Youth and Civil-Military Relations: CSS Solved Answer

Exam question: CSS 2026, Q5: Critically assess how youth perspectives, digital activism, and civil society movements are influencing civil military relations.

Syllabus topic: Topic VI of the CSS Pakistan Affairs syllabus.

Short answer

Outline for quick revision

Introduction
Understanding the Actors: Youth; Digital activism; Civil society movements
Historical Background: Civil Society and the Military: The Lawyers’ Movement (2007-09); Media liberalisation; Ban on student unions
How These Forces Influence Civil-Military Relations: Pressure and criticism; Support and convergence; The state’s response
Critical Assessment: Positive effects; Negative effects; The demographic factor
Way Forward
Conclusion

Reference colours:
Quotation / documentPersonality / historySyllabus bookCurrent referenceOfficial report / policy

1. Introduction

For most of Pakistan’s history, civil-military relations were an elite bargain between generals, politicians, judges and bureaucrats. Ordinary citizens had little voice beyond elections.

This has changed. A very young, connected population, social media and assertive civil-society movements have created a new arena of public opinion that both pressures and supports the military. Yet the state has responded with regulation and restrictions, and the military’s institutional power has grown. The influence of these new forces is real but limited.

Current reference: Pakistan’s median age is about 20.6 years; it has about 117 million internet users and 79.9 million social media user identities (DataReportal, Digital 2026, data to late 2025).

2. Understanding the Actors

Youth

About two-thirds of Pakistanis are under 30, and most of them have grown up with mobile phones and social media rather than state television. Their expectations of jobs, freedom and accountability, and their frustration when these are not met, now shape politics more than ever before.

Official report / policy: UNDP’s Pakistan National Human Development Report 2017, Unleashing the Potential of a Young Pakistan (launched May 2018), found that 64% of Pakistanis are under 30 and 29% are aged 15-29, the largest youth population in the country’s history, and warned that this bulge becomes a dividend only if young people get education, jobs and a meaningful voice.

Digital activism

Digital activism means using social media, hashtags, online campaigns, YouTube channels and influencers, including the overseas diaspora, to mobilise opinion. It is cheap, fast and hard to control, which allows ordinary citizens to challenge official narratives.

Civil society movements

These are lawyers’ bodies, human rights groups, the media, student and women’s groups and ethnic rights movements that organise outside political parties. They raise issues such as rule of law, missing persons and civil liberties that directly touch the role of the security establishment.

3. Historical Background: Civil Society and the Military

The Lawyers’ Movement (2007-09)

When General Musharraf removed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in 2007, lawyers, the media and civil society launched a nationwide movement. It forced the Chief Justice’s restoration in March 2009 and showed that organised civil society could successfully challenge a military ruler.

Media liberalisation

The opening of private television channels after 2002 brought talk shows and open debate on security and foreign policy for the first time. Social media later took this debate much further, beyond the reach of traditional media controls.

Ban on student unions

Student unions were banned in 1984 under Zia-ul-Haq and have not been fully restored. Without campus politics as a training ground, young people have few organised channels for political participation, so much of their activism has moved online.

4. How These Forces Influence Civil-Military Relations

Pressure and criticism

Breaking the taboo

Social media has made open discussion, and criticism, of the military’s political role common among young people, something unimaginable a generation ago. This has forced the institution to explain and defend its position in public rather than rely on silence.

Party-based digital mobilisation

Political parties, especially the PTI, built huge online youth bases. After the change of government in April 2022, these networks turned their criticism directly towards the establishment, bringing civil-military questions into everyday political debate.

The 9 May 2023 rupture

Online anger spilled onto the streets on 9 May 2023, when military installations were attacked after Imran Khan’s arrest. The state responded firmly, including trials of civilians in military courts, which shows how digital mobilisation can provoke a harder line rather than reform.

Current reference: On 8 May 2025, the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench (5-2) overturned its October 2023 judgment and allowed the trial of civilians accused in the 9 May 2023 attacks on military installations by military courts.

Rights movements

Movements in the former tribal areas and Balochistan used social media to highlight enforced disappearances and the effects of military operations. They gained national and international attention, but also faced bans and arrests.

Current reference: The federal government banned the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement in October 2024, and Mahrang Baloch of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee was detained in March 2025, moves condemned by Amnesty International as crackdowns on peaceful civil-society movements.

