| August 09, 2008 | Saturday | Sha’aban 6, 1429 |
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Four views of the Pak army
THE last couple of years have produced at least four important, although very different, books about Pakistan by Pakistanis. In their different ways, they discuss the role of the Pakistan Army, and the institution doesn’t come out very well in any of them.
The first, In the Line of Fire by Gen Pervez Musharraf, is the least honest of them. A self-serving, poorly written memoir, the book was nevertheless a bestseller for it was about a man and a country currently in the eye of the storm. His account about the unnecessary and disastrous conflict in Kargil, in particular, is both dishonest and confused. The general really thinks he won a great victory.
Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc is a pioneering study about the Pakistan military’s deep industrial and financial involvement in the economy. In her scholarly survey, Dr Siddiqa outlines the many facets of the vast empire the military has built up in Pakistan. Being a serious work and not a popular journalistic investigation, it would probably not have done as well as it did in Pakistan and abroad had it not been for Musharraf’s crude attempts to muzzle it.
By buying up all the copies when the book was first launched, the government gave it publicity and circulation it might not have achieved on its own. As it is, the author was widely and rightly acclaimed for her research and analysis. Although it comes as no surprise, Dr Siddiqa’s conclusion is that in order to protect and expand its huge financial stake in the economy, the army needs to rule the country, either directly or indirectly.
The third book about Pakistan to cause a stir recently is Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Unlike the other three on our list, this is a work of fiction, although the story is very close to reality. Even some of the major characters are based on real-life figures we are all familiar with. Hanif’s caricatures of generals Zia and Akhtar Rehman would cause the blood pressure in family members of the deceased to shoot up, had they been the types to read books.
The story is based on the plot to rid the world of Zia, and the author throws in many tantalising possibilities. His take on the armed forces was gained the hard way: he was trained in the Air Force Academy, so his portrait of the protagonist, Ali Shigri, bears the ring of authenticity. Zia’s fake piety and his ruthlessness are captured in rollicking passages of brilliant satire. In and out of the narrative weaves the enigmatic figure of ‘Major Kayani’, an ISI operative, who orders torture in the infamous detention centre at the Red Fort in Lahore. To her credit, one of Benazir Bhutto’s first acts when she came to power in 1988 was to have this chamber of horrors demolished.
As in the best satires, Hanif’s book forces the reader to think hard about the issues it discusses. Zia’s dictatorship changed Pakistan forever, and we are still living with the evil institutions and groups he created. Even though this is a work of fiction, Hanif’s novel gives us a chilling reminder of what life was like under Zia. The fact that it has been included in the list of Booker Prize contenders will do its sales no harm at all.
For around three decades, Ahmed Rashid has been the best-informed and the most intrepid journalist to have reported on Afghanistan and Central Asia. He was catapulted to international fame in the aftermath of 9/11 when his book Taliban was the only authoritative account of the benighted holy warriors of Afghanistan. But long before that, he had been filing reports on the Soviet invasion of our neighbouring state, and then on the civil war that engulfed it. In the process of observing the past and present conflicts in Afghanistan, he has made many friends from Hamid Karzai to the many warlords and tribal chiefs of the region.
His first-hand knowledge and deep sympathy for Afghanistan are on display in his new book Descent into Chaos. This is, above all, an indictment of the various players who are making a huge mess of the fight against extremism. It goes without saying that major protagonists in the ongoing struggle are the Pakistani army and the ISI. Although the author analyses closely the decisions taken in Washington and how they impact on the region he has studied, his primary focus is on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meticulously, Rashid traces the rise of the Taliban, and lays bare their close links with the Pakistan Army and the ISI. While much of this has been written about before, Rashid has marshalled his evidence closely in a wide-ranging and depressing account of the self-destructive urge that has impelled our generals to create the monster we are struggling against today. There are no heroes in this book, only knaves and well-intentioned fools. Even Rashid’s close friend Karzai is seen to be a flawed figure, tolerating drug dealers and refusing to allow the emergence of political parties.
Rashid concludes by giving a set of recommendations on how to sort out the mess in the region. But the problems he outlines are so enormous and complex that the average westerner could be excused for throwing up his hands and saying: “I’m outta here!” However, this is not a luxury we in the neighbourhood can afford. And nor, given Afghanistan’s track record as a breeding ground for global terror, can the West walk away from the mess.
Above all, if there is to be a resolution to the Afghan problem, we will need to reorient our own army’s priorities first. As all the four books show in their own ways, our officer corps has been brainwashed into taking a rigid ideological position that is hopelessly out of step with regional and global realities. Although it has convinced itself that it is the country’s saviour, in reality it has made Pakistan a far less secure place than we have a right to expect after the billions we have poured into our defence.
And as all four writers have shown (even though that was probably not Musharraf’s intention), the army is now so much a part of the problem that it cannot possibly also be part of the solution. But while we have all been saying this for years, we are no closer to solving the ‘army problem’ today than we were when the generals began interfering in the political process half a century ago.
irfanhusain@gmail.com
