enlistedpersonnel which affords special access to economic opportunitieseducational institutions for their children special facilities forgovernment services catering to the armed forcesrsquo personnel amongother benefits that are exclusively available to members of the armedforces The belief that the Army is a Punjabi-Pashtun enterprisenecessarily raises larger issues about social justice unequal access toservices and the general problem of rendering public goods as privateassets for military personnel46

While the appropriate ethnic representation in a national army isimportant to the Pakistan Army the Army sustains criticism that it failsto meet this standard47 Critics of the Armyrsquos composition note thatPunjabis and Pashtuns remain overrepresented while ethnic minorities(Baluchis Sindhis) and religious minorities remain underrepresented(Note that since Punjabis comprise the largest group of Pakistanis suchprevalence would persist even if the composition of the Army perfectlymapped Pakistanrsquos population distribution) Demographic realitiesnotwithstanding the Armyrsquos composition has given rise to conspiracytheories about Punjab domination of the other provinces in connivancewith Pashtun co-conspirators48 Critics welcomed the 2001 announce-ment by the Pakistan Armyrsquos Adjutant General to promulgate alsquofirst ever national recruitment policyrsquo targeting interior Sindh andBaluchistan49

The Army has been at times cognizant that its failure to develop atruly national army undermines its domestic standing as a genuinelynational institution and fosters ethnic grievances The Army learnedthis bitter lesson from its failure to include Bengalis (who wereconcentrated in East Pakistan) in the armed forces and other branchesof government in the early years following independence This alongwith numerous other Bengali grievances fostered resentment in EastPakistan and a systematic belief that Bengalis would always be secondclass citizens in a united Pakistan Ultimately Pakistanrsquos malfeasancetowards its eastern wing precipitated a civil war which culminated in

46Ayesha Siddiqa Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London PlutoPress 2007)47Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo Harrison lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo48Cohen Pakistan Army 40ndash149Hussain lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo

78 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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Nov

embe

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 19: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

the emergence of an independent Bangladesh with Indian covert andlater overt intervention

In the aftermath of the secession of Bangladesh the Pakistan Armyhas sought to broaden its recruitment base from one centered at thetime of independence in 1947 on the Potohar Plateau of northernPunjab when three districts (Campbellpur now Attock Rawalpindiand Jhelum) dominated the recruitment in the BritishndashIndian Army andindependent Pakistan Since the 1990s the Army has followed anexplicit policy of broadening its recruitment base to draw fromprovinces other than the Punjab50 According to the Pakistan Armyrsquosten-year recruitment plan launched in 2001 by 2011 the Army hopes toincrease Pashtuns from 135 percent to 145 percent Sindhis from 15 to17 percent and the Baluchis from nearly nil to 4 percent In additionthe Army hopes to increase the numbers of persons from Azad Kashmirand Northern Areas from nearly zero to 9 percent of the force Punjabiswould make up the balance of 555 percent Minority recruitmentwould be increased marginally51

It is possible that the Army may not be able to fully address thesecompositional issues Unlike neighboring India which faces various officershortages the Pakistan Army continues to attract a large number ofcandidates for officer and soldier training This means that in Pakistanmilitary recruitment is likely demand constrained for Punjabis andPashtuns even if it is supply constrained for other ethnic groups Ifethnicity were not an issue for consideration the Pakistan Army receivesmore applicants than it needs to fill required billets Thus the Army neednot take lesser qualified or undesirable candidates (howsoever defined)unless doing so advances other goals such as ethnic diversity orgeographicalethnic needs to execute a mission (eg linguistic skillspersonnel needed for specialized geographical knowledge etc) Withoutincreasing the willingness of underrepresented groups to join the armedforces there may be little that the Army can do to make itself trulyrepresentative of the countryrsquos ethnic and sectarian composition

Expanding the Ethnic Base of the Officer Corps What the Data Say

In this section we present results of our historical and geographicalanalysis of officer recruitment patterns In Figure 1 we present totalannual officer intake from 1971 to 2005 This figure depicts theexplosion in officer recruitment that occurred during the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan This expansion became most obvious

