The Jihadi General: Why we should take Asim Munir seriously

On April 16, just a week before the Pahalgam terror attack, General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, proclaimed: “You must tell Pakistan’s story to your children. Our forefathers believed that we are different from the Hindus in every aspect of life. Our religions, our customs, traditions, thoughts and ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid.”Munir was addressing a Pakistani diaspora audience in Islamabad. In passing, he also boasted of Pakistan’s “superior ideology and culture”. Whence the superiority, when Pakistan is a failing state, on the verge of bankruptcy, was not a question any in his audience asked. Instead, they clapped and cheered him.Just four days after the attack, Munir repeated his assertions, this time in the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, while speaking at a Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) parade. His words were almost identical: “The two-nation theory was based on the fundamental belief that Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations, not one. Muslims are distinct from Hindus in all aspects of life – religion, customs, traditions, thinking and aspirations.” medium120927081Those in India, especially the “aman ki asha” peaceniks and other well-wishers of Pakistan, dismissed Munir’s tirade using the choicest epithets. But now that he has repeated himself, shouldn’t we be less alacritous in simply moving on as if nothing of import was said by Pakistan's powerful serving army chief? He is, after all, the real power behind the unsteady and fragile chair of the civilian head of government, prime minister Shahbaz Sharif.More dangerous than ZiaI would like Indians—indeed all Pakistan-watchers—to take Munir’s remarks very seriously indeed. Even more than the former military dictator and Islamist, Zia-ul-Haq, Munir is more openly and proudly deserving of the title “jihadi general”. We, for centuries at the receiving end of Islamist jihad, right up to present times, can least afford to take the general’s warnings lightly.Listening to him from across the border was uncanny, to say the least. Because even as he was saying that he and his fellow Pakistanis have nothing in common with Hindus and Indians, he sounded just like the friendly neighborhood Punjabi uncle in Delhi, whose parents had been pushed out of West Punjab during Partition. His accent was unmistakably “Punjlish”.Perhaps Munir forgot one thing. What Pakistani Muslims have indisputably in common with Hindus in India is that very thing—he too is Punjabi and most of his, as well as his compatriots’, ancestors were Indian once.So what does his radical self-denial and self-loathing really mean? Just one thing: whatever you do, however hard you try, you can’t get away from who you are. Sigmund Freud called it the return of the repressed. In his famous essay, “Moses and Monotheism,” he explained how Moses, an Egyptian, was killed for his monotheism. His followers, the Jews, in denial of his and Moses' Egyptian identity, became fervent monotheists.This psychoanalytic lens is critical when examining not just General Munir’s reiterated remarks, but his—and Pakistan’s—self-understanding. Pakistan’s chief of army staff’s self-proclaimed identity contra-Hindus and Indians betrays his deepest fears and, yes, secret desires. The more he denies his identity, the more strongly it will flare up. For denial is sometimes the strongest admission of acceptance. 120927300All in the nameMunir is supposed to be a Hariz-e-Quran, that is someone who has the Islamic holy book by heart. He was schooled in a madrasa or Islamic school before he joined the army. He rose quickly, without the conventional, more westernised, PMA route. Located in the salubrious and elevated environs of Abbottabad, the PMA still retains its British colonial vestiges and trappings.Munir rose first to the coveted and dangerous position of the chief of Pakistan’s “state within a state”, the dreaded and feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), then became its army boss, and now is the virtual military dictator, with an emasculated civilian government to offer cover for his misdeeds. To repeat his two-nation, anti-Hindu and anti-Indian harangue at a PMA parade is, thus, clearly a sign that Munir means what he says.In comparison, his predecessor, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, comes across as a moderate. Asim, incidentally, means “protector”, “guardian”, or, if the general takes himself as seriously as it appears, even “saviour”. Munir means “illustrious”, “shining” or “luminous”.In other words, Asim Munir, if he is to live up to his name, would like to be remembered as the shining saviour of Pakistan and its Islamist ideology. As he proudly says, after Medina, Pakistan is the only state in the world created of, by, and for Islam.But the more disturbing question is that if Munir has indeed studied and memorized the Quran, as he demonstrates by reciting relevant verses at will, then is this hatred for Hindus and India what he has learned from it? If so, Munir could be the most dangerous and determined adversary that India has encountered in recent decades. Also, the most deluded.Does that mean India should fear him? No. My point is rather different. A war against Pakistan is one thing; to take on, or should I say take down, Munir quite another. We should not equate the latter with the former. Many in Pakistan, former prime minister Imran Khan included, dislike not only Munir, but the Pakistani army.India should use every resource at its command, first of all, to overcome or overthrow Munir. When Pakistan was rid of Gen Zia in a plane crash, the mystery was memorialized or should I say celebrated in Mohammed Hanif’s witty, award-winning novel, “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” (2008). There is much to learn in such matters from how Israel deals with its marked enemies.To return to Munir’s proud anti-Hindu self-identification, we can only note that it is not just a rhetorical flourish, but a symptom of a deeper malaise. By denying Pakistan’s shared history with India and espousing a militant Islamist ideology, he risks dragging his country into a cycle of violence and isolation. Munir’s denial of his roots could lead to destructive consequences, not just for Pakistan but for the entire region.Yes, “religion”, as Freud said, “is collective neurosis”. At any rate, this is certainly true of Pakistan and its general, Asim Munir.