From the recent teapot storm of statements and counter-statements between such worthies as our army chief, Chief Justice and various ministers, most commentators have conjectured that while the institutions of our fragile state may or may not be jockeying to enlarge their individual areas of influence, democracy and the constitution are quite safe. No coup d’état is going to happen, they aver, as all who matter have affirmed their loyalty to the constitution. (Those who have not so affirmed include the ‘angry Baloch’, the Taliban and their Punjabi fellow travellers, and General (Retd) Aslam Beg; but they are not the subject of this piece.) The question, in the Pakistani context, is then: why do coups take place? To answer that, let us briefly look at the track record of our four periods of civilian supremacy, our three periods of military-led governments, and the immediate motives of the coup-makers. One realises that it is close to sacrilege to point a critical finger at our first elected government — that of the Quaid-e-Millat — particularly in light of the massive upheavals of his time and the fact that everything had to be built up from scratch. But let us not forget that Liaquat Ali Khan led an almost single-party Assembly, whose first, and prime, task was the framing of a constitution for the new nation. And it was this very task at which his government simply failed to make any progress, other than to formulate the controversial Objectives Resolution. The consequences of that failure bedevilled us for long. The six prime ministers over the seven years following Mr Khan bumbled their way through instability, regional discontent, and deteriorating governance. The military threw them all out in 1958. The second period of civilian government, that of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, crumbled in five years into civil disorder and another military coup. The third civilian interregnum saw nine governments (Benazir Bhutto, Jatoi, Sharif, Mazari, Sharif again, Qureshi, Benazir again, Meraj, Sharif again) in 11 years, economic stagnation, and administrative failure. Another coup d’état followed. As regards the present dispensation, I will refrain from comment for the moment. Therefore the performance of our civilian governments, despite their constitutional validity and democratic credentials, may have been good here and there, but has more often been plain awful. The question is whether the military-dominated regimes did much better. There is a popular myth that the armed forces are well organised and can do a better job at governing than corrupt and inept civilians. One glance at the deplorable political histories of Africa and Latin America should have quickly demonstrated the falsity of this myth. In Pakistan, certainly, the Ayub Khan ‘revolution’ had some strong points. The trains ran on time for the first (and last) time in the country’s history and, with major US assistance, the foundations of a modern economy were laid. But the 10-plus years of Ayub followed by three of Yahya climaxed in violent social eruptions, explosive regional discontent, two international wars, a genocidal civil war, and dismemberment of the state. However incompetent or corrupt they may have been, no civilian government ever led to a national catastrophe of this magnitude. As for the next military regime, that of Ziaul Haq, I trust I do not have to remind my readers of the frightful events of those dark years. Zia deliberately unleashed the demons of bigotry, hypocrisy, ethnicity, sectarianism, the Kalashnikov culture and the curse of heroin onto our people. He survived in his absolute power for 11 long years, longer than any of our other rulers. His nightmare tenure left our society degraded and brutalised, our constitution mangled, our legal and ethical standards transmuted to gross bigotry. The country was, and remains, awash with extremism, terrorism, guns, drugs, dacoits, and sectarian and ethnic violence. One can scarcely think of many rulers in history who have perpetrated such villainy on their own citizens. Certainly, none of our civilian governments even came close to these abysmal depths of corruption and outright evil. And this brings us to the most recent of our uniformed institution-destroyers, the last (we must pray) of the illegitimate line. I refer, of course, to the strutting, fist-waving, second-skin-flaunting former commando. To enunciate the litany of Musharraf’s ‘reign of errors’ is redundant. That self-appointed emperor was transparently without clothes from day one. His period had neither the flawed grandeur of Ayub’s time nor even the great evil of the Zia years. No, he was a much smaller figure, casting a less-than-puny shadow in the limelight of history. Musharraf used debt to crippling effect as a tool of his so-called economic policy. His regime dismantled whatever institutions were left or had been revived over the years. More dangerously still, the country’s very sovereignty was bartered away to terrorists and insurgents. That sovereignty has not yet been regained and the struggle ahead remains a long and bloody one. The point, then, is clear. Pakistan’s military regimes have successively led to a nation-breaking calamity, have unleashed unspeakable violence and evil, and have given away the country’s sovereign territory to enemies of the state. And yet there are people, particularly among our so-called professional classes, who talk about ‘effective government’ by military regimes. Now, I come to my final point. Ayub was something of an ideological visionary in uniform, who, by his own admission, had been developing his plans for many years. The choice of timing for his coup was fortuitous, determined by the actions of President Iskander Mirza. Yahya was simply standing in the wings when Ayub, tired and sick at heart with everything collapsing around him, called on him to take over. In Zia, one sees, no, not an ideologue. He is the classic counter-revolutionary, brought into power by the many powerful groups angered by Bhutto’s socialist policies and personal arrogance. And, cloaked behind the obscurantism of his religious protestations, Zia ruthlessly undid Bhutto’s legacy. The personally ambitious Musharraf overthrew his legitimate boss, as well as the constitution, merely because he had been fired from his job. The sacked home chowkidar (security guard) took over the house from its lawful master. What does this imply? It implies that the institution that has the guns can take over the government whenever it wills. No special provocation is needed, nor is any prediction possible. It is held in check only by its own willing acceptance of the competent authority placed above it. I believe this is something that President Zardari, with his sharply honed political instincts, understands. So does General Kayani. The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet