General Qamar Javed Bajwa NI(M), HI(M) is the 10th and current Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan. Gen. Bajwa will be retiring on 29 November 2022 after coming into office in 2016. Gen. Bajwa joined Pakistan Military Academy in 1978 and was commissioned in an infantry battalion in 1980. Before Becoming the Chief, he served on various operational command and staff appointments.
As a two-star general, he was the General Commanding Officer of Force Command Northern Areas in Gilgit Baltistan. Later on, he went on to become the Commandant of the School of Infantry and Tactics in Quetta, Balochistan. Gen. Bajwa also had the honor of being an instructor in the School of Infantry and Tactics and Command and Staff College Quetta.
Despite his efforts and hard work for the people of Pakistan and the Pakistan Army, a malicious media propaganda of the Army’s involvement in Political affairs was launched. In Gen. Bajwa’s era, Pakistan’s defense budget went down from 6.50 % of the GDP in the 70’s to 2.54% in 2021. This was the conscious decision taken by the leadership of the armed forces subject to the deteriorating economic condition of Pakistan.
Although the Pakistan army is the seventh largest military in the world, its expenses are the lowest as compared to the armies of comparable size. In contrary to the defense expenditure of $42,000 allocated for one soldier of the Indian army, Pakistan spends $12,500 for one soldier every year. Pakistan’s army gets a paltry 7 percent of the total budget of the country. Despite this meager defense allocation, the army has managed to maintain old equipment and introduce new weapon systems, upgraded technologies, and cyber warfare capabilities.
Under Gen. Bajwa’s command, the Pakistan army has managed to get the country’s relationships with other nations back on track. Gen. Bajwa has played an instrumental role in strengthening Pakistan’s ties with the U.S., China, Middle East and EU. Through his vision, he has played important role in actualization of projects of mutual development and interest including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Despite the frictions on the issues of civil-military relations, Gen. Bajwa will always be remembered as a pro-democracy general who always took the initiative to restrict the military’s role as mandated by the constitution of Pakistan.
