10 thoughts on “Three Questions By Mian Aslam”

1. Comments By Tahir Mahmood.
   Main Aslam Sb is one of those tough cookies who are very aggressive and try to persuade the fellows with putting pressure intellectually as well as psychologically.He might have been in the field which makes him easy to spare time to ponder these topics…….he should realize that the fellows might not have that kind of luxury,so he should be little bit patient in getting some response to his very intellectually written essays based on philosophical reasoning.
   His email carries three different question and each one needs an elaborate debate and I agree to the editor’s opinion that Mian sb who raised these questions should have elaborate his take because these questions came across while his reading /discussion or some other source,so he,morally and intellectually bound to give his thoughts or refer us the readings which gave the birth to these question.
   To me, I have no problem while raising these question,I would be grateful if he enlighten me and refer me to the readings/dialogue he have!
   This doesn’t mean that I want to avoid the topic,it is very interesting and everyone of us should speak out the insight about the issues but Mian Sb,please come up with your thoughts.
   Thanks………..Tahir

   Reply ↓

   • The thoughts of Mian Aslam are loud and clear, if any one still asks for his opinion on these questions after reading the question then there is no point in replying to such “innocents”.
     I fully agree with Mian Aslam on his take.

     Babar

     Reply ↓

2. We would have been much better off with Jinah’s secular Pakistan, without leaders like Bhutto (totally responsible for the break up and humiliation), without Zia’s Islamization and also without Liaqat Ali Khan
   preparing ground for mixing religion and state with his Objectives Resolution. I disagree with Mirza Sahib who seems to prefer failed Islamic Political Outlook…which is opposite to separation of state and religion.

   Reply ↓

3. First of all I welcome Babar to this Forum. Secondly, where did I say that I prefer an Islamic Political Outlook for Pakistan. In fact my comments were not for posting on this web and I have already asked the editor to remove them. I am waiting for their removal so that I can post my real comments. The real question is a comparison between Jinnah and Azad. About Zia, we don’t need any explanation as the country is paying the price of his most unwise and out of time decisions of Islamization, when the founder of the nation had clearly proclaimed Pakistan to be a secular state.

   Mirza

   Reply ↓

4. 1. Who was more insightful and far-sighted between Jinnah and Azad? Why?

   The definition of a state in Political Science is, a society + land where this society exists + a constitution = to a state. India had the first two and it needed a constitution to become a perfect state as it is today. Pakistan had people only and they were also scattered, except three regions with majority concentration i.e., west, east and south. Jinnah was well aware of this fact and that is why–according to Jaswant Singh until 1946 he was against partition and was willing to accept United India if Congress assures the rights of 30% Muslims to be represented in the Federal Legislature. But Gandhi/Nehru would not agree on that. I would say, as East Pakistan had a well demarcated land, a Bengali nation, it was easy for it to become Bangla Desh. Today, if you ask me about Pakistan, it has four provinces, and according to the principles of Political Science, we have four nations settled upon four regions. The present controversy of Kala Bagh dam clearly reflects that provinces are not speaking as one nation. It is enough to say that Pakistanis have still to become one nation. This is possible only if the Pakistanis take up the modern path of secular and liberal democracy, since Islamic Ummah is a borderless and stateless concept.

   About Jinnah and Azad, I would say that they were two different persons, one a westernized highly educated person, having secular beliefs, and the other an Islamic religious scholar without Islamic Political outlook–I will say this because Political Islam was better understood by Maududi than Azad. Azad was treading upon the path of Gandhi/Nehru politics. Akbar is the only author who has mentioned about Agha Shorish Kashmiri’s interview of Maulana Azad, which has already been discussed by the members of TF. Since I haven’t found any great writer–not even Jaswant Singh–giving any reference to this interview, I believe as I have proclaimed before, this interview has been modified sometime between 1947-71. However, if someone has the original issue of the weekly Chattan or any other paper in which the reference of this interview, reportedly taken in 1946, had appeared.

   Stephen Philip Cohen in “The Idea of Pakistan” reflects about Jinnah as, “A brilliant political strategist and speaker, he was Pakistan’s Thomas Pain and George Washington. He was not, however, a Jefferson, a theoretician or deep thinker. Jinnah was the first world-class political figure produced by Pakistan–in this case, by the idea, not the state.” The same author further argues that, “Jinnah turned the ‘two nation theory’ into an effective political movement. Because he had to weld together disparate elements of the Indian Muslim community, Jinnah’s arguments were deliberately vague. This vagueness brought both strength and weakness to the Pakistan movement, enabling it to muster support for independence and opposition to Hindu domination, but not to build a consensus on the kind of state Pakistan was to become. In addition, Jinnah’s dominance left little room for second-tier leadership, which was to prove disastrous when he died shortly after independence. … Other Indian Muslims, such as Maulana Azad, wanted a free but undivided India. Azad had arrived at this position after journeying in the opposition direction of Jinnah: he was originally a member of the Muslim League but then joined Congress in the 1920’s. Still others favored a separate Pakistan within India, or a confederation of India and Pakistan.” Stephen is the only Western writer who has mentioned Azad, but still not as an insightful and farsighted politician. Jaswant Singh has mentioned Azad 23 times in his 669 page book and everywhere I see Azad just as a member or President of Congress, speaking and working on the tunes of great Hindu leaders. No where he is seen as an insightful leader.

   Stanley Wolpert in “Jinnah of Pakistan” remarks with these opening lines. “Students, barristers, and benchers rushing in and out of Lincoln’s Inn nowadays rarely glance at the oil painting, hung since July 1965, on the stone wall over the entrance to their Great Hall and Library in London. Those who do may wonder why on earth the gaunt, unsmiling face of ‘M.A. Jinnah, Founder and First Governor-General of Pakistan’ should be staring down at them. Tall, thin, monocled, astrakhan-capped, … the anonymous artist captured his upright, unbending spirit, as well as his impeccable taste in clothes, yet Jinnah’s face is almost as enigmatic and spare as the shinning brass [name] plate beneath. One would guess that he was a man of few words, never easily thwarted or defeated.” These few lines portray the dynamic character and personality of the father of a nation. Jinnah was a titanic figure, both in wit and farsightedness, while Azad was a just puppet playing in the hands of Hindu Congress leaders. He was smartly used by Gandhi and Nehru to show the British that Muslim religious scholar was fully in favor of One India. I would be glad to hear from other members any reference of any great writer about the greatness, deep and farsightedness of Azad, other than the interview by Shorish.

   Without any doubt, the farsighted Jinnah wanted a Secular Pakistan and today it is much more important than ever before.

   Mirza

   Reply ↓

5. Babar Mustafa’s this reponse:

   “The thoughts of Mian Aslam are loud and clear, if any one still asks for his opinion on these questions after reading the question then there is no point in replying to such “innocents”.
   I fully agree with Mian Aslam on his take.”

   With all due respect I do not think question # 1 and #2 with Why ? is self explanatory as you are saying. Although question # 3 Mian Sahib answered himself.to some extent.

   If you know what Mian Sahib is thinking, kindly enlighten us and elaborate on Why? part of 1, 2 questions.

   I am waiting for Mian Sahib’s elaboration on all three as he mentioned in one of the e-mail.

   Mirza Sahib already opined on #1

   Thanks.

