Dec 16, 1971: any lessons learned?

[miroslav]

Dec 16, 1971: any lessons learned?

By Ayaz Amir


IF we had drawn any lessons from the events of 1971, we would have forsworn military rule forever, indeed consigned the very memory of coups d’etat to a never-to-be-opened hall of national shame.

For it was military rule and the legacy of folly it accumulated which led, almost inexorably, to the tragedy of 1971: dismemberment of Pakistan and the humiliating surrender of our forces in the east.

We have done nothing of the sort. Far from forgetting military rule, we have almost embraced it as a national way of life. After ‘71 Pakistan’s brief experiment with elective democracy (although much mangled by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) was snuffed out in 1977, leading to the long night of Zia’s dictatorship, whose consequences we have still not outlived. And if that wasn’t enough, there was another coup in 1999 from whose shadows the nation has yet to emerge.

Indeed, in one of those ironies in which history abounds, the loss of East Pakistan, far from weakening the spirit of militarism, as ideally it should have, went about strengthening it. Although the army, the bureaucracy and Punjab all conspired to give East Pakistan a rough deal — treating it little better than a colony — the people of East Pakistan brought noise and colour to Pakistani politics.

Punjab’s forte was, perhaps still is, bending the knee before the status quo. That is why Punjab has welcomed every conqueror and, in our own day, paid homage to every tinpot dictator. Bengal, west and east, always has had a streak of anarchy about it. Small wonder if oratory and a flair for agitation have been hallmarks of the Bengali political character. This was good for us while united Pakistan lasted because Punjab on the one hand and Urdu-language chauvinism on the other were leavened by East Pakistani turbulence. We were the richer for this balance and mix.

There were no surprises in West Pakistan largely acquiescing in Ayub’s dictatorship. Like we have a Q-League now, we had a Convention League then and like the Q-League, in keeping with Punjab’s famous temperament, draws most of its support from Punjab, the Convention League drew most of its support from West Pakistan. Conversely, what there was of an opposition drew most of its strength and fire from East Pakistan. It is sobering to remember that in the 1965 National Assembly there were only two opposition members from the whole of West Pakistan, Hasan A. Shaikh from Karachi and Mian Arif Iftikhar from Kasur-Lahore.

East Pakistan gone — we saw to it that it went — clamping military rule on the country and maintaining it has become so much easier. The present military order has been around for six years (and a bit more) and although its achievements are more impressive on paper than in reality, it sits comfortably in the saddle largely because there is not a spark of life in the opposition.

Oh, if this had been united Pakistan, what sounds of commotion and turbulence would have come from Dhaka. We can only indulge in nostalgia now because given the political class we are left with, there is nothing much to expect of it.

I have mentioned this before. I seek indulgence for repeating it (for the last time). On his way to Shimla for talks with Mrs Gandhi in 1972, Bhutto called a meeting of PPP assembly members (national and provincial) in Lahore to sound them out on their views. When the discussion got a bit long, my father, also an MNA, said: ‘...why are you asking these people? Mrs Gandhi can come at the head of her tanks and they will stand in line to receive her. So do what you have to and rest assured that they will clap when you return.’ (Words to that effect of course.) He wasn’t far wrong.

Seeing the performance of the eastern command, and indeed the performance of the army on the western front (where too we lost territory to India) we should have cut military flab, reduced the amount of heavy brass, and made the military into a more fit and professional fighting force. I don’t know about the professionalism but there is more flab and heavy brass in the army today than ever before, with the system of privileges — officer housing societies and jobs for senior ranks after retirement — more entrenched than ever. Officers need housing. So do soldiers and NCOs. Are there any colonies for soldiers? As for officer colonies, we all know the money being made from them.

I suppose there is a logic to all this. The armies of Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines-to quote only three examples, although the list can be much longer — are (perish the thought) not meant to fight any external enemies. Their purpose is to maintain internal control. We seem well advanced down the same road.

Today the size of the combined military, Allah be praised, is almost three times what it was in 1971. As for the weight of brass — the number of generals, admirals and air marshals — they must be four or five times the number then. Who says we’ve made no progress?

There is nothing unique or strange about defeat itself. The strongest are not immune to it, defeat coming the way of the greatest captains of war and happening to the mightiest empires. But nations with life in them, in whose veins real blood flows, learn from their defeats. Why put it so modestly? Defeat is a great teacher, in its crucible resolve and fortitude being tempered. What’s our record?

After 1971, we should have left juvenility behind and entered the realm of adulthood. As a mark of growing up we should finally have discarded the myths and shibboleths accumulated since 1947 in the name of that fuzzy concept, the ideology of Pakistan. Far from doing anything of the kind, we are more confused, our hatreds more virulent. Pakistan must be one of the few countries in the world still agonizing over the meaning of its creation and birth, no other subject triggering such a frenzy of self-serving mythology. As for hatred, for all its other shortcomings, and there were many, pre-1971 Pakistan was not the citadel of religious intolerance it was to become later.

