HARVARD UNIVERSITY CANNOT CHECK BASIC FACTS IN BOOKS IT PUBLISHES AND LACKS INTELLECTUAL HONESTY TO ADMIT IT

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ISBN: 9781698901688

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This is an interesting book
and what the author wants
to say is something I have
always believed and said

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long before Aqil Shah
wrote this book.
However it is essential to
examine in detail what Mr
Aqil Shah has to say and
offer some humble
analysis .
On page- ix , would like to
offer some comments on
Mr Ahmad Mukhtar :--

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Mr Mukhtar has been an
industrialist who belongs
to a town close to the
military garrison town
known as Kharian
cantonment.He has always
maintained good relations
with the army like any
good business man and
,frankly like most
politicians in this world has
no substance.Just like
most generals worldwide
are men without
substance !
Firstly we cannot agree
with Aqil Shahs argument
about Mr Jinnah on page-3

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, nor with Aqil Shahs view
that military coups and
adventurism were not
inevitable in Pakistan:--
We hold the view that Mr
Jinnah the so called
founder of Pakistan apart
from British Raj , had
inflicted the unkindest cut
on Indian Muslims of

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Bengal and Punjab in 1916
and thereby by doing this
had destabilized future
politics of Indian Muslims
for all times to
come,Pakistan being the
worst affected.
The Lucknow Pact of 1916
without asking the Bengali
Muslims or the Punjabi
Muslims , reduced Bengal
Muslim majority in
legislature from 52 to 40
% and in Punjab from 54
to 50 %.

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This grave strategic
imbalance destabilized
Indian Muslim and later
Indo Pak Muslim politics in
post British Pakistan ,
leading to Pakistans first
martial law in 1958. The
following figures below
summarise this imbalance
graphically :--

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If Aqil Shah has to analyse
events as they happened
dispassionately and in a
detached manner , he first
himself has to
intellectually set himself
free from self created
prisons of hero worship or
Jinnah worship.
This is our first major
disagreement with Mr Aqil
Shah.
Our second major
disagreement with Mr Aqil
Shah is with regard to his

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argument that both
Pakistan and India
inherited a similar British
colonial legacy. As Mr
Shah fallaciously claims on
page-3 of his book :--

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Page-4 , cannot agree with
Aqil Shah about military

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threat.Kashmir was was
initiated by Pakistans
political leadership and
was entirely avoidable :--
What kind of threat is Mr
Aqil Shah talking about ?
Did not accept this from a
sagacious analyst like Mr
Aqil Shah.

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Again on page 4 Mr Aqil
Shah misses the point
totally.The first , original
and unpardonable sin was
Lucknow Pact of 1916 ,
almost entirely the
handwork of Mr Jinnah
that planted seeds of
unjust tampering with
ethnicity and , with just
electoral majority of the
Bengali Muslims.

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Language was only the tip
of the ice berg ! The real
issue and the basic bone
of contention was the
Bengali due ethnic
majority in votes that was
sabotaged and derailed by
no one other than

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Pakistans minority west
wing politicians ,
supported by west wing
civil servants and military
establishment.This Aqil
Shah misses altogether !
Pakistani and foreign
analysts always miss the
point that electoral
tampering was first
pioneered at Lucknow in
1916 and was all along the
ideology of non Bengal
Muslim political elite of
India and later Pakistan.

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On page 5 Aqil Shah while
discussing Pakistani
military starts quoting
Huntington but totally
misses the essential fact
that Pakistani military was
obsessed by British
colonial gimmick known as
“Martial Races Theory”.
The issue all along was not
just superiority of military
as an institution but ethnic
superiority of the west
wing soldiers over the low
caste Dravidian Bengali
East wingers.

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On page-6 Aqil Shahs
rationalizations about
Pakistani military
adventurism and
Bonapratism is an exercise
in extreme
oversimplification of a

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highly complex
sociopolitical issue :--
Aqil Shahs projection of
Pakistan Armys citadel of
pedantry known as NDU is
in bad taste (page-9) .I
first saw NDU when my
father attended a course
known as armed forces

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war course there in 1974-
75. Later as an army
officer I saw and heard a
great deal more about
NDU. From what I heard
and saw NDU far from
being a forward looking
institution was another
higher academy where
officers attended courses
and indulged in far
superior and sophisticated
forms of apple polishing
and intellectual sucking as
compared to staff college.
Nomination to NDU was by
the military secretarys

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branch in general
headquarters, another
bastion of pedantry and
parochialism where many
decisions were taken
based on personal likes
and dislikes.
In 1999-2001 the Pakistan
Army was shaken by a
massive scandal where
records were tampered
with bribes etc at the
military secretarys
branch.The scandal as was
and is the norm was
covered up.