   Fayyaz

   Reply ↓

6. Comments by Salman Yunus.

   “Jinnah was a titanic figure, both in wit and farsightedness, while Azad was a just puppet playing in the hands of Hindu Congress leaders.”
   The comment above is typical of Pakistani Text Book mentality, rather I should say the salariet/buerocrtic muslim mentality that put its weight behind Pakistan Movement, without mentioning anyone in particular, the representatives this mentality were and are still found in the lands and areas of Subcontinent that were not to be Pakistan, which also exposes another contradcition/dilmma of Pakistan Movement i.e. it was more popular among the muslim minority areas rather than muslim majority provinces. Unfortunuately, the provices with high muslim population (punjab & Bengal) had to pay th price both in terms of division of their lands and human lives, for the insecurities that were being harbored by the muslims living in provinces. Also I would like someone, specially those who are proponents of Jinnah, Two Nation Thoery and Pakistan movement, to point out to any historic reference to “transfer of population” plan. Did the muslims living in North East India (i.e. Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and NWFP) ever subscribed to the idea of transfer of millions of muslims from other provinces of India? Was that even part of the madness, rehtoric and drum beaten by Muslim League and Jinnah between 40-47???

   I will write more detailed response to the original three questions posed by Mian Aslam Sahib soon.

   Salman Yunus.

   Reply ↓

7. With all due respect Yunus Sahib, Mirza Sahib’s response is not knee jerk. One may not agree with his point of view, but he has elaborated on Question #1, and we are still waiting for Mian Sahib’ own opinion. This question is at the heart of Partition. It has many facets.

   1- Was partition a good idea turned into nightmare by the subsequent politicians and Generals or a bad idea from the beginning..
   2- How much part Nehru,Gandhi and other Congress Party politicians played in creation of Pakistan by miscalculating and dismissing the demands of Muhammad Ali Jinnah for a confederation and not accommodating Muslims according to their population.
   3- Did Azad played a constructive role in supporting Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s efforts for Confederation or hindered these efforts by joining congress and playing puppet as Mirza Sahib are suggesting and later opposing Pakistan’s idea when it was already too late.

   5- What if Pakistan was prosperous today- Will we be asking the same question ?
   6- The biggest question looming today is- If there was no divided India, would Muslims have been better off today in one India ? It is all speculation and requires in depth analysis and answering lot more questions before a definite ( may be ) answer is reached.

   I think it is time for Mian Sahib to be bold, as always, and put forward his views.

   Fayyaz

   Reply ↓

8. comments by Syed Ehtisham ;

   Negotiations for Transfer of Power And Partition
   In the early days of World War II, activism was in a state of suspended animation on the political front in India. Nearly the whole of the Congress leader- ship was in jail and their followers were lying low. British forces had suffered reverses everywhere; they had been driven out of Europe and thrown out of their far Eastern possession.

   Alienation of Indians to the British had reached new heights and was exhibited whenever it could be. Josh Maleehabadi, by popular acclamation hailed as Shair-e-Inqilab — Poet of the revolution, announced that he had written a new poem and invited people for a public recitation. Tens of thousands flocked to the poet’s home in Lucknow. Not many among them understood plain Urdu, much less the highly stylized poetry, but they went wild with passion when the poet
   declaimed the opening line. “Salam ai Tajdaar-e Germany ai Fateh-e-Azam” “I salute thee, holder of Germany’s crown and conqueror of the world.” The police
   expeditiously whisked the poet away to jail.
   Churchill, who presided over a national Government, realizing that Britain would no longer have the will or the strength to hold on, acceded to the demand of his labor party colleagues to settle the “India” question.
   A cabinet mission was sent to India to negotiate with the leaders of public opinion in the country. Congress leaders were released for the parleys.
   Jinnah had, in the mean while, taken full advantage of the absence of Congress leaders from the scene, and had consolidated his hold on the Muslim imagination. Reeling under relentless pressure from their own rank and file, leaders in Muslim majority provinces, who had for long evaded Jinnah’s reach, had to accept his dicta.
   In any case the Congress had vowed to abolish the feudal system. It was an existential issue for the feudal landowners. Jinnah now negotiated from a position of strength. The Congress had to concede the status of sole spokesman of the Muslims of India to him. Protracted negotiations followed. Jinnah achieved his long sought after aim of parity between Muslims and Hindus in a federal India.
   The cabinet mission presented a plan with a federal government in charge of defense, foreign affairs, communication and currency. The country would be divided into three wings, (a) the present Pakistan plus Indian Punjab and Kashmir, (b) Bangladesh plus Indian Bengal and Assam, (c) the rest of India.
   Provinces had to stay in their wings for the initial ten years. After that period a referendum could be held to determine if the constituents units wanted to stay in the wings or coalesce with other units. The Congress objected to the denial of choice to provinces to opt out but after a lot of wrangling signed on to the proposal. The Muslim League did too.
   A federal cabinet was to be formed. The Muslim League stuck to its assertion that it represented all the Muslims of India and should be allowed to nominate all Muslim members of the cabinet. Represent as it did a considerable number of Muslims, the Congress would not accept that and forgo claim to its secular- nationalist status. The Viceroy went ahead with cabinet making, with the understanding that if and when the Muslim League changed its mind, it would be offered at least two major portfolios. The League, left out in the cold, agreed to join under the face-saving formula that they would be able to nominate a non- Muslim member of the cabinet.
   The League wanted the Home (control over police and security agencies) and Defense ministries. Patel would not relinquish the Home Ministry. Nehru had given Defense to a Sikh leader, Sirdar Baldev Singh, whose support was critical, as other Sikh leaders especially Master Tara Singh, were flirting with Jinnah.
   Being a novice at governance, Patel urged his party to offer the Finance portfolio to the League. Nehru and the rest of the congress high command, equally innocent of administrative experience, went along.
   Jinnah nominated Liaquat to head the League part of the cabinet. Unsure of his skills in finance, he demurred, but was reassured by two Muslim finance officials, Ghulam Muhammad and Chaudhury Mohammad Ali. Liaquat stunned the nations industrialists by presenting a truly “progressive” budget, levying high taxes on capitalists, most of whom were Hindus. The Congress was the political wing of Indian capital, bank rolled by it and beholden to it. They howled in anguish. Liaquat relented a bit, but put the onus of concessions to the capitalist class squarely on Congress’s, especially Nehru’s, head. Patel, woefully moaned, that he could not even appoint a peon without Liaquat’s approval.
   Congress leaders floundered and finally came to the conclusion that they could not coexist with the Muslim League ministers. And post independence, if Jinnah deigned to consider an office, independence would not be worth the trouble. That presumably made Nehru, the Congress president declare to a press conference that the sovereign constituent assembly of India would not be bound by any preexisting agreements and would frame a constitution based on the will of the majority. This was a flagrant denial of the letter and the spirit of the tripartite acceptance of the cabinet mission plan.
   Jinnah took the bait, fell into the trap or as some would have it, acting in character, pounced on the blunder of his opponent. He issued a statement that a party which, when not even wielding real power, could so blatantly repudiate agreements that had been so solemnly concluded, obviously could not be trusted to abide by them when it had the actual reins of government in their hands. He withdrew his acceptance of the cabinet mission plan.
   Reacting to the Congress’s demand that it being the majority party, all power be handed over to it, Jinnah gave a call for direct action and exhorted his followers to observe a day of peaceful protests. Muslims all over India took out processions. In Calcutta, there was widespread rioting. Suharwardy, the Chief Minister of the province, a Muslim League nominee, was widely accused of presiding over the mayhem, or at least not taking effective measures to control the situation. but Jinnah had impressively exhibited his street power, exulting that it was not the Congress alone which could mobilize the masses.
   The viceroy Lord Wavell, former commander in chief of the British Indian Army, a man of undoubted integrity and respected by all parties, was mindful of the support Jinnah had given the British in their hour of peril. He flew to London to present the case for partition of India.
   The labor party had won the 1945 general elections in Britain, and Atlee was
   the new Prime Minister. Several members of his cabinet had close ties with Nehru. The Congress, accusing him of favoring the League, had demanded Wavell’s head. Atlee told Wavell that he accepted the idea of partition of India, but did not think the latter should preside over it.
   According to impartial observers, the dismissal was patently unfair.
   Atlee chose a new viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, a member of the British royal
   family, admiral of the royal navy, former head of the allied forces in South Asia, and as some would have it, Nehru’s nominee. Mountbatten had met Nehru in Singapore during the final stages of the war and been impressed by him. His wife had fallen in love with Nehru. Her husband was quite “understanding.”
   Mountbatten’s partiality was to cross all bounds of integrity. He showed all the plans to Nehru before making them public and let the latter change them at will. He retained a Hindu Civil servant V.P. Menon as his political secretary. Menon was in Patel’s pocket and divulged state secrets to his boss on a regular basis.
   Lengthy negotiations ensued again. Mountbatten had to concede the demand for partition of India, but he told Jinnah that if the country could be divided, provinces could be too and if Jinnah would not agree with the idea, he would simply hand over power to the congress and be done with it. Conscious of his fast deteriorating health, and certain that his assistants would not be to able to withstand the combined onslaught of the British and the congress, he agreed to a “moth eaten Pakistan”.
   Now, the small man that he was, having been thwarted in his designs to inaugurate a united independent India, Mountbatten decided to leave a veritable mess. Transfer of power was planned for June 1948. In March 1947 he advised the British government to bring the date forward to August 1947, otherwise, he claimed, the situation would get out of control. The cabinet had no choice but to accept his plan.
   Mountbatten, willful, unmindful, unaware, and not caring much for the consequences, delayed announcement of the boundary commission awards till two days after Independence.
   Mountbatten, devoid of any such attributes, set unrealistic deadlines and proceeded with haphazard, disjointed and disorganized partition of the country, government and assets. He charged a boundary commission, the leader of which was unfamiliar with topography, with demarcating a line of control between India and Pakistan. The man had at best a rough outline of districts, few maps, and no statistics of the majority–minority areas. And he had only a few weeks. It was truly a scuttle.