I suppose intolerance in the name of religion was always present beneath the surface. But it was prevented from flowering because of a larger national canvas. Geography shrinking with the loss of East Pakistan, some of our vision, our capacity for thinking large thoughts, was also lost. Defeat should have opened our eyes. Instead, it served to close them a bit more.

Dec 71 should have made us wiser about the United States. The Yahya junta was of course foolish and there was nothing in the world that could have rescued it from its chosen path of folly. But the Nixon White House added to its confusion by promising help it was in no position to deliver — offering illusions which Yahya and coterie took for reality.

But we learned nothing. In the 1980s we became foot soldiers in an American crusade against the Soviet Union. American strategic objectives secured, America walked away from Afghanistan. We were left holding the dishes. In 2001 we allowed ourselves to be recruited in another American crusade avowedly against “terror” but in reality for the higher interests of the American empire. This crusade was meant to secure peace. It has fomented strife and turbulence.

The surrender ceremony at Race Course Ground, Dhaka, on this day should have left a lasting impression on our minds about the need to respect constitutional norms because not respecting them, or rather not having any norms to respect, is what led to Pakistan’s December tragedy in the first place. But if we look back at the last 34 years, our most spectacular flouting, our most flagrant disrespect, has been reserved for the Constitution framed in the aftermath of the ‘71 war. This doesn’t say much for our learning capability.

Miro

 

[EagleEyes]

Miro...

Mind to provide the source? Thanks.

 

[miroslav]

Originally posted by WebMaster@Dec 30 2005, 01:42 AM
Miro...

Mind to provide the source? Thanks.

[post=4881]Quoted post[/post]​

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20051216.htm

The article was published in Pakistan's leading daily DAWN. There is a picture of author as well just in case anyone wanna kill him.

Better luck next time webby.

May be one day you will find me without links/Source.

Miro

 

[miroslav]

Read few more disturbing articles from the author.

Is national defence in safe hands?

By Ayaz Amir

Not an inappropriate question to ask on the eve of what, through a process of some self-bluffing, we choose to call the Defence of Pakistan Day.

The self-bluffing comes from the fiction that the '65 war was somehow imposed upon us, that a predator enemy, seeking our destruction, launched a war of aggression which we then fought back with amazing skill and bravery. While this makes for riveting if not soul-lifting history, it's not quite how it happened.

We set off on a small adventure in Kashmir which quickly got out of hand and saw us dragged into a full-scale war, a war we had neither sought nor indeed calculated for. We thought the fighting would remain confined to Kashmir and India would dare not cross the international border.

Unfortunately, India chose not to oblige us and--as a little common sense, let alone Napoleonic insight, might have forewarned us--chose a place and time of its choosing to counter our moves in Kashmir. (Another proof of the adage that wars while easy to start are harder to finish. Ask the Brits and Americans about their adventure in Iraq.)

Our jawans and young officers fought well. (So did the Indian jawans and their young officers.) But that's hardly the point. Our soldiers fought an unnecessary war brought on by the stupidity of their warlords.

What led the nation into this fiasco? Simply put, one-man rule. Ayub Khan was his own commander and his own president. He had installed a yes-man as army c-in-c but it was Ayub with his field marshal's baton--something he had bestowed on himself--who called the shots. When he decided upon the adventure in Kashmir there was no one to stop him. (It's no use blaming Bhutto or anyone else. The buck stopped at the president's table.)

The '65 war ended in a draw. There was no such consolation for us in '71 when the folly of military rule led to abject defeat and surrender in what was then East Pakistan. What was to blame for that disaster? A repetition of the Ayub phenomenon: the fact that the same person was military chief and political ruler.

The Zia decade distorted the spirit of Pakistan and gave us in ample measure a culture of sectarian murder and hypocrisy. What led to this? Again, one-man rule and the destruction of political institutions.As if to prove that learning from history is not our forte, we are going through a similar phase again: another military ruler who is his own pope and Caesar. Echoing the cry of all his military predecessors he says he is indispensable and must remain president and military chief as long as he himself deems fit. In his book no bigger heresy exists than to question this self-proclaimed doctrine of indispensability.

Was national defence safe in the hands of Ayub, Yahya and Zia? The disasters they presided over tell us it was not. They were competent enough soldiers but they exceeded their briefs and stepped outside the circle of their competence. The results could have been predicted. They proved bad soldiers and poor leaders. Is there anything exceptional in our present set of military saviours? What grounds for supposing they can break the cycle of cause-and-effect?