50Background note provided to author by General Headquarters Pakistan Army 199051Sher Baz Khan lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14Sept 2007 5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 79

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from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 20: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

from 1979 through the early 1980s Whereas in 1979 there wereabout 100 officers inducted by 1982 more than 1000 officers werebeing accepted into the Pakistan Army per year From 1984 onwardthe numbers of officers inducted per year fluctuated considerablywith a high of 1350 in 1995 and low of 590 in 1996 and anaverage of about 1022 per year between 1984 and 2005

As is well known during this period Pakistan took advantage of USconcerns about the presence of the Soviet Union to advance its ownstrategic concerns about India The enormous infusion of funds fromthe United States and Saudia Arabia likely subsidized this expansion ofthe Pakistan Army52 Stephen Cohen has observed lsquothis massiveexpansion in officer intake coincided with a peak in Indian militaryrearmament and after 1986 the adoption of an aggressive strategy byIndia which culminated in the Brasstacks fiasco of 1987 [D]uringthis period both India and Pakistan were racing towards becomingnuclear weapons statesrsquo53

Geographic Distribution of New Officer Recruits Across Time

We next depict cartographically district market shares of officerrecruitment for 1974 1984 1994 and 2005 We used 1974 as our firstend point for the cartographic analysis of recruitment shares due to the1971 war which saw the emergence of East Pakistan as an independentBangladesh We wanted to permit adequate time to lapse to permitboth recruitment and records of recruitment to re-equilibrate after theconclusion of the 1971 war These analyses are presented in Figures 2through 5

Figures 2 through 5 dramatically demonstrate that the PakistanArmy has been successful in making the Army more geographicallyrepresentative As depicted in Figure 2 in 1974 the center of gravityfor officer recruitment largely centered on key districts in the Punjabwith a few in NWFP By 1984 (see Figure 3) officer recruitment hadexpanded throughout the rest of Punjab large parts of SindhNWFP the Northern Areas and selected districts in BaluchistanChanges between 1984 and 1994 were less dramatic but illustratecontinued expansion of officer recruitment and some continuity asevidenced by comparing Figures 3 and 4 By 2005 as shown inFigure 5 officer recruitment had expanded into many more districtsin Baluchistan and indeed into most of the districts in the countryThose districts without any recruits were generally in Baluchistan Itmust be recalled that each of these maps capture one snapshot for

52Stephen Cohen in his review of this document53Ibid

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each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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Page 21: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

each yearrsquos batch of officers which does vary from year to yearHowever comparing the distribution of recruits between 1974 and2005 demonstrates vividly that officers are now coming from mostdistricts in the country

One serious limitation of our data must be kept in mind these aredistrict level data not officer data One cannot assume that a recruitfrom Baluchistan is in fact ethnically Baluchi Nonetheless a Punjabifor example who has lived andor has been raised in Baluchistan islikely to have a very different worldview than one who has spent muchor most of his life in the Punjab Even though we cannot identify theethnicity of the recruit the expanded geographical reach of thePakistan Army suggests that its various efforts have born fruit at leastwith geographical variation

A less granular analysis of officer recruitment is depicted in Figure 6which shows the market share of officer recruits for the four provinces(Baluchiistan NWFP Punjab Sindh) the Federal Capital (Islamabad)Azad Kashmir Northern Areas and FATA As demonstrated in Figure6 the market share for the Punjab had declined dramatically from ahigh of over 80 percent in 1971 to a low of less than 40 percent in2001

Figure 2 Officer Market Share 1974Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 81

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In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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embe

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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ity o

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am]

at 2

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r 20

14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

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cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

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am]

at 2

358

14

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embe

r 20

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Page 22: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