   Patel and Nehru (and, I suspect, Gandhi) were confident that Pakistan would collapse soon. There would be no other rational reason for Gandhi to change his stance abruptly and acquiesce to the idea of partition which previously he had vowed would happen only over his dead body. Patel is on record making a public speech that it would be only a matter of days, weeks, or at the most months, before Pakistan would collapse; they would go down on their knees to be taken back into the Indian Union.
   Only Azad, among the top Congress leaders, remained steadfast in opposing partition. Azad and Nehru were very close. Nehru probably did not take Azad into his confidence. Being acutely conscious of the latter’s sensibilities and lack of guile, he also may have wanted to spare his friend the Machiavellian designs of Patel. Azad had been the president of the Congress from 1940 to 1946. He would have been the automatic choice for the office of the first Prime Minister of India. but that was, under the circumstances, untenable. Muslims had got Pakistan. one of them could not be the PM of India too; such was the overwhelming sentiment. The party machine wanted Patel to succeed to the office. Azad offered to resign, but told Gandhi that he would not, till he was given solemn assurance that Nehru would follow him.
   To hasten the collapse, Nehru and Patel withheld Pakistan’s share of the joint assets. Mountbatten aided and abetted them. The patently lame excuse they gave was that Pakistan would use the funds to wage more effective aggression in Kashmir. And collapse it would — it did not even have funds to pay salary to government servants — if the Nizam of Hyderabad had not come to the rescue. Reputedly the bill Gates of his time, he gave Pakistan 200 crore rupees (equivalent to about $150 million at today’s value). Once Pakistan became a going concern, Gandhi went on a hunger strike to force India to hand over Pakistan’s share of assets to the country.

   The Independence of India act passed by the British parliament contained the provision that major rulers could a) remain independent b) accede to India c) accede to Pakistan.
   Most of the states, surrounded by Indian or Pakistani territory acceded to India or Pakistan. Hyderabad and Junagarh, both with a Muslim prince and largely Hindu population, decided to opt for independence. The Hindu Raja of Kashmir with Muslim majority among his subjects was wavering, and was negotiating with India as well as Pakistan. He could not make up his mind, and signed a standstill agreement with both Dominions. The dominant political party in Kashmir, with its fiery leader Sheikh Abdullah, favored India. In the event the Raja’s mind was made for him. Muslim Mujahids, drawn from the ranks of zealots and tribal elements, reinforced by irregular elements of Pakistan army, decided to force the issue. They marched into Kashmir.
   The joint force easily reached the capital, Sirinagar and the trained members of the expedition captured the electric supply station and cut off power to the city. The Mujahids fell upon the city, looting and pillaging. both overlooked the airport and failed to secure the only link India had with the state. The land link with India was closed due to winter conditions.
   The Raja, now desperate, asked India for help. Nehru was uncertain of the legal position. Mountbatten advised Nehru to demand accession of the state to India as the condition of support. The Rajah agreed. Indian troops were airlifted to Sirinagar and easily overcame the Mujahideen. Thus started the festering sore that has bled and debilitated both countries ever since. Pundit Nehru accused Pakistan of aggression and took the case to the UN Security Council. The council did demand that Pakistan withdraw its forces, but mandated a plebiscite to as- certain the opinion of the public. It also sent UN peacekeeping force to keep the combatants apart at the cease-fire line.
   Lahore had been the capital of the since the Sikh ruled Punjab.1 The Sikhs had deluded themselves into believing that the city would go to India. Though only 40% of the population, non-Muslims controlled 90% of education and health, 86% of industry and commerce and 75% of agriculture of the province.

   Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham

   Reply ↓

9. Comments by Dr. Syed Ehtisham;
   BD Civil War
   In his weakened post-1965 war state, Ayub could never hope to withstand the combined onslaught of East and West Pakistan. The campaign against him, led initially by students and industrial workers, had caught the imagination of the people. This was the last time people of the two wings were to unite on one platform. In a desperate attempt to save his legacy, Ayub called a joint conference of government and opposition leaders. The talks broke down.
   Ayub was failing so it was time for a resumption of political activities. National Awami Party (NAP) in alliance with leftist elements was expected to gain plurality in the NWFP. Baluchistan continued to remain firmly in the grip of tribal Sirdars, who aligned themselves with the highest bidder. At the time NAP had considerable support of the power brokers there. It was expected to do well in East Pakistan as well.
   Agitation was resumed with renewed and ever greater vigor. Mujib drew ever-larger crowds. Bhutto drew large crowds in the Punjab. Sindhis sensing the prevailing wind, or perhaps yielding to chauvinistic sentiments, also started supporting him. He did develop some opportunistic following in the Frontier and Baluchistan provinces as well.
   Ayub threw in the towel and flouting his own tailor made constitution which mandated that the speaker of the national assembly succeed him, or as some observers would have it, was forced by the top brass to hand over the Presidency to the army chief Yahya Khan, who re-imposed martial law and assumed the combined offices of the President and Chief Martial Law administrator (CMLA). Yahya made the usual noises that he had agreed to take over the government to save the country from impending disaster, as was his bounden duty as a patriot and an officer, abrogated the constitution, and dissolved one unit.1 He further promised to hold free and fair elections based on adult franchise, one-person one vote. People listened to him with scarcely disguised disbelief. It was déjà vu from Ayub’s first broadcast.
   Calm was restored pretty soon. Politicians went about organizing their parties and gear them for an election campaign. People were cautiously hopeful. There was certainly no presentiment of impending doom.
   Credit must be given where due. For all his faults, Yahya was, till then, the only ruler of Pakistan who kept his word to hold free and fair elections. He promulgated-necessary ordinances empowering the Census Board to prepare a voter list, the Election Commission to get ready for elections and lifted the freeze on political activities. He consulted leaders of political parties, exhorting them to assist and cooperate with the electoral machinery. In brief, he took all the correct and pertinent steps, including admonition to the police and bureaucrats to be impartial and to show no favor.
   Political parties went into a frenzy of campaigning. Mujib offered his now famous or infamous, depending upon one’s point of view, six points which were a thinly disguised plan of con-federal government. Bhutto gave a catchy slogan of Roti, Kapra aur Makan, roughly translated bread, clothes and home. He also pledged nationalization of industries and radical land reforms.
   After school and college education in Bombay, Bhutto had gone to Oxford in England for a law degree. He subsequently studied at the Berkeley Campus of the University of California and returned to Pakistan in the mid-1950s. He obtained an appointment as a lecturer at the law school in Karachi. Family money and connections helped him with a private office and a lucrative retainer ship with the family shipping business of Ardeshir Cowasjee, a well known columnist and activist, who belongs to a tiny but well-knit Parsi community in India and Pakistan.2
   The job of legal counsel to the shipping concern of Cowasjee family persuaded Iskander Mirza, the then President of Pakistan, to name him the leader of the country’s delegation to a maritime conference in Geneva. Bhutto sent Mirza an absolutely slavish letter, difficult to emulate even in a country awash with toadies and sycophants, predicting that when history of Pakistan was written, the latter’s name will figure perhaps even more prominently than Jinnah’s!
   In the NWFP, successors of the Khan Brothers had regained legitimacy. Before the advent of Martial law, the older brother popularly known as Dr. Khan
   1 All the provinces of West Pakistan were merged into one unit to justify equal number of seats of the West and the East in the central assembly.
   2 Iranians, who did not convert to Islam fled to India and are called Parsis, a distortion of the noun Farsi for Faras, another name for Iran. Koran, along with Christians, Jews and Sabians, calls them people of the book. Muslim men but not women may marry a person of the book without first converting them.
   Dr Khan Sahib had served as a Chief Minister of the unified province of West Pakistan, called one unit. They had joined National Awami party (NAP) led by Maulana Bhashani, also known as the Red Mullah because of his egalitarian-leftist views.
   The Mullahs, frightened of secular Awami League and National Awami Party, had joined hands with the feudal elements, the army and bureaucrats, thus completing the evil Quad.1 The establishment was confident that elections will result in a divided house, and Yahya acting as a referee, would be able to get Mujib or someone else to indulge in the usual horse-trading and cobble a coalition. Hankering after office, the members of the assembly will fall out with each other once again.
   But it was not to be. East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, is a hurricane prone country. With the population explosion in the twentieth century, and non-development of energy resources, large swathes of the country had been deforested for fuel. Trees and vegetation underneath hold water and soil. It thus resulted in enormous erosion of soil, which ended up in rivers, severely restricting their capacity to hold water.
   A particularly devastating storm hit the region just prior to the scheduled elections. Hurricanes 2 have a vastly different impact on a poor and densely populated region like Bengal than they do in an advanced country like the United States. They wreak havoc. A large majority of the people live in makeshift mud and clay huts. Weather forecasts are at best capricious. Even if they were reliable, people won’t have anywhere to escape to. The most common mode of transport is by boats, which along with whole villages, are swept away by a combination of wind and high tide. During the monsoons, people are reduced to plying boats on the roads in the capital city Dhaka and all the other major cities. The sea is dotted with hundreds of islands off shore, ranging in size from a few hundred square yards to several square miles on which millions live. They are, if anything, worse off than the mainlanders.
   Maulana Bhashani demanded, and with good reason, that elections be postponed and the emergency be dealt with first. But Yahya was fantasizing about his place in history. Mujib had smelled the heady perfume of victory. Bhutto was confident that he would manage, with the connivance of the Army brass and a sizable victory in West Pakistan, to come out on top. Elections were not postponed. Bhashani boycotted them. The Awami league, without an effective competition from Bhashani’s NAP, found the arena uncontested. Under the system of the front runner taking all, Awami League won 160 seats out of 162 assigned to East Pakistan, and commanded absolute majority in a house of 310 members. He could, with the support of smaller parties in West Pakistan, even garner a two third majority in the house
   (1 I have borrowed this from Mao’s gang of four
   2 I had written this before Katrina hit New Orleans).

   . That would enable them to pass any constitution they wanted.
   Yahya and the Army high command were stunned. Bhutto was too. They put a brave face on it. Yahya, during a post election visit to Dhaka, introduced Mujib to the international press as the future Prime Minister of Pakistan. He even announced the date the new parliament would meet. He and Bhutto negotiated with Mujib and tried to get him to give a little on the six points and concede a face saving formula. Talks broke down.
   Yahya postponed the parliamentary session for an indefinite period of time. Mujib demanded that another date for the parliamentary session be announced at once. He permitted his minions to take over the administration, security services, transport, schools, colleges and universities, health services and courts in East Pakistan. The writ of the central government ran only in the cantonments and the Government House. Mujib, in effect, ruled East Pakistan, venturing even to welcome Yahya on subsequent visits as a guest of East Pakistan.
   Yahya did announce another date for the opening session of the parliament, but things were beyond repair now. Bhutto threatened to personally break the legs of any members of his party who would go to Dhaka for the opening session of the parliament. He also warned members of the parliament from other West Pakistani parties that if they attended the meeting, they would eventually be tried as traitors.
   Yahya made pious noises of national reconciliation in order to buy time to deploy enough troops in East Pakistan to crush and control the natives. Awami league leaders were aware of the plans. They tried to beef up the East Bengal rifles, a thinly armed militia manned by Bengali soldiers, all of whose senior officers were from West Pakistan. Contingency plans were drawn up for most of the senior cadre of the party to escape to India when the army made their move.
   Mujib and other Awami league leaders looked the other way, while houses and businesses of Urdu-speaking immigrants were looted, scores were killed; women kidnapped and raped with impunity. They had mistreated Bengalis while they ruled the roost. They had, in common with Punjabis, looked down upon Bengalis12 as somewhat inferior beings and kept aloof from them. They had consistently supported West Pakistani interests, politically, in business and industry. They had behaved as virtual colonizers. Let them suffer. So the argument went. Among Bengalis, members of religious parties notably Jamaat-e-Islami, timeservers and collaborators, also suffered horribly.
   The massive air and sea transfer of troops to East Pakistan was a logistic challenge in itself. They were further hampered by the fact that India had banned over flight of its territory, on the pretext that two Pakistani agents had hijacked an Indian civilian plane to Lahore.1 When Army high command felt that they had adequate forces to cow down the populace, they swooped down like birds of prey. As the first measure they disarmed, and confined the East Pakistan rifles to, what were for all practical purposes, concentration camps. The army then moved to take care of the leaders of the rebellion. A frontal assault would mean wholesale massacre. The army was not averse to it but the Governor of East Pakistan and Chief of the Navy, Admiral Ahsan 2, intervened. He insisted that the arresting squad go in quietly under the cover of darkness and behave respectfully especially with women.
   In the event the assault force did beat up Mujib, push around women and break the bones of a few servants. Mujib was arrested and flown to a jail in West Pakistan, where he was tried in camera for treason and sentenced to death. Other members of Awami League high command had quietly slipped across the border to India.
   Security officials, their ranks beefed up by armed soldiers, went around securing the capital city Dhaka, and the environs and spread out arresting and torturing people en route to cities nearby and did it at the slightest pretext, even without one. Other units tried to emulate the performance of the central command. After “pacifying” the cities, army personnel spread through the countryside. Out of the spotlight of the international media, they unleashed an even more brutal reign of terror of unprecedented ferocity. They did not spare even the Bengalis whom they suspected of harboring pro-Pakistan sympathies.3
   As soon as he heard of the army action in Dhaka, Army Col Zia Ur Rahman4 one of the few senior Bengali officers in the Pakistan army, then stationed in Chittagong, declared independence of Bangladesh (BD) from the local radio station.
   Awami league High command, with blessings, diplomatic and material support of the Indian Government, set up the Government of Bangladesh (B.D) in exile in Delhi, with Mujib as the president and a cabinet acting in his name. They set about obtaining political, diplomatic, financial and armed assistance from Governments and the public all over the world. The response was tepid. Most countries, except for the Soviet Union, adopted a wait and watch policy. Nixon leaned towards Pakistan. He, along with Kissinger, was mindful of the faithful satellite status of the country. Human Rights were not a relevant concern for them.
   1 While Pakistan was transporting troops to East Pakistan, an Indian passenger plane was hijacked to Lahore. India claimed that it was the work of Pakistani agents. It later turned out that the whole thing was planned by Indian security agencies.
   2 Admiral Ahsan, an enlightened immigrant was the chief of Naval forces, and had been the first Naval attaché to Jinnah. He prevented a lot of bloodshed in the region.
   3 My daughter’s father-in-law, Dr. Mumtaz Chaudhury was serving as a Director of Education in a major city. The army wanted him to keep an eye on the staff under him. He told them that he would not act as a spy. A Major and a Colonel visited him soon after. In the ensuing argument, the Major called him all kinds of names and pulled a gun on him.
   4 Not to be confused with General Zia ul Haq of Pakistan.