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LTG Tariq Khan described
his war course experience
in NDU as disappointing
where he was graded bee
grade by a bunch of
vindictive directing staff
and a sectarian set up, as
he discussed with this
scribe in 2011-14 many
times.
Brigadier Khalid of my
regiment described
nominations to war course
based on personal whims
and likes and dislikes of

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the military secretary in
army headquarters and
these as per Khalid could
be sectarian , ethnic or
various shades of parochial
! Khalid specifically quoted
one lieutenant general in
Musharraf era who as
Military secretary was
extremely biased and
selective in nominating
officers from a particular
sect or ethnicity to the war
course.
Intellectual stagnation and
bigotry was such at NDU
that as per Air Commodore

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Kaiser Tufail during the
time when one LTG Javed
Hassan was commandant
of NDU , uttering the word
Kargil was banned , as
Javed had commanded a
disastorous operation at
Kargil in 1999 ! Thus as
per Kaiser Tufail , an air
force officer attending
course in NDU by mistake
uttered the word Kargil ina
model discussion and was
banished from attending
the course at NDU.
Aqil Shahs premise on
page 10 that Pakistani

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military picked up
supporting Jihadists from
insecurity is also fictitious
and ludicrous :--
The first Pakistani use of
religion in war was in
Kashmir in October 1947
and this was pioneered
and led by a totally civilian
and democratically
leadership.

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The second misuse of
religious card in proxy
wars was in 1974 in
Afghanistan and this again
was led by a totally civilian
and democratically
electedpolitical leadership.
It is mind boggling how
our Huntington quoting
super intellectual Aqil Shah
comes with such ideas !
Pakistans Afghan war
proxy card was picked up
by a pariah military

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usurper who was politically
and internationally isolated
and there was no threat to
Pakistans national
security.
Pakistans Kashmir proxy
war was picked up as a
useful war by Pakistans
military elite as the Soviet
Afghan war was over and
a closed matter and
Pakistani military needed
another proxy war to
perpetuate its political and
foreign policy dominance.

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Aqil Shahs analysis ignores
the most crucial fact that
India was controlled by
the British using minority
ethnic groups from
northwest, particularly
Punjab from 1885 onwards
and in 1947 the British
divided India and created
a more controllable
strategic base in northwest
known as Pakistan.The
Pakistani military and civil
service were seen as
strategic partners of the
British and of the
Americans after 1954
against USSR in the global
power game.

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In 1979 the USA and
Pakistani military picked
up Islam and Jihad as a
useful strategic condom to
be used against the USSR
and then discarded.
While Huntintgon and
many others may be
quoted by researchers like
Aqil Shah ,the hard fact
remains that Pakistans
political development was
distorted and derailed first
by politicians like Mr
Jinnah who had sabotaged

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Bengali Muslims at
Lucknow in 1916 and
,Liaquat Ali Khan who
particularly delayed
constitution making etc.
Pakistan was never a
tangible objective of Mr
Jinnah till 1940 when a
British viceroy Linlithgow
suggested to him that he
must have a slogan.
What was created in 1947
was not a nation state but
a geopolitical creation to
serve as a super base
against USSR.

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While technically a nation
Pakistan was a unique
state where the political
establishment was not
willing to hand over power
to the majority
ethnicity.Delay in
constitution making as a
result enabled the
Pakistani military to take
over power and from 1958
Pakistan was not a state
but an army with a
state.With off course
British and later US
support as they saw this
arrangement geopolitically
useful.

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This line of thinking figures
nowhere in Aqil Shahs
oversimplistic narrative.
Again on page 16 Aqil
Shah is oversimplistic.

