Khan has precipitated the worst crisis for the military since last decade when a lawyers’ movement forced Pervez Musharraf out of power and it later failed to detect Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan’s equivalent of Sandhurst
The domination of the Pakistan Army is rooted in events dating back centuries, the change in the British Indian Army’s composition post-1857 revolt, which led to the recruitment of a bulk of soldiers from ‘martial races’ of north-western India much of which became part of Pakistan
The history of Pakistani politicians falling out with the country’s military goes back to the 1960s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was then in his 30s, revolted against Ayub Khan two years after the military ruler made the young politician foreign minister
Khan’s popularity has been unprecedented in Pakistan’s recent history and no politician has enjoyed so much public adulation perhaps since the emergence of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1960s
In the early decades of independence, top Indian and Pakistani military officers, trained together at academies such as Sandhurst as a group of tightly-knit cadets selected based on shared features, maintained bonds despite hostilities and the tumultuous partition
Pakistan’s judiciary has had an unenviable record of legitimizing military rulers under the ‘doctrine of necessity but has also over the decades managed to stand out by exerting a check on the executive and the military establishment
Three-time Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has consistently taken a conciliatory approach towards India and sought peaceful co-existence and economic prosperity, earning him Indian approval as the businessman politician brings a pragmatic approach to politics wherein ideology takes a backseat and he appears willing to give more and take less