   The army, not familiar with lanes and byways of towns and villages, were frequently ambushed. Reprisals were brutal. With only a few minutes’ notice, shantytowns were run over by heavy armored vehicles. Escaping victims were cut down with machine gun fire. Women and little girls were abducted, some raped on the spot, in full view of the parents. Survivors of the massacre were driven like cattle to designated concentration camps.
   Soldiers were also ordered to assault the places of worship and kill all who had sought shelter in the House of God. When they, Muslims themselves, demurred, they were told that non-Muslims had occupied mosques. Some older soldiers took off the garments of the dead and discovered that they were circumcised. The officers told them that the Hindus, in order to hoodwink Muslim police, had surgery performed on them.
   There was a veritable avalanche of refugees across the border. Pakistan claimed that the fleeing mass of humanity were Hindus, who had never reconciled to partition. Few paid any heed to the blatantly dishonest attempt to whitewash the rampant repression in Muslim Bengal.
   Yahya, with full support of the brass, replaced the comparatively mild, multilingual and academically-inclined martial law administrator of East Pakistan, Lt. General Yakub Khan, with a barbaric general in the mold of Helegu.1 The man, Tikka Khan, on arrival at Dhaka Airport, declared that he was interested in the land, not the people. Another of his infamous proclamations was that “We will change their race.” Both events were shown on British TV. It was a blatant espousal of gang rape as an instrument of state policy. The butcher of Dhaka, as he came to be known, gave the soldiers a free hand. They specially targeted Dhaka university students. After surrounding the hostels they announced on loudspeakers that those who left peaceably would not be harmed — and fired on fleeing boys and girls. The sizable Hindu minority (they made up about 15% of East Pakistan’s population) were also prime targets. All the urban areas were subjected to similar measures.
   Urdu-speaking immigrants and members of Islamist parties served as a willing fifth column for the army. Bengali Islamists were more effective as they could easily infiltrate the ranks of the freedom fighters. They were to suffer horribly for this treachery.
   Several million refugees had sought shelter in Indian Bengal and had been accommodated in hastily created tent cities. It was, indubitably, an intolerable burden on a poor country like India. Even with international aid it could not support the burden of feeding and housing millions of destitute humanity.
   The Indian Prime Minister Indra Gandhi was the daughter of Pundit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. Undivided India was an article of faith for him and other leaders
   (1 Yakub was the military administrator while Ahsan was the governor. Both tried to curb atrocities of the army).

   . They would have loved to undo it, but never got the chance. His redoubtable daughter no doubt felt that destiny had offered her the opportunity to fulfill her father’s dream. She was a pragmatist and was not particularly hampered by scruples. In actual fact, she was more like another leader of Independence movement Sirdar Patel.1
   She gave an ultimatum to Pakistan. Refugees were an intolerable burden on India. Take them back immediately; settle the affairs without delay or India would take appropriate measures. Pakistan would be responsible for the consequences. She permitted Indian security personnel to clandestinely train and arm Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters) organized by the BD government in exile and send them on to East Bengal to harass the Pakistan forces. The assistance was not a secret to anyone. But Mukti Bahini was able to put up only feeble resistance. India massed its forces on East Pakistan border, ostensibly to prevent the flood of refugees into its territory
   Indra Gandhi undertook a tour of all the major world capitals. She skillfully presented India’s case, dwelling rather more on human misery of unprecedented scale, than on the crushing economic burden of having to look after millions of refugees. She was, of course, the legitimate and popular leader of the largest democracy in the world. The country had a fast expanding industrial base, and was potentially a vast consumer market. Even Nixon, though partial to Pakistan, gave her a respectful hearing.
   Pakistan, ruled by an unelected, brutal and dissolute general, sent a foreign office bureaucrat who had difficulty getting an appointment with mid-level officials.
   On return from a highly successful tour, Indra renewed her ultimatum to Pakistan.
   Admiral Ahsan, the Governor of East Pakistan, renewed his offer to work out an arrangement under which the Pakistani Army could get out intact, without being humiliated. Pakistan would become a con-federation.2 Yahya could continue as head of state. West Pakistani government servants would be repatriated to West Pakistan. East Pakistanis stranded in the West would be moved to the East. National assets would be divided in proportion to the populations of the two wings. It was the best possible solution under the circumstances. It would keep the country in one piece. The international community supported it. India fell in line, though reluctantly.
   The civilian leadership of the West, barring Bhutto, was prepared to assist in any way and supported the Ahsan formula. The military cabal vetoed the proposal.
   1 Justifiably called the Iron man of India, Patel absorbed the feudal and semi-independent states in India with admirable speed.
   2 The so called Ahsan formula under which center would control defense, foreign affairs and currency, but the provinces would have the authority to raise revenue and would fund the federation for central subjectsl. Bhutto endorsed the veto. Admiral Ahsan resigned and was replaced with a Bengali Quisling. The public was kept in the dark and was fed the official propaganda line that the Hindus, aided and abetted by India, were rebelling against Pakistan.
   They couldn’t possibly have hoped to win an armed conflict in East Pakistan. They had no means of keeping a supply line to their forces intact. India had already banned over flights over its territory. Soldiers, unless escorted by an armored convoy, could not move around. The butcher got himself replaced with the hapless General Niazi and fled to West Pakistan. The top brass had started looking for face saving excuses for transfer back to the Western wing
   Expatriates could get uncensored news in the UK but were still divided along the same lines as they were in Pakistan. My acquaintances were mostly Punjabi- and Urdu-speaking people. Nearly to a man, except for the true-blue progressives, they supported the army. But the most pitiable condition was that of Pakistani Bengalis in the UK. Nearly all had a relative who had been jailed, maimed or killed by the army. The bearded Bengali owner of a shop near Warren Street in London had his store trashed twice, once by Punjabis because he was a Bengali and the second time by Bengalis because in his Islamic zeal he supported Pakistan. In the end he wished a pox on both houses.
   Pakistani generals, in total denial of reality1, deluded themselves into thinking that by initiating a conflict on the western border they would get an international intervention, cease fire, etc. Bhutto had lavished compliments on them for coming up with this brilliant idea. Pakistan would be saved. West Pakistan was the buffer between the Soviet Union and the Indian Ocean. Once the Russians controlled the ocean, they would threaten the access of the Euro-American alliance to the Far East and on and on.-The US would not tolerate that. It was a rehash of Dulles’s domino theory.2
   International power brokers would have intervened, perhaps, if Pakistan had had a sustainable military position. In addition, Pakistan had earned such a bad name that even her supporters could not back her openly. Bhutto knew the opprobrium his country had already earned. He was also aware of the parlous state of the army. He still egged the army on.
   The Indian Government gave a final ultimatum to Pakistan to withdraw her forces from East Bengal voluntarily and immediately. The ultimatum was rejected by Pakistan. The Indian army went into action on its border with East Pakistan. The Pakistani army withdrew after a token resistance to “defensible” strong points. The Mukti Bahini took control of the vacated areas and declared
   1 I am quoting Akbar S Ahmad, then a civil servant, now an academic, from his book Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity. During a visit to the military headquarters, general Niazi told him a few days before surrender that he was going to fight through India to create a land link between the two wings.
   2 US secretary of state under Eisenhower wanted to fight in Vietnam, because if that country fell to communists, all other countries would fall like dominoes.

