Army with a nation

The authenticated disclosures made in this book enrich the literature on Pakistans history.

Judges should be independent; and I do not believe that their independence should be impaired because of their Constitutional function. But the price of this immunity, I insist, is that they should not have the last word in these basic conflicts of right and wrong between whose endless jar justice resides. a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish.

The Contribution of an Independent Judiciary to Civilization; Address at the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on November 21, 1942, in Boston.

LEARNED HAND has been acclaimed as the wisest of judges though he was never a judge of the United States Supreme Court. What he was at pains to emphasise in this celebrated address was that judges must not play with power. Political forces establish a stable society based on a balance of power under which an independent judiciary works and flourishes. Their rulings might affect power. They must not avoid judging legal issues because they would have political consequences. But they must not settle political controversies dressed in the garb of legal issues. They are immune to political control. But the price of this immunity is their abstinence from politics.

Right now in Pakistan politicians are not thrusting upon the courts disputes of power to resolve. They have been trying to use a highly politicised judiciary and a brazenly and shamelessly political former Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, to secure their own ends of power. Contrast his vulgar behaviour with his road shows and cheap slogans with the dignified behaviour of the three Judges whom Indira Gandhi superseded in an appointment of the Chief Justice of India in 1973 and that of another who suffered the same fate four years later.

Is hanging only for politicians? Nawaz Sharif asked at a rally outside the Presidency in Islamabad on June 14, alluding to Zia-ul-Haqs judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979. He finds in Chaudhary an ally who can assist him to regain power, defeating both the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and President Pervez Musharraf.

Whatever be Chaudharys judicial record, Musharrafs removal of the Chief Justice from the Bench by an executive fiat in March 2007 was reprehensible. By November, however, after a series of mistakes, he changed course. He promised the Supreme Court in writing that he would demit the office of army chief and publicly nominated his successor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. But with a tacit proviso his election as President must be upheld by the court. He had amended the law to secure the exception from the rule that bars holders of an office of profit from the polls. Judicial statesmanship required the court to do just that to facilitate an orderly transition to democracy, which the people of Pakistan have been yearning for all these years.

Its record for judicial independence does not brook scrutiny. Belatedly, the Chief Justice developed a passion for independence and ambitions as well. Lawyer-politicians and judge politicians joined hands to secure a result that was available to them without the stratagem of humiliation (vardi utaro: remove the uniform). In the circumstances that obtained then, they had only themselves to blame if the army chief struck back in desperation.

New hand-picked judges did the job that others no better than they would not. They validated the election. Musharraf kept his word: he held free elections and transferred power. The task before the country now, surely, is to establish a democratic parliamentary system based on the rule of law by removing the perversions that Bhutto introduced in the 1973 Constitution and Zia in the Eighth Amendment of 1985 and repealing Musharrafs Provisional Constitution Orders. In short, a new constitutional settlement based on a truly national consensus. The hour demands statesmanship. Nawaz Sharif fancies that the hour must be seized to settle accounts.

That is a destructive course. No one in this drama is blameless, he, least of all. In a brief tenure (1997-99) he sacked an army chief, General Jahangir Karamat, and forced the ouster of President Farooq Leghari and Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. A formidable achievement. He tried to sack the next army chief, Pervez Musharraf, while he was in Sri Lanka and even tried to prevent his plane from landing in the country. It was not Musharraf but Lieutenant-General Mahmud Ahmad, Corps Commander in Rawalpindi, who masterminded the coup when he learnt, while playing a game of tennis with the Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, of the change of command. Musharraf was still on the plane. His plane, short of fuel, was ordered not to enter Pakistani airspace. It landed in Nawabshah. A crash was narrowly averted.

Mahmud Ahmad told the author: If General Musharraf had not been changed that evening, then 12th October would have been another day like 11th October before, like 10th October was, like 9th October was. In other words, notwithstanding the uneasy, so-called uneasy relationship between the army and the political government of the time, the army would not have taken over for any reason but for this, which was a political decision on the part of Nawaz Sharif. General Musharrafs relationship with the Prime Minister became a little more easy in August and it was even easier even better in September. The coup was almost universally welcomed, not least by some who, disillusioned by Musharrafs policies, strongly opposed him later.

Nor is Nawaz Sharif justified in harking back to Kargil. The book proves conclusively that he was privy to the adventure. As for most of the critics of President George W. Bush, it was the failure in Kargil (in the U.S. case, in Iraq) that injected sobriety and dispelled the initial inebriation. It is sad that Nawaz Sharif should pursue a course that would wreck a fine opportunity for democratic revival which history presents his country today. It does not require much imagination or insight to foretell the result if the political parties are deadlocked and the polity begins to rock.

