Essence of the Matter-A.H Amin-August 2002

Essence of the Matter

A.H Amin

August 2002

Nation , Lahore



While analysis of todays Pakistani politics is outwardly subtle and convincing at the face value , serious historical analysis remains the weak point .What is lacking is the long view , the inability to penetrate through appearances,the motivation to write with an ulterior motivation to please to secure personal business objectives and worse of all to criticise simply because a writer has acquired the reputation of a cynic and his writings are read simply because his cynicism provides a catharsis for many ! This does not mean that all is well or all military or civil rulers are well meaning reluctant coup makers !

This article is an attempt to capture crux of the whole issue in a few paragraphs ! An ambitious but certainly not impossible endeavour ! First of all the basis of modern Indo Pak politics was initially a type of liberal set of beliefs based on faith in British parliamentary system and liberalism mixed with the philosophy of self rule ! The British introduced Western democracy in India with a view to afford a vent to the Indians desire for participation and sense of involvement ! The urban professional classes picked it up as a means for self realisation or self advancement ! The feudals picked it up as a means of continuing their unfair advantage or position of influence in the Indian society. The middle classes ran after government jobs as a means of self advancement and economic benefit ! The Indian soldiers served in the army as mercenaries motivated by economic benefits and part propelled by espirit de corps ! The politicians came into conflict with the British not because all of them were heroes or martyrs but because it was a struggle for power ! The civil servants and mercenary pre 1947 Indo Pak soldiers collaborated with the British because it improved their prospects of self advancement ! The pre 1947 Indian Army , the father of the post 1947 Indian and Pakistan Army had nothing to do with Indo Pak political struggle at least in what they voluntarily or deliberately did less a platoon of Garhwal Rifles which refused to open fire on Muslims demonstrating in Peshawar in 1930 ! After all who was shooting down Indo Pak civilians like partridges in Wana , Razmak ,Sindh and Jallianwalla Bagh other than the British Kings Indian Army ! Four brigades in tribal areas , two brigades in Sindh in the Hur Rebellion ! The Indian or Muslim civil servant, soldier and policeman till 14th August and some to date were collaborators of the Western power which ruled India till the transfer of power !

The Hindus were better organised politically since the Indian National Congress was dominated by a strong Hindu professional and business class while the Muslims were condemned to be politically more backward since because of peculiar historical reasons Mr Jinnah had no choice but to accept the Muslim feudals who dominated Muslim politics ! Mr Jinnah was forced to ally with the Unionists in Punjab and the Sindhi landlords in future against the advice of Punjabi Muslim urban leaders like Dr Iqbal because it was a strategic compulsion.Thus from August 1947 India inherited a strong political culture while The Muslim League was destroyed by the feudals who had joined it out of fear of land reforms and because of being in debt to Hindu money lenders just a few years after Mr Jinnah's death ! Here again economics played a major role ! It has been estimated that in pre 1947 Punjab and Sindh money lending was the most important occupation after agriculture and that while the net revenue of Irrigation Department of Punjab was 267 Lakh Rupees that of money lenders was 500 Lakh Rupees ! In 1911 out of a total of 803,560 money lenders in India some 25 % or 193,890 lived in Punjab alone ! Thus while the total population of pre 1947 Punjab was one eleventh of India ,it had some one fourth of India's money lenders ! All this ensured that the feudal elements jumped in the Muslim League band wagon not out of genuine motivation but because of economic compulsion !

Now the post 1947 era ! While post 1947 Indian Congress leaders like Nehru and Patel chided the Indian Army for their un nationalistic role in British rule and reduced their basic salary Pakistan was condemned to be ruled by a civil military clique within eleven years of independence ! Men who had collaborated with the British before 1947 became Pakistan's rulers within seven years of Independence ! Officials of Indian Audit and Accounts Service like Ghulam Mohammad and Mohammad Ali ! Feudals like Kalabagh who before 1947 were faithfuls of a man no higher than the British Deputy Commissioner of Mianwali ! Compare the fact that while Nehru abolished Cantonment Boards within no time after independence even today a Pakistani civilian living in a plot of land bought by paying through his nose in a cantonment area lives within perpetual awe of the cantonment boards simply because no Pakistani statesman had the courage or the vision to reduce the military or civil bureucrats to size !

A man who spent his life in sycophancy of the British was this country's governor general within four years of independence while genuine freedom fighters like Raja Ghazanfar Ali were outcasts within four years of independence ! A political agent whose pre partition training was to intrigue and lie and make the frontier tribes fight so that British rule was prolonged was this country's president within eight years of independence ! A soldier who was guilty of tactical timidity in Burma was this country's first Muslim Army chief within four years of independence ! While this country's first military ruler came with a pledge to modernise this country the culture of police gang rape was a direct result of the Ayub-Kalabagh style of governance ! Who can forget the Miss Akhtar Case of Lyallpur or the Kharian Police Gang Rape case of 1968.