   Bangladesh sovereignty over them. Indians could afford to wait for the inevitable and pushed ahead slowly.
   Pakistanis, however, adopted a scorched earth policy in East Pakistan, which would make the French action in Algeria look like a mild police raid. They destroyed all infrastructure, crops, boats, cars, buses, bridges, public buildings, industrial plants, schools and hospitals. They wanted to wreck the region, as one Neanderthal among the general staff put it, back to the Stone Age.
   At this point Yahya decided to open hostilities on the Western border. Pakistani air force planes bombed some Indian airports as far as Agra, right in the belly of India. They hoped and prayed for international intervention, but it did not materialize. India counter-attacked and easily overcame the demoralized Pakistan forces. They had complete command of the skies and bombed Karachi by air, and their ships shelled the port. Lahore was hit, without a respite, by long-range artillery and from the air.1
   Lahore was within easy grasp of India. All their army had to do was to walk in. Nixon-Kissinger warned India off West Pakistan. Nixon announced that he had ordered the US pacific fleet to move towards East Pakistan. It was a shot across Indra’s bow. It worked, or as some would have it, she had other ideas.2
   The Chinese government, in an eerie replay of a similar claim during 1965 India Pakistan war, accused the Indian border forces of abducting a few cows and goats. India, as on the previous occasion, hastily offered immediate restitution.
   The Army had appointed Bhutto as the foreign minister and sent him to New York to defend Pakistan’s case in the UN Security council. He made grandiloquent, dramatic, and patently futile gestures. He was playing to the domestic audience; he tore up the draft resolution demanding immediate cease-fire. He was hailed in West Pakistan as a hero for magnificently taking on the whole world to save the country. On return to Pakistan he was handed over total control of the Government. He had driven to the President’s house in a plain car and driven out in a vehicle bedecked with national, presidential and CMLA flags.3
   The Pakistani army’s resistance crumbled in the east and in the west. On the eastern side, they would soon abandon even the pretence of putting up a fight. Many senior officers fled in helicopters, pushing aside women and children. But the day before surrender, they rounded up and shot in cold blood all the educated people they could lay their hands on in Dhaka.4
   The inevitable happened. The Pakistani army surrendered to arch foe India. The ceremony was broadcast on TV all over the world. I watched it in London. It
   1 My former wife and daughter were in Lahore. I could not get in touch with them for weeks.
   2 Some Indra detractors claim that she did not want to add a huge number of Muslims to the population which takeover of East and West Pakistan would have involved.
   3 Ostensibly to maintain continuity, he had taken over both the offices of Yahya-President and Chief martial law Administrator.
   4 Bangla Desh: A legacy of blood by Anthony Marcarenhas.

   was pathetic. In full view of an audience, which must have counted in hundreds of millions, the victorious Indian General Aurora tore the medals and epaulets from the Pakistani General Niazi’s uniform and accepted a reversed gun from the latter as a token of surrender. Without a trace of self-consciousness, Niazi told the international press that after the surrender ceremony, Aurora invited him to cocktails.
   Mukti Bahini guerillas would have torn all 90,000 Pakistani military and civilian personnel and family members to shreds. But the Indian army expeditiously threw a protective cordon round them and soon after moved them to India.
   Bhutto Takes Over — Post BD
   Bhutto had taken over a country universally despised for the genocide in East Pakistan. He faced immense problems. India had captured large swathes of territory in the West too. There were 90,000 of his countrymen, soldiers, their kin and civil servants with their families in India. The government of BD was demanding the surrender of the butcher of Bengal, now the army chief of Pakistan, plus scores of army men from among the POWs. Indra had not shown her hand. If push came to shove Pakistan would have had to give up the butcher. For many, it would be just retribution
   All Bhutto had in hand was Mujib in a Pakistani jail. He was certainly not in a position to touch the President of BD. Had he done so; Indra’s hand would have been forced. She would have had to attack West Pakistan, free Mujib and try Bhutto as a war criminal. Why Indra did not let the BD government conduct war crimes trials is a mystery. Hitler’s entourage were hanged and awarded long jail terms for lesser crimes.
   I visited Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi a few months after the Pakistani army had surrendered in Dhaka. A state of total gloom pervaded the atmosphere. Even the elite were on the edge. But they were still in complete denial. Bhutto in their eyes was the savior. They were not prepared to countenance the fact, obvious to the meanest intelligence, that the evil Quad had confronted Bengali sub-nationalism and with their stupid moves had promoted it into national rebellion. Bengalis never wanted to destroy Pakistan.
   I embarked on a twenty-four hour long journey from Karachi to Lahore on a railway train. People tended to talk in undertones. I have seen more cheerful funeral processions. At railway stations radios blared patriotic songs by melody queen Noor Jehan, the leading singer of the country. Nobody paid any heed to the still enchanting voice. I tried to engage people into a discussion of the calamity. I told them that it was not the end of the world. The POWs will come back. BD was a Muslim country. Residual Pakistan was rich in resources. They took refuge in the refrain “Allah knows best.”
   I was in Lahore on the day Bhutto addressed a public meeting as the president and chief martial law administrator of Pakistan. He had carted the whole diplomatic corps from Islamabad for the occasion and had ridden a carriage pulled by eight white horses, a relic of the Raj, slowly through the streets of Lahore to the meeting ground. People did line the streets of the route. But they were not up to the effort to greet him with a full-throated “Zindabad,” “long live…” slogan. His henchmen tried. All they could extract from the normally cheerful, boisterous, even loud masses of Lahoris were tepid, half-hearted clapping and subdued cheers. Bhutto made a vehement speech interspersed with his antics. The only time the crowd responded lustily was when he used an obscenity.1
   I next visited Rawalpindi, the seat of army GHQ. This city was teeming with relatives and friends of POWs held in India. They were all desperate for news of their loved ones. Only a few had received any news through the Red Cross and other such agencies. Rumors were rife that civilians were not covered by the Geneva Conventions and were being maltreated. They openly castigated the senior army officers who had run away leaving their juniors to face the vengeful Bengali freedom fighters.
   The news that I was visiting from the UK spread soon, and my host was swamped by requests to see me. They wanted my help in communicating with sons, husbands and brothers. They gave me letters to mail from London and requested me to call the Red Cross, UNO and embassies in London. They were clutching at straws. All I could offer them was that I would pass on the names, last known address, rank and relevant numbers if they were servicemen, to the Red Cross and send copies to the consulates.
   On my return to England, I found Pakistanis in the depth of despair there too. Some religious older East Pakistanis joined in grieving over a lost dream. Even the jingoist immigrants from the martial race (the Punjabis were so dubbed by the British) were subdued, though the more extreme among them put the entire blame on the Bengali “traitors,” their subversive activities, and intervention of India. They were on the same wavelength as the generals.
   Once he had all the levers of power securely in his hands, Bhutto went to India with a beggar’s bowl, to plead for release of the POWs, and return of the Pakistan territory, India had captured. Indra received him graciously, as befitted a magnanimous victor. He had to make the concession that Kashmir dispute was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, and not an international issue, as had been hitherto accepted by the world bodies.
   It was, under the circumstances, not a bad bargain. Indra could have forced him to drop the issue altogether, and made him sign the kind of treaty the allies made Germany do post World War I. She did not humiliate him to the extent that he would lose all credibility in residual Pakistan. She wanted a stable though weak state at her border. India had to feed 90,000 POWs and keep them secure.
   1 He called his predecessors sister F…