This book arrests the reader with its authenticated disclosures enriching enormously the literature on Pakistans history. But a serious reader should go beyond them. He should study the authors reflections and empathise with his anguish for his countrys predicament. A journalist who worked for the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV), The New York Times, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Shuja Nawaz has a capacity for sustained, purposeful research for 30 years. Brother of a former army chief, General Asif Nawaz (1991-93), he comes from a family of soldiers. All doors were opened to him for interviews and archival research, in the United Kingdom and the U.S., and including those of the headquarters of the Pakistan Army at Rawalpindi. No one of consequence has been ignored. This outstanding work will stand for long the test of time as an unrivalled study. The footnotes are so rich in instruction and wit as to make one lament the hideous modern practice of making them end notes interrupting serious reading. Why not put them within brackets after the text, where they properly belong?

The author is well-read in history, modern and ancient, military thought, economics and literature. The appendix on Investigation into the death of General Asif Nawaz reveals a frozen pain. His brother, General Asif Nawaz, a soldiers soldier, died on January 8, 1993, in suspicious circumstances. Both the army and the political establishment hindered the investigation at various stages. No brother could have pursued the matter with greater devotion and efficiency. The General would have been proud of this book. It is about the armys intrusion into politics and the politicians ready recourse to their intervention in order to help them settle scores with one another.

This book is an attempt to understand and explain Pakistans soldiers and its army within the context of the countrys search for nationhood and a place in the global order of things for the story of Pakistan in many ways is the story of the Pakistan Army. And in order to understand Pakistans position in the emerging regional and global order, in a world beset with terror and the threat of regional nuclear wars, it is important to understand the nature and role of the Pakistan Army and its leadership.

In taking on this venture, I realise that the Pakistan Army today is different from the institution that I grew up in, which was then a newly instituted post-colonial force with a young but dedicated officer class that had not been fully trained to take on the task of running a national army. In its early days it was also removed from civil society It is now more of a national army than at its birth with a much better trained officer corps and soldiers. However, it has also suffered defeat in war and has become deeply embroiled in the politics of Pakistan. Its influence pervades civil society in ways that are pernicious and in tasks for which it has not been trained.

The U.S. has a lot to answer for. It played a crucial role in the undermining of Pakistans democracy and acquired a baleful role in its domestic politics. It is no exaggeration to say that Pakistanis dislike and distrust it today far more than they do their neighbour, India. Pakistans history is one of conflict between an under-developed political system and a well-organised army that grew in numbers and political strength as a counter to a hostile India next door and in relation to the domestic political system. The result has been pathetic, as General Karamat noted. As far as the track record of the military as rulers in the past is concerned I am afraid it is not much better than the civilians.

Not only the bureaucracy but even the judiciary became a handmaid of the army. The three wars with India (1947, 1965 and 1971) buttressed the role of the army. Pakistans democracy suffered as the country was caught in two cold wars the India-Pakistan and the U.S.-Soviet Union. As far back as on December 14, 1945, the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, informed the Viceroy Lord Wavell of a request by the U.S. that Britain should keep herself or get under its control existing bases in Karachi and Calcutta.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah maimed and mutilated democracy in the infant state that he had founded, as Allen McGrath demonstrates in his book The Destruction of Pakistans Democracy (OUP, Karachi 1996). He undermined the authority of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and of the Cabinet and made a bid for the armys loyalty over their heads. He told the officers of the Staff College at Quetta on June 14, 1948, that the executive authority flows from the Head of the Government of Pakistan, who is the Governor-General. This was constitutional nonsense. The Governor-General was head of state. The Prime Minister was the head of the Government (see the writers essay The Parliamentary System in South Asia; Criterion, Islamabad, July-September 2007; page 74). Jinnah was establishing civilian supremacy, but his own vis--vis the Prime Ministers. He was the prime, though not the sole, architect of the Kashmir dispute. It could have been settled on November 1, 1947, in Lahore when Mountbatten gave Jinnah written proposals for a plebiscite in the States of Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh. Jinnah insisted on Hyderabads exclusion. Mountbattens offer envisaged also that a joint India-Pakistan force shall hold the ring while the plebiscite is being held. Nehru omitted this while reaffirming the offer to Liaquat on November 8 (Sardar Patels Correspondence, Volume 1; pages 72-81).

Unlike most South Asians, the author does not allow nationalism to overcome objectivity. It seems unlikely that all this planning [for the tribal raid into Kashmir], was being done without Mr. Jinnahs tacit approval although there has been some debate among Pakistanis about this issue. He is the first Pakistani to write this.

The Governor of the North West Frontier Province, George Cunningham, recorded in his diary on October 26, 1947: Apparently Jinnah himself first heard of what was going on about 15 days ago but said Dont tell me about it. My conscience must be clear. Indeed. The word deniability was coined 40 years later in the Reagan era.

On the planning of the tribesmens raid into Kashmir and the course and causes of the wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971, the book provides much fully sourced documentation that has not appeared to this day. That is no mean achievement.