In 2005 Punjab accounted for slightly less than 60 percent of all newofficers As shown in Figure 6 (provincial market share over time) andFigure 7 (provincial population totals for 1972 1981 and 1998)Punjabrsquos recent contribution to officer intake is similar to the Punjabrsquos56 percent share of Pakistanrsquos population (per the 1998 census)Dramatic change can also be observed for the market share for NWFPwhich roughly doubled from 10 percent in 1971 to over 22 percent in2005 According to the 1998 Census NWFP only accounted for 13percent of Pakistanrsquos overall population suggesting considerableoverrepresentation of new officers Recruits from FATA remainedsomewhat stable and were roughly proportional to their populationdistribution in Pakistan Baluchistan which accounts for about 5percent of Pakistanrsquos population by 2005 accounted for about 5percent or more of new officer recruits

In contrast Sindh remains underrepresented but exhibits importantprogress in expanding the number of officers drawn from its territoryIn the early years of the recruitment time series there were few officersfrom Sindh By 2005 Sindh accounted for nearly 10 percent of annualofficer intake However Sindh is the second most populous provinceaccounting for some 22 percent of Pakistanrsquos population (per the most

Figure 3 Officer Market Share 1984Source In-house data manipulation

82 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

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explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

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recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

Dow

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Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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embe

r 20

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less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

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14

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embe

r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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by [

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embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

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ded

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ity o

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am]

at 2

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r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

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ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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am]

at 2

358

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Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 23: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

recent census in 1998) There are no census data for the Northern Areasor Azad Kashmir However market share from these areas have beenturbulent across the time series

The data in Figure 6 demonstrate a peculiar anomaly from 1999to 2003 in the market share for both Punjab and Azad KashmirOne notices a consistent decline in Punjabrsquos share beginning in 1999commensurate with increases in the market share by Azad KashmirIn 2001 Punjabrsquos market share reaches a nadir (37 percent) whilethat of Azad Kashmir spikes at the same level From 2001 onwardPunjabrsquos market share increases and re-equilibrates at nearly 60percent while that of Azad Kashmir declines to its previous lowlevels Because these provincial figures are aggregation of district-level data which were multiple and independently entered it is notlikely to be a data entry error Moreover the trend is observableover several years Given the timing of this transition it is likely thatit is related to the conversion of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI)which was until 1999 a paramilitary unit into a regular armyformation While this conversion of the NLI into a regular unit may

Figure 4 Officer Market Share 1994Source In-house data manipulation

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 83

Dow

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Nov

embe

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14

explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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14

other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

Dow

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14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

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14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

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ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 24: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

explain the shift in market share this event may have triggered achange in the way in the Army accounted for recruits In the absenceof a coherent explanation we can only note this peculiar finding anddraw attention to it

A final way of viewing the provincial distribution is to examinetrends across time in per capita officer recruits (the number of recruitsfrom a province divided by the population of the province) BecausePakistan census data is only available for 1972 1981 and 1998 weestimated population growth in Microsoft Excelrsquos TREND functionTo do so we used 1972 and 1998 as the endpoints assuming linearexpansion in population54 Per capita recruits were calculated bydividing the number of recruits in a given year by the estimatedpopulation (in millions) These data are presented in Figure 8 As the

Figure 5 Officer Market Share 2005Source In-house data manipulation

54Provincial population data is available at the website of the PakistanPopulation Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo Weestimated annual provincial population using the TREND command in MicrosoftExcel

84 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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am]

at 2

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Nov

embe

r 20

14

data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

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other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

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ded

by [

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ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

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14

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embe

r 20

14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

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14

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embe

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14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

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14

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r 20

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about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

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14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 25: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

data depicted in Figure 8 demonstrate Islamabad (the federal capital)has the highest per-capita recruitment since the early 1980s55

At distant second places are Punjab and NWFP which have similarper capita recruits FATA Sindh and Baluchistan all have very low percapita recruits

Urbanization

Pakistan has experienced steady urbanization There are two paths tourbanization in Pakistan One is the growth of cities in Pakistan and the

