Read my today’s column:
End of the line
“He was really a fascist — using the most progressive rhetoric to promote regressive ends, the first of which was to stay in power forever. It was a tragedy, because a man of his undoubted capability could have done a lot of good for his country” - In the line of fire, page 58
So finally, I am done with our president/army chief’s not so personal memoirs. Immediately at the time of purchasing the book, I noted three odd things. First, the picture that I was accustomed to seeing on the promotional cover jacket of his book online, in which he is shown saluting someone, had been replaced with his another photo in a rather sombre mood. The second thing that I noticed was the absence of footnotes. Since we were anticipating his version on uncountable contentious issues, I was at least expecting his book to carry some verifiable references to other works or documents. The third is the issue of the publishing rights of the book, which are reserved in his name. I believe that at least his staff officer Brigadier Afzal Bajwa should have been given some reward for having painstakingly transcribed this magnus opus.The book has three dimensions: personal, political and personal-political. While his personal life has been really very interesting, some episodes are narrated rather crudely. As for his views on politics before his rise to the power echelons are concerned, I daresay they are mostly politically incorrect. And the third portion that discusses his personal involvement in the contentious political issues, both in the military and the civilian domains, offers challenging reading owing to lack of contextual relevance. It is in this section that you realise that statements even in the same chapters do not match, which essentially implies that they were neither jotted down in long regular sessions nor edited any differently. Perhaps, Musharraf was really in terrible haste to get it published.
Now, it is really difficult for one to carry out a point by point analysis of his book, as one would have actually desired. So many facts have been crammed into mere 335 pages. Perhaps, the sanest idea would be to pluck out some important issues and discuss them. The rest can be left for later discussions. But before I proceed any further, let me qualify a point I made in my last column. In my piece titled ‘A frisson of terror’ dated September 24, I had written: “And frankly, it seems a bit odd to find a sitting general- president writing a book on sensitive matters when even his recently retired colleagues cannot express themselves before the media owing to the Official Secrets Act.” Unfortunately, some of our friends have tried to imply that since all of the facts reproduced in the book were already being speculated widely, they did not constitute an offence. Alas, the matter is not that simple. There is huge a difference between someone’s speculations or obtaining information through anonymous sources and a sitting army chief and self-styled president dishing out indictments in his official memoirs.
The General has made no bones about the fact that he never had respect or tolerance for authority, a psychological reason for that could be that abbreviation of his name PM gave him political ambitions from the very start as that is often used as the shorthand for the prime minister — the most powerful constitutional post of the country, hence we could not expect him to be too subtle. But to jeopardise the country’s security and interests just to earn a few quick bucks is really saddening. Now anyone can use his words for the official version and hence use them to implicate Pakistan in considerably damaging situations. Perhaps, a few points would be enough to elucidate my position.
At this moment, I am welling with troubling thoughts and at a loss where to begin. Should I begin from page 59 where while discussing the purported A and B areas, the General slips in his distorted facts regarding his disagreements with the Baloch sardars or his attempts at calling Bhutto a hypocrite for banning booze when he himself conveniently forgets to mention in his book his own predilection for spirits. His suspicions regarding Zia’s assassination, which he could not muster up courage to reveal, or his sheer bravado in recollecting even the minute details of what I am obliged to call his 1999 counter-conspiracy (if his was a counter-coup against Nawaz’s coup, and if the premier’s was a conspiracy, his was indeed a counter-conspiracy).
There is one sad point in his book that highlights a character flaw. He rarely admires anyone who does not serve his interest. May it be Ali Kuli Khan, Kakar, Ziauddin, Nawaz Sharif or his DGMO when he was the deputy director. But to be fair with those whom he has appreciated, like the officers who helped him takeover or the beleaguered former premier Jamali, he has tried to present them too as his personal pets. (Chapter 14)
But before anything else can be discussed, I should highlight two impressions that I had while reading the book. First, while his account of the ground operation on the night of his takeover might be true, the claim that he was not expecting it at all makes no sense. A person as politically ambitious as Musharraf could have never left without making the necessary contingency plans. We can say this because he firmly believes in transforming challenges into opportunities. Remember that the 65 war saved him when he was to be court-martialled?
Now the area which I am about to step into is really sad but extremely relevant. There is no doubt that in 1998, he became the army chief by staging a coup against his army chief and senior colleagues because as he makes abundantly clear in the case of Lieutenant General (retired) Tariq Pervez, a corps commander’s meeting with the premier is tantamount to undermining the military discipline. He was fully aware of the fact how much friction could it cause between the military and the political set-up. He still did not relent in accepting the post. And yet within no time we witnessed the Kargil misadventure, which clearly destabilised the civilian political set-up and left behind, despite his repeated emphasis otherwise, only remorse. Could it be that even Kargil was a premeditated move to pave the way for his rise to power?
If such an assessment is really taken into cognisance, the same chain of logic can have more far reaching consequences. Yet, without further guessing, we should note with great regret that in his long reconstruction of the takeover events, he has consciously or unconsciously exposed the supposed political fault-lines in the army that make it much more prone to exploitation. Before this book, we did not know that had the Quetta corps been mobilised that fateful night, the nation could face a civil war. (To be concluded)
(Courtesy: The Post, Lahore)
The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist and media expert
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