ESSENCE OF THE MATTER IN INDO PAK HISTORY

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Essence of the Matter
Article · August 2002
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3. This is a summing up of Pakistani Politics summed up in Daily
Nation Lahore.The article ruffled many feathers in the tinpot
Musharraf Junta
Essence of the Matter
Published in the Daily Nation Lahore in September 2002
A.H Amin
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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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 !

13. 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

14. 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 !
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