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There was no bias against
the Bengalis in the army
but General Ayub Khan
who had usurped power in
1958 sabotaged Bengali
recruitment.
Aqil Shah ignores the fact
that the army is run by
likes and dislikes of its
chief and in this case it
was Ayub Khan alone who
sabotaged Bengali
recruitment as he saw
Bengalis as a political
threat since they were
Pakistans majority ethnic
group.

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On page 25 Aqil Shah
terms Shuja Nawaz’s
analysis as rich although
Shuja Nawaz’s book
crossed swords contains
totally fallacious claims
that British Indian Army
was mostly Punjabi Muslim
from Rawalpindi division.
On page 46 Aqil Shah
renames general Iftikhar
Khan iftikharuddin :--

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On page -54 our so called
USA educated author
becomes naieve and
factually flawed and
incorrect to the extreme ,
fallaciously terming the
Bengal Army that rebelled
in 1857 as a Bengali Army
whereas the Bengal Army
that rebelled in 1857 was
UP and Bihar origin and
had no Bengalis:--

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Aqil Shah also misses the
point that Pathans were
almost a small minority in
British Indian Army and
Punjabi Muslims only
became preferred after
1918 as the Sikhs who
dominated the British
Indian Army till 1918 had
created political problems
for British in WW One.

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It is expected from a
decent scholar, in this case
one groomed and
educated in so called
reputable US university to
at least be correct in his
facts.However sadly Mr
Aqil Shahs book is citadel
of factual inaccuracies.All
entirely avoidable if Aqil
Shah had been a little
more careful rather than
endlessly quoting western
analysts ! Like on page -72
Aqil Shah fallaciously
claims that Bengalis had a

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majority in constituent
assembly of Pakistan :--
Mr Aqil Shah , sadly your
facts are totally incorrect.
11 non Bengalis were
elkected on Bengal seats
and there were 22
Bengalis in the 79 member
first constituent assembly
of Pakistan.

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Mr Aqil Shah nowhere
mentions that Pakistans
political leaderships
mindset was so petty that
the conflict between Mr
Jinnah and premier Liaquat
Ali Khan originated over no
lofty principle but over
conflict of seating plan of
ladies , where liaquats wife
clashed with Mr Jinnahs
sister over who was senior
in seating protocol in a
party hosted by Liaquat on
the occasion of Mr Jinnahs
birthday in December
1947.

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How was democracy to
mature in such a country
,Mr Aqil Shah did not
question.
This fateful incident was
mentioned in Liaquats
biography by Kazem Raza
published around 1997-98
but Aqil Shah has not even
listed this book in his
bibliography.
Another issue with the
book is that it has no
bibliography and a reviwer

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or serious reader has to
carry out the painful
exercise of scanning
through the authors end
notes !
One serious issue that one
finds with Mr Aqil Shahs
argument throughout the
whole book is that he finds
no space for the first sin
and original crime to
disenfranchise the Bengalis
at Lucknow in
1916.Interestingly neither
Lucknow pact nor the word
Lucknow is mentioned
even a single time in this

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so called acclaimed , badly
researched and , sub
standardly analysed book.
Thus on page-102 Shah
again mentions Bengali
under representation but
fails to mention that
Pakistans so called
founding fathers had
delivered the first and
most fatal stab on Bengali
representation in 1916.He
fails to mention clearly
that Bengalis were
disenfranchised by
Pakistans manipulated
politicians in 1956 :--

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And yet goes on quoting
from western arm chair
philosophers while totally
forgetting Kazem Raza etc
whose books were
published and available all
along the time span when
he carried out this
research.If Mr Aqil Shah
had just glanced through
Mc Graths book

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“Destruction of Democracy
in Pakistan “ ¸he could
have avoided many
serious factual errors in his
book.
On page 103 Aqil Shahs
basic facts are sadly wrong
again as Akhnur was not
the only road link between
India and Kashmir :--

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Required no research for a
Columbia university
scholar to find this simple
fact.
Hamid was promoted full
general as chief of staff
and not lieutenant general
as stated on page 106 :--
Keeps on demoting Hamid
like on page 113 :--

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Regarding armys
mishandling of East
Pakistan , I totally agree
with Mr Aqil Shah as he
stated on page 117 :--
On page 154 Aqil Shahs
facts are wrong.
Even the British were
meddling and infiltrating
civil service with

