The Pakistan Armed Forces have been criticized for eroding democratic processes in Pakistan, for being the largest business conglomeration in the country and for excessive control over the domestic and foreign policies of Pakistan. Critics of the Pakistan Army, such as human rights activist Manzoor Pashteen, have been jailed while like-minded Pakistani citizens are warned against criticizing the military establishment. In Pakistan, the military is considered a part of what is known as The Establishment; they control the state through a backdoor and are a part of a working deep state.
Modus operandi: Reinforcing deep-state dominance
Control over economy: Military owned Pakistan's largest business conglomerations
The Establishment's runs Pakistan's largest business conglomeration with more than 50 business entities worth over US$20 billion; owned through Army Welfare Trust, Bahria Foundation, Fauji Foundation and Shaheen Foundation; runs Pakistan's largest business empire ranging from petrol pumps to huge industrial plants, banks, bakeries, schools and universities, hosiery factories, milk dairies, stud farms, and cement plants, as well as 8 jewels in their crown Defence Housing Authority townships on prime lands across Pakistan in which awards military personnel farm lands and housing plots.
Control over government policy: Political Islam driven
The Establishment has control over the foreign, and domestic policy of Islamisation of Pakistan.
According to the historian Professor Mubarak Ali, textbook "reform" in Pakistan began with the introduction of Pakistan Studies and Islamic studies by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1971 into the national curriculum as a compulsory subject and the military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, under a general drive towards Islamization, started the process of historical revisionism in earnest and exploited this initiative. 'The Pakistani establishment taught their children right from the beginning that this state was built on the basis of religion – that's why they don't have tolerance for other religions and want to wipe-out all of them.'
Implementation of policies
Core principles/values of the Establishment are the policy of treating India as an arch-rival and existential threat, the Kashmir obsession, Islamisation of Pakistan, Punjab as the heartland/core of Pakistan, strategic use of non-state militants and other Islamic states as Pakistan's natural allies.
Policy of homogenization of Pakistan
During the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq a "program of Islamization" of the country including the textbooks was started to ingrain school kids with Islamised fundamentals. According to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, since the 1970s Pakistan's school textbooks have systematically inculcated hatred towards India and Hindus through historical revisionism. These school books played a key role in spreading hatred against non-Muslims, particularly against Hindus and distorted the history. Professor Marwat blamed General Zia for “sowing seeds of discord in society on religious and ethnic lines by stuffing school curricula with material that promoted hatred now manifested in the shape of extremism, intolerance, militancy, sectarianism, dogmatism and fanaticism ... after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 countless lessons and chapters were introduced that spread hatred among the students and portrayed India as the biggest enemy of the Muslims. That stuff should be done away with." According to Tufts University professor Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Indophobia in Pakistan increased with the ascendancy of the militant Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami under Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. Indophobia, together with Anti-Hinduism and racist ideologies, such as the martial race theory, were the driving factors behind the re-writing of school textbooks in Pakistan (in both "secular" schools and Islamic madrassahs) in order to promote a biased and revisionist historiography of the Indian subcontinent that promulgated Indophobic and anti-Hindu prejudices. These narratives are combined with Islamist propaganda in the extensive revising of Pakistan's history. By propagating concepts such as jihad, the inferiority of non-Muslims, India's perceived ingrained enmity with Pakistan, etc., the textbook board publications used by all government schools promote an obscurantist mindset.