   It was not an inconsiderable burden. But when all is said and done, Indra behaved like a statesman, stateswoman if you will.
   Mujib was still in a prison in West Pakistan. Bhutto grandiloquently declared that if Mujib agreed to a reunified Pakistan, he would order the latter’s release from the jail and hand over reins of power to him as the Prime Minister of All Pakistan. Wali Khan, a veteran politician, offered to visit Mujib in jail and convince him to take over for Bhutto. I am paraphrasing an article by Wali Khan that I read in a Pakistani magazine that Bhutto thanked the Khan for the offer, but the next thing the Khan heard was that Mujib was put on a special and secret PIA flight early one morning to London. Mujib had been held incommunicado and did not learn of the establishment of BD as a sovereign state till he landed in London.1 Wali Khan later ridiculed Bhutto in the parliament for his insecurity. The latter did not deny the charge. Wali stood vindicated.
   The British Government received Mujib as a state guest and lodged him in a suite of rooms at the Claridges Hotel, usually assigned to heads of state. The suite was immediately swamped by his followers, inundated by phone calls from BD, Indra Gandhi and the British Prime Minister Edward Heath, among scores of other callers. He was unaware of the genocide perpetrated by the Pakistan army. The truth would not sink in till he reached Dhaka. Mujib stopped in Delhi en route to Dhaka and was given a historic reception. He, of course, had a much bigger welcome when he landed in Dhaka and quickly established absolute control over the government.
   After the surrender of the Pakistani army to the Indian forces, Mujib’s assistants had returned in triumph to the Independent state of Bangladesh, and installed themselves as the provisional government of the republic. They behaved as all revolutionary governments do; sought revenge, put opponents in jail, conducted kangaroo court trials, appropriated property, businesses, and even houses of their opponents. Urdu-speaking people became special targets.
   The Indian Army restrained them from blatant excesses. The leaders should have put their heads together to initiate the process of rebuilding. The country had been devastated. There was little food, clean water, electricity, fuel or adequate shelter for the bulk of the people. With no accepted leader, they fell to infighting instead. The situation was saved from degenerating into mass starvation, rampant epidemics, and enormous loss of life by the unprecedented scale of international help, and by the logistic support provided by the Indian army.
   About half a million Urdu-speaking persons had been left stranded. They were herded, for security, into hastily erected refugee camps. They were legally Pakistani citizens,
   and did not want to relinquish the citizenship. BD did not want them. There were lengthy negotiations between the respective Governments and international agencies on what to do with them.1
   (Anthony Mascarenhas in his book referred to above claims that Mujib had made a deal with Bhutto to maintain some kind of link with Pakistan).
   . Pakistan had to accept their claim of citizenship, but pleaded lack of resources for their repatriation and resettlement. Saudi and other gulf governments set up a trust fund for the purpose. Pakistan hedged. The province of Punjab offered to take them all if housing, jobs and means of sustenance could be provided for them. But Sindhis were apprehensive that regardless of where these Urdu speakers were initially resettled, they would eventually gravitate to its cities. They started talking of being “Red Indianized.”
   A few thousand houses were, nevertheless, built in the Punjab, and those with close relations in Pakistan were repatriated. Some made their way to Pakistan by bribing the border guards. The rest, over one hundred and fifty thousand in number are still (2008), languishing in UNO refugee camps.1 Trust funds for their rehabilitation have, in the meanwhile, grown enormously.
   The repatriates from the then East Pakistan did gravitate to Karachi, and live in a vast sprawling makeshift colony on the out skirts of the city. They are, however, an enterprising community and have established a large number of cottage industries making garments, weaving cloth, metal works, you name it. They were trained in sabotage by the Pakistan armed forces to fight the BD insurgents. They put the training to good use in periodic confrontations with the police, army and other security agencies. They played a large role in ethnic riots promoted by Zia, which were to break out in Karachi during his dictatorship. They also proved a great source of strength to the ethnic Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), that Zia was believed to have sponsored.
   BD was so poor that a large number of ethnic Bengalis were to migrate illegally to Pakistan. They lived in Karachi and other urban centers in Sindh and did menial work. They were exploited by employers, victimized by security agencies and looked down upon by other ethnic elements. Many, when compared to the average Bengali, are tall and fair. They are believed to be the products of the genetic engineering practiced under the aegis of the butcher of Bengal. The country remains much less developed than Pakistan. The population of the country is, though, now less than that of Pakistan. BD government was remarkably successful in promoting family planning.
   Causes of poor economic progress of BD are many. Detailed analysis of the subject is beyond the scope of this narrative. Briefly they include early neglect, unstable governments and lack of resources superimposed on two hundred years of colonization.2 Flood control measures have remained elusive. One private ven1
   Those born since 1971 have been offered citizenship. They had turned down the earlier offer of full citizenship made a while after independence from Pakistan . In July 2008, the BD Supreme Court handed down a decision to allow them to vote in elections.
   2 Bengal was fully colonized by 1757, while it took another hundred years for the rest of India.