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nominated candidates
from armed forces
entering through back
door without examinations
based on push and pull.
There was a pre Zia
military quota in civil
services dating back to
Ayub Khans period and
continued by ZA Bhutto.
In 1947 a totally novice
military man Ghayur Khan
was thrust over my
grandfathers head in
ministry of defence just
because he was muslim

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league leader sardar
nishtars brother.Other
characters like Sajjad
Haidar son of a railway
station master in good
books of british officials
joined foreign service in
British era , and so did
Sultan Khan who was son
in law of a minor states
ruler.
Throughout sons and sons
in law and relatives and EX
ADCs were joining the
prestigious civil services
(CSP, PFS) etc and this
loot party did not start in

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1980 as Aqil Shah
fallaciously claims.
A serious scholar or
researcher of political
science is supposed to
know his facts but Aqil
Shah has mastered the art
of writing absolute
nonsense while elevating it
to the heights of absolute
and irrefutable truth.
On page 156 Shah
discusses Symington
amendment but fails to
note that Pressler

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amendment effectively
allowed Pakistan to
hoodwink sanctions and
Pakistans nuclear weapons
were actually acquired in
Reagan era with secret US
blessings since it was
feared that USSR may
invade Pakistan and
Pakistan needed an
effective deterrent.

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Shah fails to note that Mr
Bhutto was a military
discovery and a classic
case of Pakistani military
manipulating a politicians
rise to power , whereas his
father had even failed to
win a single seat from his
home constituency of
Larkana.
Shahs analysis of armys
islamist bugs is realistic
but he fails to note that It
was a civilian politician Mr
ZA Bhutto who inflicted
the unkindest cut on
Pakistans civil society by

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pioneering constitutional
amendment to declare
Ahmadis non Muslims.
Aqil Shah is not honest in
his analysis of BB.While
the army under General
Baig decisively ensured
holding of 1988 elections
BB instead of being
grateful and at least
positive towards General
Baig started snubbing him
and wanted to replace him
.

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The unkindest cut in
degradation of quality of
leadership of Pakistan
Army by appointing an
officer , Ayub Khan
accused of tactical timidity
in Burma by Liaquat Ali
khan in 1951 or a highly
mediocre officer with no
war record by ZA Bhutto in
1976 figures nowhere in
Aqil Shahs analysis.
The removal of army
officers job security and
right to service in
congenial circumstances
without fear of arbitrary
removal was removed by

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an elected prime minister
Liaquat Ali Khan in
1951.This institutionalized
“Spinelessness” in
Pakistan Army.But Shah
has no time for these
matters.
Shah is unduly harsh on
the army (page-171)
whereas he totally ignores
Ghulam Ishaq Khan a
civilian who was most
instrumental in removal of
Benazir in 1990 as well as
retirement of General Baig
in 1991.

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This is not in line with
Shahs preconceived
notions so he ignores it.
Shahs knowledge about
Pakistans so called Taliban
Insurgency is limited
(page 269):--

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As a matter of fact this
insurgency was fabricated
by Musharraf junta to fool
the Americans and to
divert their attention
towards FATA with dual
aim of hiding vast bulk of
Afghan insurgents in

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Baluchistan and milking
the US taxpayer of 1.2
Billion US Dollar per year
known as coalition support
fund.
The author has no
worthwhile
conclusions.Two factors
that he throughout misses
out is that Pakistan Armys
constituency is Northern
Punjab and it has kept this
area relatively much better
developed than rest of
Pakistan.He has failed to
note that the army killed
90 % people in non

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Punjabi areas inj 1977
agitation and when it came
to killing people in Lahore
the army refused and
three brigadiers were
sacked and finally this
factor led to martial law.
The second major factor
that Shah has ignored is
that British colonial legacy
preprogrammed Pakistan
with a life script for
military rule particularly
with the history of British
colonial legacy in Punjab.
The book is interesting but
non committal and evasive

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and offers no worthwhile
conclusion.
It appears that the party
in Pakistan would continue
and Pakistani generals
would favour their
relatives and favourites for
all times to come and
organizations like Fauji
Fertiliser and PIA would be
citadels of generals
relatives and
humzulfs.Pakistans nuclear
deterrent guarantees that
the loot party would
continue while so called
scholars like Aqil Shah will
continue to write

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inaccurate books that few
people in Pakistan read.

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