B. S. Dara
bsdara@gmail.com
Pakistan has crossed a line that even many dictatorships hesitate to cross. Its recent constitutional amendment, which elevates the serving Army Chief to a Field-Marshal-like lifelong power centre, extends his tenure until 2030, and grants him sweeping legal immunity, is nothing short of a full constitutional surrender to military rule. It is not an internal political adjustment, as Islamabad would like the world to believe. It is a brazen, deliberate transformation of Pakistan into a uniform-run state where democracy survives only on paper and the constitution bends to the will of one institution. As Reuters reported, the amendment was passed with shocking ease, despite senior judges resigning in protest and warning that the constitution has been mutilated beyond recognition. Their message was stark that Pakistan’s legal order now protects the powerful from the law itself.
This is not a coup by force, it is a coup by legislation, far more dangerous because it carries the illusion of legitimacy. Pakistan has effectively written military supremacy into its constitution. For a country that has been teetering between fragile democracy and overt dictatorship for decades, this amendment finally settles the question of who rules Pakistan. It is not parliament. It is not the judiciary. It is not the people. The military, long unaccountable, is now legally untouchable.
Why did Pakistan’s political class allow this? The answer reveals a broken political culture. Pakistan’s civilian leaders have historically operated not as defenders of democracy, but as temporary tenants in a house owned by the army. They bend, compromise, and negotiate not with voters but with the military establishment. Political parties in Pakistan rarely challenge the uniforms because they know the consequences.Dismissal, exile, arrest, and disappearance. Instead, they willingly trade away constitutional authority in exchange for brief, fragile years in government. They do not defend democracy, they bargain with it. This amendment did not pass despite Pakistan’s political parties, it passed because of them.
The tragedy is that Pakistan’s military dominance was not imposed overnight. It has been cultivated for decades with deliberate precision. The military inserted itself into foreign policy, internal security, national ideology, the economy, the media and the intelligence apparatus. It built business empires, manipulated elections, toppled prime ministers and silenced journalists. And now, having conquered every institution through practice, it has sought to formalise that control in the constitution itself. The term ‘failed state’ is often used carelessly, but Pakistan is dangerously close to embodying it, a nuclear-armed nation where military power thrives while civilian authority collapses.
The amendment strikes at the heart of whatever remained of Pakistan’s democratic fabric. It cripples the judiciary, which was already struggling to maintain independence. Two senior Supreme Court judges resigning the very day the amendment passed tells its own story.They believed the constitution had been assaulted so severely that the judiciary could no longer defend it. This is the deepest institutional humiliation Pakistan has inflicted upon itself in decades. When a state grants lifetime immunity to a military ruler, it announces that accountability is dead. When it extends his command over all branches of the armed forces, it announces that power is centralised in a single, unelected man. And when it legalises this arrangement, it announces that democracy is not merely weak, it is irrelevant.
India cannot afford to take this development lightly. A Pakistan governed openly by the military is not a stabilising neighbour. It is a volatile one. Every major conflict between India and Pakistan, from Kargil to terror attacks to proxy insurgencies, has roots in decisions taken not by civilians but by the Pakistani military establishment. Now that the military has formally absorbed constitutional power, the chances of policy moderation diminish even further. Pakistan’s civilian leaders, however flawed, at least carried some electoral accountability and economic considerations. The military does not. Its worldview is shaped by hostility, threat perceptions and ideological rigidity. A military that faces no internal challenge is more likely to act adventurously, especially when its domestic failures demand external distractions.
This is particularly dangerous because Pakistan is a nuclear state. The global community often assumes that nuclear command-and-control structures are insulated, professional and secure. But when political oversight disappears and absolute authority lies with one institution, protected by lifetime immunity, the margin for miscalculation narrows. A nuclear-armed Pakistan ruled entirely by the military is a geopolitical nightmare, not only for India but for the entire region. South Asia has witnessed enough cycles of escalation due to Pakistan’s security establishment, with constitutional licence now added to military dominance, those cycles could become more frequent and more dangerous.
This amendment also sends a deeply troubling message to the Global South. At a time when democracies are fighting to survive disinformation, authoritarian temptations and institutional weakening, Pakistan has chosen the opposite path.It has codified authoritarianism as national policy. It has told the developing world that civilian rule is expendable, that courts can be side-lined, that constitutions can be rewritten to protect the powerful rather than the people. No country that claims democratic credentials should remain silent about this precedent. Pakistan is damaging itself and poisoning the democratic environment of the region.
For India, this is a moment of strategic clarity. New Delhi must recognise that the Pakistan it faces today is not a divided hybrid democracy but a uniform-controlled system with no civilian counterweight. Vigilance along the borders, strengthened intelligence, and a recalibrated diplomatic posture are necessary. But equally important is India’s responsibility to uphold and project democratic stability, because the contrast between the two nations has never been sharper. Where India strengthens institutions, Pakistan dismantles them. Where India debates, Pakistan suppresses. Where India votes, Pakistan salutes.
Pakistan’s new constitutional order is a self-inflicted disaster, but its consequences will not remain confined within its borders. It has chosen military absolutism over democratic evolution, constitutional submission over constitutional strength. This decision will shape the region for years, perhaps decades. India must be alert, South Asia must be watchful, and the world must understand the gravity of what has happened. By altering its governance structure, Pakistan has announced that democracy in the country is no longer even a pretence. It is now, openly and proudly, an army with a state, not a state with an army.
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