Figure 6 Market Share by Province (1970ndash2005)Source In-house data manipulation

55At the time of independence Karachi was the capital Ayub Khan undertook thedecision to establish a new capital beneath the Margalla Hills The first office buildingwas occupied in 1966

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 85

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

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Uni

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ity o

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at 2

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14

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r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

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r 20

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recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

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ity o

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am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

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am]

at 2

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embe

r 20

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Page 26: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

other is the build-up of population density in the rural areas (eg theformation of lsquoruralopolisesrsquo) According to the 1951 Census 82 percentof the 34 million Pakistanis were living in rural areas compared to only18 percent who resided in urban areas56 According to the most recentcensus of 1998 nearly one in three persons is living in an urban area Ifone includes the urbanized rural areas (high population density withoutmunicipal services) some 56 percent of Pakistanis live inurbanized areas57

Urbanization whether by forming megapolises or ruralopolises hassimilar impact by introducing television radio modern communica-tions expanded access to and reliance upon modern forms ofmedication transportation and migration This has opened up therural areas and has brought about important changes in Pakistanrsquossocial structures and the opportunities available to Pakistanrsquos citizens

In the context of this study the question arises how lsquourbanizedrsquo thePakistan Army is relative to the country writ large The overallurbanization of the country is easily obtained from the Pakistannational census which has been conducted thrice since the 1971 warand the loss of Bangladesh (1972 1981 and 1998) (It should be notedthat the Pakistan census excludes the Northern Areas and fields ashorter census in the FATA and data are not disaggregated by agency)

Determining how urbanized the Pakistan Army officer corps is amore difficult task with our data Ideally we would like to calculate thepercentage of officers living in a rural area before they joined the ArmyOur data do not permit this for two reasons First we do not have dataon the complete officer corps rather annual intakes of new officersSecond we do not have officer-level data Since our data are at thedistrict level we can only approximate the urbanicity of new officers(rather than the entire officer corps) using information about theurbanicity of districts and the market share of officers from eachdistrict To approximate the urbanicity of officer intake we generatedan urbanization index for the Pakistan Army officer intake for 1981and 1998 corresponding to the 1981 and 1998 censuses respectivelyWe did this by taking a weighted average (using the market share of

56An urban area is defined by the Pakistani Federal Statistics Bureau as an area that hasa large number of residents as well as a municipal or local government and theprovision of local services Population densities of 400 persons per square kilometer(1000 persons per square mile) are typically considered urbanized even if the provisionof public services has been organized on a communal basis See Mohammad A QadeerPakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation (LondonRoutledge 2005) 14ndash15 5157Ibid 49ndash51

86 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 27: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

recruitment as the weight) of the percent urbanization of eachdistrict58

Figure 9 depicts the urbanization index of army officer intakes for1981 and 1998 compared to the urbanization of Pakistan per thecensuses in both years The results are striking in both 1981 and 1998the Army cohorts are substantially more urban than the country writlarge It should be noted that the composition of army cohorts variessomewhat by year and thus the urbanization index likely would vary byyear if we had census data on urbanization for all years in our seriesNonetheless these two data points suggest that army cohorts may bemore urban than the country overall

There may be several reasons for this higher urbanicity Literacy ismuch higher in urbanized areas of Pakistan than rural areas59

Figure 7 Provincial Population of Pakistan 1972ndash98Source Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegionSince 1951rsquo

58We would have liked to have done so for the 1972 census as well However the hardcopy census data for 1972 do not provide urban and rural breakdown for each districtOverall in 1972 about 25 percent of the population resided in urban areas SeePakistan Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Moreover the early years of the Army data are also unreliable perhaps owing to post-war turbulence in data collection59There are wide gaps in literacy between adults between males and female amongprovinces and between those in rural and urban areas For example according to themost recent Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from2006ndash07 total literacy of persons 10 years or older was 72 percent in the urban areas

