NEW DELHI: Amidst the ongoing tensions with India, the Pakistan Army got its second Field Marshal on Tuesday after the Cabinet led by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took the decision to promote Army chief General Asim Munir. He follows in the footsteps of General Ayub Khan who had self-promoted himself in 1959 when he was the country's President.
The move comes in the wake of Operation Sindoor launched by India in response to the killing of 26 civilians in a terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22. The Indian Air Force and Indian Army jointly struck nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7. While Pakistan tried to retaliate with missiles and drones, India's air defences brought them down and the IAF also struck multiple air bases including those in Nur Khan, Sargodha and Rahim Yar Khan.
The rank of Field Marshal is usually conferred upon an officer with an impeccable service record. In the case of Munir, however, the then Prime Minister Imran Khan had removed him as the director general of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) nine months after he took over.
Born in 1968, Munir graduated from the Pakistan Officers Training School in 1986 and was awarded the Sword of Honour as the best cadet of his batch and became the 11th Army chief on November 29, 2022, replacing General Qamar Javed Bajwa. He had two major stints with the powerful intelligence directorate of the Pakistan Army, being director of military intelligence in 2016 and taking over as the director general of the ISI in 2018.
His ISI tenure was truncated after his relations with then PM Imran Khan, who is now in jail, soured. When Imran was arrested, he had publicly implicated Munir for playing a role in his arrest. Imran's successor Shehbaz Sharif chose Munir as the Pakistan Army chief. Imran had tried to spike Munir's appointment as army chief and lobbied to install his trusted officer Gen Faiz Hameed in the powerful seat instead.
Saddled with a sinking economy that survives on foreign bailouts, runaway inflation, home-grown insurgency and popular outrage over the jailing of Imran, Gen Munir possibly sought to deflect attention with his provocative anti-India statements. Pahalgam happened soon after, suggesting the two were linked. Imran's fallout with the army had eroded the latter's clout. Under Munir, the military is back in control of the nation.
Munir had headed the ISI when tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after the Pulwama suicide attack in February 2019 that resulted in the death of 40 CRPF personnel. He is said to have been among the people shaping Pakistan's response and security measures since then.
Interestingly, Munir has his roots, like Pervez Musharraf, in India, which in his case is in Jalandhar, Punjab. Peddling the two-nation theory, he said on April 17, "Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. We are two nations, we are not one nation."
He advised his audience to tell the story of Pakistan creation to their children "so that they don't forget that our forefathers thought we were different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life."
Munir was slated to retire as Army chief in 2025 but, disregarding other senior officers in line to take over as the chief, the National Assembly passed a resolution extending his tenure for another two years. The resolution fixed the tenure of all three service chiefs at five years. Munir will now retire in 2027.
The Pakistan Army has directly ruled the country for 33 years since 1947 and even when it is not in power, political representatives have functioned under its overbearing shadow. This lets the military rule the country without any accountability. Imran Khan tried to expose this and had to pay for it as he was removed in 2022.
Indian Field Marshals and Marshal of the Air Force
The highest rank of Field Marshal in the Army is equivalent to that of Marshal of the Air Force in the Air Force and Admiral of the Fleet in the Navy. These are one rank above General, Admiral and Air Chief Marshal in the Army, Navy and the Air Force respectively.
In India, these ranks were awarded post-retirement to only three officers -- two in the Indian Army and another in the Indian Air Force. From the Army, General Sam Manekshaw in 1973 and General KM Cariappa in 1986 were conferred with the rank of Field Marshal. In the IAF, Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh was conferred the rank of Marshal of the Air Force.
General Cariappa was the first Indian Commander in Chief of India and the day he was promoted, 15 January 1949, is celebrated as the Army Day. He is credited with setting the course which has led to making the Indian Army one of the most respected institutions. General Manekshaw led the nation to victory in the 1971 war which helped Bangladesh attain its independence.