Four years is a long enough time to judge anything. Has Pakistan been put on the road to development? Are the masses shouting for joy? Has military rule delivered better administration, quicker justice? Has it erected monuments to stability?

On any honest valuation, General Musharraf's government would be lucky to score 'average' on any performance chart. On its promise to cleanse the national stables and usher in an era of 'real' democracy it would probably score 'below average'. Well, everyone knows what these kinds of grades get you in the army: early retirement. But when you are your own umpire and examiner and you have the luxury of writing your own annual report, who's to stop you from proclaiming your performance as outstanding?

God knows our democrats too have been crying failures. They had the chance to change national direction, Benazir Bhutto in 1988, Nawaz Sharif in 1997. But they squandered their opportunities and furnished fresh justifications for the military to re-enter the political arena. All the same, Pakistan's salvation lies in democracy not militarism. Democracy can die a hundred deaths, suffer a thousand failures, but it will yet be the only path for us to follow.

If an army is defeated you don't disband it or forswear the use of arms. You raise a fresh army and invest more in weapons and training so that it fights better the next time there is a call to arms. In similar fashion, democracy's failure should not mean the disbanding of democracy but rather the creation of conditions where the chances of going wrong the next time round are minimised.

France was plagued by political instability from 1945 to 1958, the period of the so-called Fourth Republic. General de Gaulle put an end to France's malaise not by discontinuing democracy but by (1) devising a more stable system and (2) providing leadership to his country. The Fifth Republic, his legacy to France, survives to this day.

Yes, Pakistan needs leadership and it needs a stable democracy. But it will get neither the one nor the other from military presidents who think it their divine right to be embalmed in their uniforms - leaders whose outstanding talent, as our history tells us, is for repeating the failed experiments of the past.

Have our military saviours ever considered that when they remove democracy from the equation, or give the notion of democracy a self-serving twist, they are erasing the very raison d'etre of Pakistan? Pakistan came into being on the basis of the right of self-determination. The Muslims of India, exercizing their free choice, opted for a separate homeland. In other words, Muslim nationhood found political expression through democracy. Remove democracy from the scaffolding and the structure called Pakistan loses both identity and meaning.

True, Pakistan has not been served well by its governing class. Its leaders both military and political have largely failed it. (After Jinnah the only real leader we had was Bhutto. But we hanged him. And since then we have been groping for leadership.) But the solution lies not in raising tinpot figures and hoping that they will work miracles but in returning again and again, no matter how numerous the failures, to democracy.

Bhutto was a protege of Ayub Khan's but as he moved along the political scale he became a champion of the masses and the father of the 1973 Constitution (not to mention the father of the A-bomb, the pride of our military). Nawaz Sharif was a product of another dictatorship but in his later incarnation he stood up for himself and turned the moribund Muslim League into a mass party. Like it or not, this is how political evolution occurs.

Pervez Musharraf also had a chance to evolve and write himself more than a minor footnote in history by holding honest elections and, if he was so desperate to cling to power, by standing for election as a legitimate president. This would have been the test of greatness for him, his chance to score 'outstanding' on the political scorecard. But he flunked it when he opted for a cooked-up referendum and a comprehensive cooking up of the subsequent elections.

He thought he was taking the safer and shorter route. As many a strongman before him learnt to his cost, often the longest distance between any two points is an illegitimate short-cut.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20030905.htm

Miro

 

[miroslav]

How many plots does a man require?


By Ayaz Amir

THE service chiefs, beginning with General Pervez Musharraf, have set a good example by disclosing details of the properties they and their immediate families hold. While this is a step in the right direction and one which should be followed by all fat cats - political, bureaucratic and commercial - it also goes some way to reveal one of the things wrong with the Pakistani elite: it is over-privileged and over-pampered.

The army chief has six plots, an under-construction house in Karachi and two squares agricultural land in Bahawalpur. This is besides a house owned by his parents in Islamabad and a house in the name of his daughter in Defence, Karachi. The naval chief has three sizeable plots, a flat in his wife's name in Islamabad and the obligatory two squares of land in Bahawalpur. This is what he must have acquired while in service. What he inherited were four acres (repeat four acres) of barani land in Rawalpindi and six acres in Multan. The air chief has six plots and the inevitable two squares in Bahawalpur. At this rate there will not be any land left in Bahawalpur.

While a grateful nation would not grudge the leading defenders of the motherland these privileges, a person in a shantytown would be forgiven for thinking that there was a plot too many in all these lists. As Tolstoy asks in his famous short story: how much land does a man require?