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 87

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 28: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Thus the pool of qualified recruits is larger in urban areas thanrural areas Given that recruits must pay their own way to armyrecruitment centers persons in urban areas have greater andless expensive access to transportation (train bus car etc) thanthose in rural areas and the journeys undertaken by them are likelyto be less onerous than those undertaken by persons who live inremote areas far from public transportation Finally the Army has agreater presence near large cities with Corps Headquarters andcantonments in burgeoning cities like Lahore Multan PeshawarKarachi Quetta Bahawalpur among others These locations makethe Army more accessible to city dwellers and because thepopulation in those cities likely benefit from the military-relatedbusinesses the residents in turn may be more positively inclinedtowards the military

Additionally retired military personnel may also concentrate in keyurban areas creating coherent influencer communities that arepositively disposed towards the military Analyses of US militaryrecruitment find that the attitudes of influencers (friends familyneighbors teachers etc) towards military service have important im-pacts upon a personrsquos decision to join the armed forces When keyinfluencers are positively inclined towards the military a personrsquospropensity to join the armed forces is greater Conversely wheninfluencers are adversely disposed towards military service a person is

Figure 8 Recruits per Population (millions) by Province (1972ndash2005)Source In-house calculations based upon estimated population and army recruitmentdata

compared to 47 percent in rural areas For more disparities see Pakistan FederalBureau of Statistics 2007

88 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 29: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

less inclined to join the military This is often referred to as anlsquoinfluencer effectrsquo60

Conclusions and Implications

In summary analyses of these data show that new officers entering thePakistan Army to a significant degree resemble the geographic (asopposed to ethnic) population distribution of Pakistan writ large with afew notable exceptions By 2005 Sindh remains underrepresenteddespite improvement while Punjab and NWFP are over-represented tovarying degrees depending upon the year in question However Punjabis increasingly less dominant in annual officer intake By 2005 most ofthe countryrsquos districts have produced recruits in a marked change sincethe first year in our data series Curiously using officer intake for 1981and 1998 the urbanization of these cohorts appears to be higher thanthe urbanization of Pakistan overall using census estimates

It must be kept in mind that our data do not and cannot provideinsights into the overall composition of the entire Army because we onlyhave data for yearly officer intake We have no cohort information (eghow many attended the PMA long course or other courses together oreven how the officers broke out into the five courses) and we do not haveofficer-level data on their career paths As such we have no information

Figure 9 Percent of Pakistani Population in Urban Areas vs Percent of Officer Cohortsfrom Urban Areas (1981 and 1998)Source In-house tabulation of urbanicity index and Pakistan Population CensusOrganization lsquoPopulation By ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

60See Bruce R Orvis Narayan Sastry and Laurie L McDonald Military RecruitingOutlook Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential EnlistedSupply (Santa Monica CA RAND 1996)

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 30: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

about the relative rates of retaining persons from these various andoften relatively new districts for officer production While the Army maybe increasing recruits from these areas annually the Army may also belosing them to attrition Such differential attrition ndash if it exists ndash could bedue to individualsrsquo perceived or real discrimination in the Armyinstitutional barriers (eg bias in promotion) individualsrsquo discomfortwith being posted far away from home individualsrsquo poor preparednessintellectually or physically for the Army or discomfort with any otheraspect of the army life style Finally we have data about geographicalorigins not ethnic identity While in many cases these will beisomorphous one cannot make this assumption Thus the aboveanalyses pertain to geographic ndash not ethnic ndash characteristics of theofficer intake Despite these empirical caveats these analyses do suggestthat the Army has made important strides in achieving its objective ofbecoming at least a more geographically ndash if not ethnically ndashrepresentative force

The implications of this changing recruitment base over time may bevery important if uncertain at this juncture As the Army ndash a keyprovider of social advancement and other perquisites in Pakistan ndashbecomes more accessible the Army could be a foundation of greaternational cohesion rather than a source of ethnic tension However asthe Army expands its recruitment base it must also expand militaryinfrastructure into new areas This is particularly true for provinces thatare not well served by roads and other transport infrastructure such asBaluchiistan (Note that the vast majority of military assets areconcentrated in Punjab)