   116
   ture the Grameen Bank1 lends small amounts of money to finance small home based industries like garment making etc. But that is a drop in the ocean.
   In Pakistan, Bhutto took full advantage of the humiliation of the armed forces. He retired many in the top brass, exiled others to comfortable sinecures as ambassadors and changed the designation of service Chiefs from that of Commander in Chief (C-in-C) to that of Chief of the staff (COS). A new post, Chief of Joint Staff was created, but its occupant had only an advisory capacity. The President of the republic became the C-in-C of all the services. Bhutto sacked the first army chief he had appointed and replaced him with the butcher of Bengal, Tikka Khan. Tikka was quite subservient to Bhutto and kept the army under control for the boss.
   On the civilian front Bhutto had lists of undesirable functionaries prepared and dismissed them without recourse to legal proceedings, as Ayub and Yahya had done. The criteria for inclusion in the list varied from the highest offence of ever disobeying the man himself to crossing the path of the lowliest PPP partisan. Ethnic prejudice once again played a large role.
   But Bhutto did introduce far-reaching reforms in the administration. Special cadres, like administration, police and customs, were organized. Previously a Superior Services officer could be a magistrate, judge, a district collector, and secretary of a department or serve in the Foreign Service. Now the successful entrants had to stay in their field. He also let professionals be promoted to senior most ranks. A doctor could, for example become Secretary of the Health Ministry, an engineer Secretary of Communications and so on. These positions had hitherto been an exclusive preserve of superior services. Under the pretext of attracting talent, he, however, appointed favorites directly, without the benefit of any experience or training, to senior bureaucratic positions. This procedure was called lateral entry.
   On the political front, Bhutto offered a liberal democratic constitution. He even conceded the demands of the opposition that if he wanted executive power he should step down from the office of the President. The constitution provided for a head of the state with reserve powers, a powerful Prime minister, whose dismissal was automatically followed by dissolution of the parliament and any member of his party voting against him in a vote of no confidence would lose his/her seat if the measure failed. A constitutional draft was presented to the parliament. After careful deliberations, the ruling group accepted most of the amendments presented by the opposition. The document was passed by a unanimous vote in 1973. After the President had signed the document, martial law was lifted.
   It lasted all of five hours. In a malicious and Machiavellian display of bad faith, Bhutto declared a state of emergency, suspended civil rights and curtailed the
   1 The head of the enterprise won a Nobel Peace prize in 2006.
   117
   1 The head of the enterprise won a Nobel Peace prize in 2006

   authority of courts to entertain cases against the Government. The opposition cried foul, but they were helpless.1
   Bhutto ran the country as a fiefdom, jailing opponents at will, and having them tortured as a matter of routine. It is widely believed that the head of a leading religious party, a venerable old man, was sexually assaulted while in jail.2 Bhutto personally threatened a high court judge with dire consequences, and pointedly referred to his daughter who went to college every day. The befuddled judge took a long leave of absence. Bhutto did not spare even benefactors and friends. A senior civil servant and a member of his cabinet J.A. Rahim,3 who had been his mentor, was not immune to his wrath. His first law minister Mahmood Qusuri, author of the 1973 constitution, appeared to grow too big for his britches. He was sacked with the usual admonition to take care lest things were to happen to the females of the family.
   Before elections Bhutto had given catchy slogans of “Roti, Kapra aur Makan” roughly bread, clothes and housing for all. He had also declared that factories and mills belonged to the workers. On his ascension to power the workers in many factories had taken him at his word. In a few cases the bosses were kept without food or water for extended periods of time. This was termed gherao, encirclement. When Bhutto used the iron fist on trade union workers, they looked up to one of his close associates, Mairaj Khan. To assert his independent status, he joined a trade union procession and was publicly beaten up. I have not been able to find a precedent, in non-communist countries, when the police had manhandled a sitting minister.
   Bhutto maintained a lavish court in the style of potentates of yore. He just stopped short of declaring, like Louis XIV: “I am the state.” Drunken orgies, wife swapping, and seduction of the wives of associates were reported to be common. I am sure his detractors told some malicious lies too, but the known fate of close associates lent credibility to the stories. If he looked cross eyed at them, ministers, generals, bureaucrats and governors were reduced to a quivering jelly. He specially favored yes-men in high office and appointed Zia chief of the army after the Butcher of Bengal retired. Zia was widely regarded as a mediocrity and used to follow Bhutto like a loyal henchman, usually with a tray of whisky in his hands.4 The print media, dependent on government advertisements for their
   1 Indra in India also got power drunk. When a court invalidated her election to the parliament on the grounds that she had used government transport for the campaign, she declared a state of emergency, jailed all her opponents, but could not overcome the innate strength of bourgeoisie democratic institutions. She had to call new pre-term elections, lost her own seat and was harassed by the new government.
   2 These incidents were reported in Pakistani press, but have not been fully authenticated.
   3 I read a report in a newspaper that Rahim left a party saying that he could not wait for Bhutto forever. Bhutto sent security personnel to the minister’s house and had him beaten up. Rahim was “discovered” in solitary confinement in a house in Karachi, after Zia had overthrown Bhutto.
   4 I have this on the authority of a retired Brigadier. Zia had blocked the man’s promotion, so he may have embroidered it a bit.

   118
   daily bread, never virile in Pakistan, was reduced to abject servility. Radio and TV were under government control already. One could easily dub the media, Bhutto voice.
   Perhaps the greatest disservice he did to the country was to bring to surface the latent animosity between the older inhabitants of Sindh and the newer ones who had migrated from India. He used state machinery to lavish favors on people who had done him a good turn in the days of his adversity.1
   Bhutto was bright and educated enough to understand that the feudal system and capitalism were a contradiction in terms. His erstwhile patron Ayub had promoted industry and even managed to initiate pharmaceutical industry in East Pakistan. Bhutto decided to revive the fortunes of his class. He had given populist socialist slogans before assuming power. Workers had shown him the way by taking over industries. He would go the whole hog. He nationalized — read expropriated — industries, banks, schools, commercial concerns, even cottage industries like flour mills. Capitalists fled the country, taking their money and skills with them.
   Banking was one of the more efficient and robust sections of commerce in Pakistan. After nationalization, hundreds of millions in loans, without any collateral, were given to sycophants, relatives and hangers on of the ruling clique. One favorite technique was to mortgage barren and worthless land, take a huge loan and then default on the loan. Qualified and experienced officers were summarily sacked to make way for cousins, supporters, and contacts of Bhutto’s political party. The institutions were soon on the verge of bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the government, further burdening the national exchequer. Many years later, when the Government offered the Banks to past owners, they declined to accept.
   Private schools, a relic of the colonial past, run by Churches, and a few other parochial groups such as Parsis (Zoroastrians) provided high standard education for the progeny of the elite. The Government took them over. They started, like the government schools, churning out semi literate unemployable degree holders. The Church and a few other high-powered schools managed to retrieve control in due course, but many other less well connected were reduced to low standards.
   Bhutto was much more successful in his dealings with the international community. He convened a meeting of the heads of all Muslim countries in Lahore and used the cover of the conference to obtain a “consensus from the conference to recognize BD,” publicly embraced Mujib and buried the fictional existence of a “United” Pakistan.
   1 One of my classmates from Quetta, an absolute pedestrian as a student, was barely able to keep body and soul together with his law practice. He made speeches in the Bhutto’s favor in Lahore bar association. Bhutto, on ascension to power, had appointed him to the high court. O Over the course of time he ascended the departmental ladder to a seat in the Supreme Court!
   Chapter 9. Decline and Fall of Ayub
   119
   Political leaders the world over are known for public posturing. The discerning public takes these grandiloquent gestures for what they in actual fact are — low comedy. Bhutto was an expert at grandstanding. India had exploded a “peaceful” nuclear device in 1974. Bhutto had pledged a thousand years war with India and vowed to eat grass if it took that to make an “Islamic” atomic bomb. He was aided and abetted in this pledge by other heads of the state, especially the likes of the wild-eyed fanatic Moammar Gadafi of Libya
   Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham

   Reply ↓

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.