Since the Pakistani military has had the best of all in most of Pakistan's history we will confine this discussion to the military's role ! A study of history proves that while the Roman Republic was great the citizens were poor or lived a Spartan living ! While the first four Muslim caliphs practised austerity the Muslim Kingdom touched Central Asia at one extreme and Egypt at the other ! Now compare Pakistan ! Three of the four of Pakistan's military rulers till to date were from humble background less Yahya Khan whose father was from the Indian Police Service ! All three less Yahya Khan departed richer than they were when they took over while the Pakistani state successively became poorer with their departure ! Compare Ayub Zia's or any of todays three or four star generals assets with what they had at the time of passing out from the miltary academy whether it was the Sandhurst or OTS Dera Dun or Kakul ! As per Feldman a reliable authority Ayubs studies in college were financed by Nawab Kalabagh ! Major General Tajammul states that in 1950 the then major general Ayub had just one green suit ! Zia of 1960s is remembered by Gul Hassan as a meek obsequeous soldier , a man unfit to be an officer of the Pakistan Army in words of his immediate senior Major General Nawazish !

Why these man acted the way they did ! Was it because of ideology or self interest ? From necessity or from choice ? Mustafa Kemal had saved Turkey from disintegration , a direct consequence of the Treaty of Sevres ! Degaulle was a military hero of France ! What were our military rulers ! Ayub destroyed the Constitution of 1956 , a direct consequence of which was the separation of East Pakistan within fifteen years ! General Zia destroyed the Second Constitution of Pakistan simply because he feared a prime minister who could threaten his personal authority !

We had one who came to wipe out corruption and institutionalised corruption in the Pakistani society through route permits and industrial permits ! We had one who attempted to undo what his soldier predecessor had been doing for eleven years in order to perpetuate his rule and presided over this country's partition in 1971 ! We had one who wanted to hold hands with God Almighty in his dishonesties and in the process introduced extremism in this country's politics ! He came with a Morris Minor and today his sons are in Land Cruisers ! We have one who professes to be a liberal and is strengthening the police and faces the most serious religious threat in Pakistan's history ! All were motivated by self interest ! All three came poorer and left the country poorer if not economically then politically !

What is the conclusion ! All military rulers acted out of self preservation ! They had no ideology ! Less Yahya all started from the lower middle class or middle class and ended as business tycoons ! They destroyed constitutions , promiscuously destroyed the political system by introducing test tube babies in politics who they later condemned as corrupt and defective ! They destroyed Pakistan's constitution transforming the office of prime minister from that of a potent statesman and respectable political chief executive to that of a glorified eunuch ! All to preserve one man's head ! All to ensure personal power !When they acted out of choice it was for self preservation , when they acted out of choice it was for self advancement ! In a nutshell Pakistan's political history is a story of soldiers of humble origins motivated by intense ambition and rising to the highest political office ! Entering the stage with one green suit and departing the stage leaving a dynasty with phenomenal riches whether it was Zia or Ayub or todays Crore Commanders ! While admirals guilty of worst sort of bribery are allowed to go scot free politicians against whom one single charge even one tenth of Mansoorul Haq is not proved are rotting in Jails since last five years !

Our memories are short , we have been brought up doctored through propaganda,through censured press and are made to believe that our present rulers are honest while their predessors were dishonest ! Alas we have reached a stage when no one seriously reads the newspapers any more ! The self proclaimed Messiahs of this nation administered so many injections of falsehood and distortion to it that today that the average man has lost all political awareness ! He is well meaning and motivated but no longer has faith in the state or in those who lead him ! Inflation and depression has reduced him to a robot !

From those who day and night praise this regime motivated by a large number of reasons of self interest one may ask this question ! Has human nature changed ! Is personal interest not the ideology of todays military government ! If submarines were bought in the past are not Boeing 777 being purchased today ! If there was a polo ground constructed in the past what about many hundred acres leased to a foreign company for a commercial golf course today ! Defaulters who cannot enter Dubai are heading banks in Pakistan ! If all was divided in between cousins and inlaws yesterday , is not the same happening today !

In the worst Machiavellian phrase in todays Pakistan dominated by the soldiers self propagated image as one who NABs the corrupt what is it all other than a simple proof of Machiavellis dictum " Assume a virtue,Prince,if you have it not ! Honesty and Spartan living are not virtues in todays Pakistan ! Machiavelli was not wrong when he said " men are easily corrupted and let themselves become of the opposite nature,no matter how good they are and well taught". We are condemned to rigged elections,manipulation of like minded lotahs and palace intrigues ! We are condemned to long term insecurity simply because some individuals are not secure with a strong and stable political system for this country ! This is our tragedy from which we can only be rescued albeit ironically by unforeseen air crashes or war !