Such expansion of army infrastructure is likely necessary for severalreasons In poorly connected areas potential recruits may be unwillingto undertake potentially costly long trips to be considered forrecruitment Individuals in such areas may also have limited access toeducation and may be unprepared for military service This may makethem even less willing to undertake arduous journeys if they expect thatthey will not be qualified This concern remains even for those fromBaluchistan and Sindh if they are unaware of military policies to relaxstandards for them In areas with poor military presence individualsmay have less interest in military service compared to those areas withsignificant military presence due the above-noted lsquoinfluencer effectrsquo61

Pakistanis outside Punjab and NWFP have not always welcomed theintroduction of cantonments and other military infrastructure Baluchiethno-nationalist insurgents cite the expansion of military presence inBaluchistan as concrete evidence of lsquoPunjabi colonizationrsquo Thisresentment persists even while some welcome the introduction of

61Orvis et al Military Recruiting Outlook

90 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 31: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

cantonments because they are accompanied by expanded access toutilities (eg gas connections electrification potable water betterroads etc) access to better schools employment opportunities due tobase activities and activities supporting such bases among otherfacilities and services Conversely some residents resent the fact thatit takes the introduction of a military facility to bring such amenities toa community The expansion of the military into Baluchistan exhibitsthe entire of range of such sentiments62

The impact of expanded geographical recruitment base upon theArmyrsquos ability to conduct internal security operations is less clear Onthe one hand training persons from ethnic groups with longstandinggrievances with the center may provide important military training toco-ethnics who rise against the state On the other hand theirsuccessful integration into the Army creates opportunities for theirnear and extended families which in turn may diminish ethnicgrievances and further integrate these ethnic groups into the Pakistaninational project

Expanded recruitment also distributes the cost of military action tonew segments of Pakistani society As these family members becomemore familiar with military operations they may increasingly supportoperations if they believe the operations to be just or addressingPakistani national interests However as the costs of military actionincreases and as civilian and military casualties mount supportfor such operations may diminish putting increased pressure both onthe Army and the civilian administration (assuming a civiliandispensation)63 This cluster of concerns is particularly timely giventhat the percentage of recruits from NWFP has increased in recent yearsand it is in this area where the Pakistan Army has been most engagedagainst Pakistanrsquos domestic militants Despite expanding publicopinion polls extant polling does not employ sample sizes that permitscientifically valid comparisons across provinces much less withinprovinces At this juncture it is impossible to tell how expanded

62See Ziad Haider lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103 Frederic GrarelsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006) Interna-tional Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia BriefingNo 69 (IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)63C Christine Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the ProvincesrsquoWorldPublicOpinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul09_rptpdf4 See also International Republican Institute lsquoIRIIndex Pakistan Public Opinion Survey July 15ndashAugust 7rsquo

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 32: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

recruitment from NWFP increased operational tempo in the same areaand public support or lack thereof for these operations interplay64

Perhaps the most important questions about the Pakistan Armysurround the posited Islamization of the Pakistan Army anti-Americanism and politicization As is well known General Muham-mad Zia ul-Haq sought to Islamize the Pakistan Army during his tenureas army chief in the 1980s However scholars of the Pakistan Armyhave remained dubious that there were deep impacts upon theinstitution65 Similarly the 1989 US cutoff of military education tothe Pakistan military under the International Military Education andTraining (IMET) program has led to widespread fears that the PakistanArmy harbors strong anti-US sentiment (This is likely to be the casealthough the reasons may in fact pre-date the 1989 cessation of militaryassistance and training)

And as is well known the Army has long been subject topoliticization This politicization has been manifested in the politicizedselection of the Army chief and other army leadership the Armyrsquos rolein manipulating and undermining political institutions and thejudiciary often using the statersquos intelligences agencies the Armyrsquoshistorical and pervasive involvement in governing the country includingintroducing massive changes to the countryrsquos constitution Thesequestions about the social political and indeed religious commitmentsof the Pakistan Army officer corps are no doubt at the core ofinternational concerns about this institution