Support and convergence

Rallying in national crises

The same digital youth can strengthen the military in a crisis. During the May 2025 conflict with India, young Pakistanis online rallied behind the armed forces and countered Indian disinformation, showing that public opinion can work for national unity as well as against the establishment.

Current reference: In May 2025, after Indian strikes on 7 May, Pakistan responded with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos on 10 May, and a ceasefire was announced the same day. The civil and military leadership acted in unison, military response, diplomacy and information campaign together, and General Asim Munir was promoted to Field Marshal on 20 May 2025.

The military’s own digital outreach

The military’s media wing expanded its online presence and began warning against “digital terrorism” and propaganda. This shows that the institution now treats public opinion and the online space as a battlefield in its own right.

The state’s response

Regulation and restrictions

The state has used platform bans, internet slowdowns and new cyber laws to control online space. These steps reduced some disinformation but also limited legitimate criticism and harmed businesses that depend on the internet.

Current reference: The state blocked X (Twitter) on 17 February 2024, after it was used to highlight allegations of election rigging, and restored it only on 7 May 2025, during the conflict with India, about 15 months later. The PECA (Amendment) Act 2025 criminalised the spreading of “false” information online.

Institutional consolidation

At the same time, the military’s constitutional position was strengthened through the 27th Amendment. This suggests that, despite louder public debate, the formal balance of power has moved further towards the military.

Current reference: The 27th Constitutional Amendment (November 2025) created the post of Chief of Defence Forces, held by the army chief with authority over all three services, abolished the post of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, gave five-star officers lifetime rank and immunity from prosecution, and created a Federal Constitutional Court. The government called it a reform for command clarity; critics, including the HRCP and senior judges, said it weakened judicial independence and civilian oversight.

5. Critical Assessment

Positive effects

These new forces have widened public debate, increased pressure for accountability and transparency, and created a sense that every institution must earn public trust. They also give marginalised regions and groups a voice they did not have before.

Negative effects

Social media also spreads polarisation, misinformation and hate campaigns, and can be used by hostile foreign actors to divide Pakistanis. When criticism turns into violence, as on 9 May 2023, it damages both democracy and national cohesion.

Two-way influence

Pressure: criticism, accountability demands, rights movements
Civil-military relations: public opinion now matters
Support: national unity in crises, counter-disinformation

Online anger has not changed the structure of power: courts upheld military trials, platforms were blocked and the military’s constitutional role expanded. Lasting change needs strong institutions, parties, parliament and courts, not only hashtags.

Syllabus book: Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia (1995), argues that the contrast of “democratic India” and “authoritarian Pakistan” is misleading: both inherited centralised colonial structures, and in Pakistan the dominance of the bureaucracy and the military over weak political parties shaped the state.

The demographic factor

Pakistan’s population is young and will stay young for decades, so the pressure for voice and accountability will keep growing. How the state responds, by opening channels or closing them, will shape the future of civil-military relations.

Syllabus book: Stephen P. Cohen et al., The Future of Pakistan (2011), argue that Pakistan is most likely to “muddle through”, and identify demography, the economy, militancy and the civil-military balance as the variables that will decide its future.

6. Way Forward

The state should open institutional channels for youth by restoring student unions and giving young people a role in policy forums, so that their energy flows through politics rather than only online. Online space should be regulated by clear laws, independent oversight and due process, not by sudden bans. Digital and media literacy should be taught in schools to counter disinformation. Peaceful civil-society movements and journalists should be protected, while violence is dealt with under the law. Above all, trust should be built through transparent communication between the military, parliament and citizens.

7. Conclusion

Youth, digital activism and civil-society movements have turned civil-military relations from a closed elite affair into a matter of public debate. They have pressured the military, but also rallied behind it when the nation was attacked. The state has answered with restrictions and the military’s institutional power has grown, so their influence remains limited. In the long run, a young and connected nation will demand that civil-military relations rest on constitutional principles, transparency and public trust, the vision the Quaid set out in 1948.

“Don’t forget that you in the armed forces are the servants of the people. You do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out these tasks with which you are entrusted.”
Quaid-i-Azam, address to the Staff College, Quetta, 14 June 1948

Youth and Civil-Military Relations: CSS 2026 Solved Answer