Where soldiers ate grass
| An uninitiated observer might be forgiven for thinking, not incorrectly, that this is a description of contemporary Pakistan. But this is the state, Amit Barua, the Hindu correspondent, found Pakistan in, even ten years ago, during his tenure in Islamabad (April 1997-June 2000). Those were eventful years for Pakistan and Indo-Pak relations (nuclear tests, Kargil, Musharaff's coup, Kandahar hijacking, etc). He narrates these developments""and the many other events that have taken place since, e.g. the War against Terrorism, the 2001 military standoff, Vajpayee's journey to Pakistan again in 2004""in a reporter's style, drawing, upon his reportage for the Hindu and Frontline, as also from that of Pakistani and other journalists, taking the reader back in time as the story unfolds. |
| The elections of 1997""the year Baruah arrived in Islamabad""that brought Nawaz Sharif to office as Prime Minister for the second time, were the last free elections in Pakistan. There were two interesting features of that election. First, the religious parties won only two seats in parliament, a far more realistic reflection of their electoral strength than the 45 seats (out of 272 contested) they won in the elctions held five years later under the Musharaff dispensation, which gave the MMA, a coalition of fundamentalist Muslim parties, control of NWFP and Balochistan. Second, from an Indian perspective, it was noteworthy that none of the major parties made J&K a campaign issue in a pronounced manner. These should have augured well for the evolution of democracy in Pakistan and for pursuing a friendlier, good neighbourly India policy. Alas, as is known well enough, neither flowed from the verdict the people had freely delivered. |
| Nawaz Sharif set upon the same course that is at the root of the turmoil that Musharaff is now faced with. As Baruah notes: "It is not just military dictators who have taken recourse to intimidating the judiciary or packing the higher courts with judges of their choice. Civilian rulers have taken the same route." Sharif won that round; we do not know, yet, the result of Musharaff's current battle. Then came the sacking of Army chief Jahangir Karamat and elevation of Pervez Musharaf, a Mohajir, superseding a Pathan and a Punjabi general. If Sharif thought that he had, finally, tamed the Army and got his own "Monkey General" (as Bhutto used to refer to his own chosen one, General Zia ul Haq), he got his comeuppance barely a year later, when the General overthrew him. Baruah says "respect, within the Army, for the Chief is not governed by ethnic background; it is institutional". |
| The nuclear tests of 1998 were, in many ways, the defining moment in Pakistan's self-belief. The tests, Baruah believes, emboldened Pakistan to think that they could now "engage in conventional provocation". Within six months, Karamat was replaced as Army chief by Musharaff""the former's self-restraint giving way to the commando's adventurousness! The result, the Kargil misadventure, which Baruah says, was an exercise in "sheer futility", a "mindless" war that "backfired badly" on the Pakistan Army. Bhutto had once famously remarked that Pakistan would have the Bomb even if the Pakistanis had to eat grass! How prophetic""for that is what the Pakistani soldiers in the Kargil war were forced to survive on, as the autopsies on the bodies of the dead soldiers revealed! |
| The other effect of the tests, Baruah says, was to bring in the US as a "de facto third party" in the Indo-Pak equation""the Lahore 1999 and Islamabad 2004 summits, Kargil, the ongoing Indo-Pak dialogue. If India that had traditionally avoided third-party involvement was now comfortable with the US role, it was perhaps because, for the first time since Independence, there was a sense of US willingness to move away from its pro-Pakistan tilt or what Jaswant Singh used to refer to as the "hyphenated relationship". But whatever the change in the US posture, it does not go, yet, to the extent of demanding of Pakistan the same fidelity to fighting terrorism targeted at India as to that targeted at the West! Pakistan's involvement with the jehadi outfits continues. Baruah concludes that pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding, the Musharaff regime has no will to abandon this weapon; domestically, the General has "failed" to lead Pakistan to becoming a "more tolerant and moderate" society. |
| The prospect of peace might be seen as silver lining with Pakistan agreeing that the "peace process is irreversible". But, if this is not accompanied by a change in the self-appointed role of the Pakistan Army as "custodians of Pakistan's ideology", can India be blamed for being cautious? |
| There are vignettes in the book that a reader would enjoy, viz. the caterer for the lavish banquet hosted by Nawaz Sharif in honour of Vajpayee at the Lahore Fort in February 1999 was never paid; Musharaff owns plots of land in seven major cities of Pakistan; etc. |
| Overall, an interesting and detailed contemporary account that the layman and a committed Pakistan watcher would enjoy. |
| The author was in the Indian Foreign Service |
| DATELINE ISLAMABAD |
| Amit Baruah Penguin Price: Rs 295; Pages: 270 |