Unfortunately this current effort cannot address these questionssquarely with these data alone for reasons noted throughout this essayHowever ongoing and future research may provide modest ndash butimportant ndash insights into the Army Working with a team of quantitativeanalysts we are assembling a panel of district-level household economicsurvey data from 1991 to 2005 (1991 is the earliest year for such data)These additional data will allow us to further characterize the districtsfrom which officers are recruited in terms of social liberalismeducational attainment urbanicity among other household anddistrict-level socio-economic and demographic variables that mayexplain variation in the district recruitment outcome

However even the results of this ongoing research are circumscribedby an ecological fallacy problem That is the best we can do ischaracterize more fully the districts from which officers come Wecannot assume that that any particular officer has a similar set ofcharacteristics as the district in part because officer recruitment is not

64One illustrative exception is Fair lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistanrsquo65Cohen Pakistan Army and Rizvi Rizvi Military and Politics in Pakistan and RizviMilitary State and Society in Pakistan

92 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 33: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

random rather it is the product of both supply-side and demand-sideconsiderations

While our results narrowly advance our understanding of the PakistanArmy the changes that we have documented in officer recruitment arevery important in terms of the social impact of the Armyrsquos role in thenation the operational and political constraints upon the Army andeven the Armyrsquos capabilities to deal with critical internal securitychallenges that are likely to deepen rather than recede in the policy-relevant future As such these highly caveated findings should be ofinterest to policymakers and analysts alike and may help them refocusinquiries about this important institution even if this present and futureanalyses cannot answer these queries comprehensively

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Stephen P Cohen John H (aka Jack) Gill David OSmith and Ashley J Tellis for reading earlier versions of this work Theauthors are also thankful to Lisa Myashiro who did our GIS analysesAine Mccarthy who performed data entry and Shiv Sarin who helpedcreate needed district-level crosswalks Despite the guidance andassistance of these persons the authors are alone responsible for anyerrors that persist

Bibliography

Abbas Hassan lsquoA Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistanrsquo CTC Sentinel 12 (Jan 2008)Beaumont Peter and Mark Townsend lsquoPakistan Troops lsquolsquoaid Talibanrsquorsquo New Classified US

Documents Reveal that Mass Infiltration of Frontier Corps by Afghan Insurgents is Helping

Latest Offensiversquo The Observer 22 June 2008 5wwwguardiancoukworld2008jun22pakistanafghanistan4

Cheema Pervaiz Iqbal The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Karachi OUP 2002)

Cohen Stephen P The Indian Army Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford

OUP 1990) 32ndash56Cohen Stephen P The Pakistan Army (Berkeley Univ of California Press 1984)

Fair C Christine lsquoIslamist Militancy in Pakistan A View from the Provincesrsquo WorldPublic

Opinionorg 10 July 2009 5wwwworldpublicopinionorgpipapdfjul09PakProvinces_Jul

09_rptpdf4Fair C Christine and Seth G Jones lsquoPakistanrsquos War Withinrsquo Survival 516 (Dec 2009ndashJan

2010) 161ndash88

Grare Frederic lsquoPakistan The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalismrsquo Carnegie Paper No 65(Washington DC Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jan 2006)

Gregory Shaun lsquoThe Terrorist Threat to Pakistanrsquos Nuclear Weaponsrsquo CTC Sentinel 27 (July

2009)

Haider Ziad lsquoBaluchis Beijing and Pakistanrsquos Gwadar Portrsquo Georgetown Journal ofInternational Affairs (WinterSpring 2005) 95ndash103

Harrison Selig S lsquoDrawn and Quarteredrsquo New York Times 1 Feb 2008 5wwwnytimescom

20080201opinion01harrisonhtml_rfrac141ampscpfrac141ampsqfrac14SeligthornSthornHarrisonampstfrac14nyt4