The ironic thing is that compared to (1)the higher bureaucracy, (2) the politicians of the last decade and (3)the entrepreneurs who have made a speciality of getting loans and then declaring their paper enterprises as 'sick units' to have those loans written off, the properties of the service chiefs are, if anything, on the austere side. Which just goes to show how much the acquisitive mentality has infected the Republic's vitals. Yet we wear our virtue on our shirt-sleeves and sermonize loudly from the house-tops. While the gap between rich and poor in this country is wide enough, more striking perhaps is the yawning chasm we have dug between rhetoric and reality.

Anyway, this was just a digression which like the lists of plots above has turned out to be longer than it should have. Of greater importance is to see how within this first month military rule has progressed and what bench-marks, if any, it has set for the future.

So far what the nation has heard is stern resolve and plenty of good intentions. It is a measure of how deeply unpopular the previous regime had become, and of how tired people generally are of the Benazir and Nawaz Shairf brands of democracy, that they have taken to the sound of General Musharraf's voice and are not only eager but desperate that he and his team should succeed.

It is also true, however, that so far the good intentions of the military government are not buttressed by too many specifics. Maybe it is too early to pass any judgment on this score. Even so, the team in the driving seat not only looks a bit unwieldy - corps commanders, principal staff officers at GHQ, the famous NSC, the patchwork cabinet, all making up quite a handful - but it also seems a bit vague about how it is to carry a broom through the Republic's stables.

A great deal will depend on how bank defaulters are tackled after November 16. This date has been built up so much, not least by newspaper ads which no one seems to realize are always an exercise in futility, that if the action against defaulters does not come up anywhere near the hype, no one should be surprised if disillusionment sets in early. Especially among the civic-minded sections of the middle class who are always more concerned about the country than anyone else and who, in this instance, are looking upon the military takeover and its threats of reform as signs of the final coming.

Vagueness is also visible in the monitoring mechanism which the army is setting up to ensure, as has been stated, good governance. This will function under the chief of the general staff, General Aziz, and go from the corps, which will keep an eye on the provinces, to progressively smaller units down to the district level. Even in theory this sounds like a half-baked idea. The CGS should run GHQ and keep an eye on the army. How can he monitor, much less understand, the functioning of government?

The matter wrong with Pakistan is institutional breakdown. Nothing, apart perhaps from the post office, works the way it should: not the provincial secretariats, not the district management group, the criminal justice system, the revenue departments or, indeed, the lynchpin of all, the criminal justice system. This breakdown will scarcely be helped by any 'monitoring'. It requires a serious effort at reform of which the military, at least for now, seems to have little clue. The army can jump-start the process of reform by banging heads together and cracking a few eggs. This is what it can be good at, provided of course it knows what it wants and where it wants to go.

Part of the problem of course is that this batch of reformers is learning on the job. There is nothing wrong with this except that if the pace shown thus far is anything to go by, we are in for a fairly extended apprenticeship. Who will defray the expenses of this exercise in learning? Obviously the nation which over the last 52 years has had more than its fill of seeing where good intentions lead when not backed by understanding and vision.

Part of the problem also is that the public's honeymoon with General Musharraf (and, let it be stated for the record, that of General Musharraf's with the public) is still going strong. As long as this mood lasts there are not many people willing to hear criticism of the army, especially when in defence of the army it can be said that it has not had time to prove itself. To disarm criticism further people looking enthusiastically at the military takeover are saying that this is the country's last chance and that if after the failure of democracy the army too fails we are done for and our future is sealed.

This is dangerous thinking. First, it places General Musharraf on a pedestal and invests him with the robes of messiahdom. For this role he himself may not be prepared if for no other reason than that it imposes a crushing burden of expectations on his shoulders. Second, to speak in such apocalyptic terms amounts to suppressing the spirit of scepticism in our midst which, apart from any other purpose it may serve, is a necessary corrective to the fatal tendency, to which all Pakistani rulers sooner or later succumb, of wielding power arbitrarily. While a necessary corrective in all seasons, its importance is heightened at a time when the Constitution and the assemblies lie suspended in no-man's land.

Who knows this experiment turns out differently from the ones before it. Who knows this is the dawn we have been waiting for. Maybe. Even so, we should not be victims of collective amnesia and forget that we have been here before. Military rule has been tried on several occasions in the past and found wanting. While the practice of democracy over the last decade and a half has been a joke, it does not follow that the baby should be thrown out with the bath water. If the army loses a war, a fact not unknown in our history, does it follow that the army should be disbanded? This is faulty reasoning.

Let us also not forget that the same people at the helm now, eager to change the nation's destiny, misjudged and misread, to put it no stronger than this, the objectives and the likely consequences of the Kargil operation. For the sake of the country let us pray that they are better at governing the country than they were in handling something that fell within their professional competence.


http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/991112.htm