The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Page 34: The Changing Pakistan Army Officer Corps

Harrison Selig S lsquoPakistanrsquos Ethnic Fault Linesrsquo Washington Post 11 May 2009 5www

washingtonpostcomwp-dyncontentarticle20090510AR2009051001959html4

Horeman B and M Stolwijk lsquoRefusing to Bear Arms A World Survey of Conscription andConscientious Objection to Military Servicersquo War Resisters International London 1998

5wwwwri-irgorgprogrammesworld_surveycountry_reportenPakistan4

Hussain Mushahid lsquoReforming the Armed Forcesrsquo 10 June 2001 originally published in TheNation 5httpchowkcomarticles50604

International Crisis Group lsquoPakistan The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistanrsquo Asia Briefing No 69(IslamabadBrussels International Crisis Group 22 Oct 2007)

International Institute for Strategic Studies Nuclear Black Markets Pakistan A Q Khan and theRise of Proliferation Networks A Net Assessment (London IISS 2007)

International Republic Institute lsquoIRI Index Pakistan Public Opinion Survey 15 July ndash7 Augrsquo 1

Oct 2009 5wwwiriorgmenapakistanpdfs2009_Oct_1_Survey_of_Pakistan_Public_Opinion_

July_15-August_7_2009pdf4Khan Sher Baz lsquoPunjabrsquos dominance in army being reduced ISPRrsquo The Dawn 14 Sept 2007

5wwwdawncom20070914top13htm4

Nawaz Shuja Crossed Swords Pakistan its Army and the Wars Within (Oxford OUP 2008)Negroponte John D lsquoPakistanrsquos Fata Challenge Securing One of the Worldrsquos Most Dangerous

Areasrsquo Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC 20 May

2008

Orvis Bruce R Narayan Sastry Laurie L McDonald Military Recruiting Outlook RecentTrends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica

CA RAND 1996)

Pakistan Population Census Organization lsquoPopulation by ProvinceRegion Since 1951rsquo

5wwwstatpakgovpkdeptspcostatisticspop_by_provincepop_by_provincehtml4Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2006ndash07 Pakistan

Federal Bureau of Statistics 2007

Peers Douglas M lsquoThe Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Erarsquo in D Marston

and C Sundaram (eds) A Military History of India and South Asia (Bloomington Indiana UP2008) 34ndash52

Qadeer Mohammad A Pakistan Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation(London Routledge 2005) 14ndash15 49ndash51

lsquoRegular Commission in Pakistan Armyrsquo 5wwwjoinpakarmygovpkintr-procedure-for-

comissionphp4

Rizvi Hassan Askari The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947ndash1997 (Lahore Sang-e-Meel

2000)Rizvi Hassan Askari Military State and Society in Pakistan (London Palgrave 2000)

Rubin Barnett R The Fragmentation of Afghanistan State Formation and Collapse in theInternational System (New Haven Yale University Press 2002)

Siddiqa Ayesha Military Inc Inside Pakistanrsquos Military Economy (London Pluto Press 2007)Text of the 1973 Constitution 5wwwpakistanconstitution-lawcomtheconst_1973asp4

accessed 2 Dec 2008

Tyson Ann Scott lsquoA Sober Assessment of Afghanistan Outgoing US Commander Cites 50Spike in Attacks in Eastrsquo Washington Post 15 June 2008 5wwwwashingtonpostcomwpyn

contentarticle20080614AR2008061401639html4

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) lsquoCombating Terrorism US Oversight of Pakistan

Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Fundsrsquo (Washington DC GAO 2008)Wallen Russ lsquoKeeping Pakistanrsquos Nukes Extremist-Freersquo Asia Times Online 16 June 2009

5wwwatimescomatimesSouth_AsiaKA16Df01html4

94 C Christine Fair and Shuja Nawaz

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f B

irm

ingh

am]

at 2

358

14

Nov

embe

r 20

14