Kashmir became both a reason for not allowing a democratic polity to emerge and a massive financial haemorrhage for the new nation state. It was to become the cornerstone of Pakistans foreign policy and domestic politics for decades, as civilian and military leaders struggled to keep the issue alive enough to further their own careers. In the process, the Kashmiri people were soon a forgotten part of the trilateral equation and were not able to play a role until the 1990s. This, they cannot even now in 2008 because of their own internal feuds.

Ayub Khan became army chief on January 17, 1951, and emerged as the principal architect of the alliance with the U.S. This was an emerging relationship between consenting adults. Pakistan was willing to dance along to the U.S. tune but also had its own agenda. Jawaharlal Nehrus policies promoted this process in two ways a confrontationist policy towards Pakistan and a wantonly difficult stance towards the U.S. He publicly threatened Pakistan on February 23, 1950, that if the methods we have suggested are not agreed to, it may be that we shall have to adopt other methods. This was a propos the refugee inflow from East Pakistan. In May 1950, while on a visit to the U.S., Liaquat Ali Khan sought a guarantee of Pakistans territorial frontiers. The plus-factor was born to vitiate relations between a big country and a small neighbour.

Against the advice of his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Ambassador to the U.S., and Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs, Nehru refused to sign the Peace Treaty with Japan, which John Foster Dulles had drafted, on grounds that smacked of presumption. Dulles realised that in Nehru he had not a friend to lose if he patronised Pakistan. Initially Nehru himself had sought an alliance with the U.S. but was rebuffed (see archival disclosures by M.S. Venkataramani in An elusive alliance; Frontline; April 23, and May 7 and 21, 1999).

As army chief, Ayub Khan gained the confidence of his American interlocutors. Ghulam Mohammed, the Governor-General, was another advocate of the American connection. The army was a key participant in diplomacy, which is why this history of the army is indispensable to a study of Pakistans diplomacy.

The author notes the emergence of a cohort that Ayub Khan was gathering around him in the Pakistan Army that would in one way or the other be responsible for running the affairs of Pakistan for the next couple of decades after the military pact of 1954. Civil servants shared their outlook. [Iskander] Mirza and Ayub had managed to make foreign policy while strengthening their hands in domestic politics. Unwittingly India had contributed to the outcome by taking a bellicose stance and even forcing Pakistan to the edge of another war in 1951, allowing the civil-military combine to assert its position even while the politicians bickered on parochial matters. Ayub and Mirza were able to use Indias hostility to build support for a stronger, larger military. The American connection gave them further legitimacy setting off a trend that later rulers in Pakistan found easy to use to their advantage. The pattern was set in the early 1950s.

The U.S. and U.K. had foreknowledge of the army coup in 1958. An emboldened Ayub, instigated by Bhutto, launched the war of 1965 and came to grief. It spelt his fall and the eventual break-up of Pakistan.

Far more than its predecessors, the war of 1971 is still shrouded in undispelled myths. Five questions remain unanswered with objective documentation. On when Indira Gandhi decided to go to war; when and by whom was the India-Pakistan war launched; and what were Indias war aims. These three are clearly interrelated. Add two more Chinas non-assurances to Pakistan and the Soviet Unions nuanced policy of support to India, especially its reservations on the Treaty. Indian and Russian perceptions on the Treaty differed. To this day, neither Indians nor Pakistanis care to consider the significance of the Polish resolutions in the Security Council. They were intended to minimise Pakistans humiliation and its losses. India would not have retained any territory nor acquired a POW (prisoner of war). There would have been no Simla Pact. There would have been an orderly transfer of power from Islamabad to Dhaka, leaving India high and dry. Bhutto rejected the resolutions. Why did Bhutto reject these resolutions? 1971 merits a book by itself.

As Jack Anderson reported, the fact was that the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] had penetrated the Indian government at every level and received reports of even some of Prime Minister Indira Gandhis secret conversations with, among others, the Soviet Ambassador. It had a mole in her Cabinet. Two CIA reports deserve particular attention. One, of December 7, 1971, reports her as saying to her Cabinet that she would not accept a ceasefire until: A. Bangladesh is liberated. B. The southern area of Azad Kashmir is liberated ((less than 1 line of source text not declassified). Comment: This encompasses the area west of the 1965 cease-fire line between Chhamb and Punch). C. Pakistani armoured and air force strength are destroyed so that Pakistan will never again be in a position to plan another invasion of India. Mrs. Gandhi concluded her briefing by reiterating Indias war objectives. A. A quick liberation of Bangladesh. B. The incorporation into India of the southern part of Azad Kashmir for strategic rather than territorial reasons (because India has no desire to occupy any West Pakistan territory); and finally, C. To destroy Pakistani military striking power so that it never attempts to challenge India in the future. (Foreign Relations of the United States 1969-1976 Vol. XI; South Asia Crisis 1971; March 2005; page 687; Doc. 246) Note, she excluded west Pakistan as well as the northern areas (emphasis added throughout).

The authors paraphrase (page 305) is accurate. There is, however, a problem about the CIAs report of December 12 on her briefing to the Cabinet two days earlier: 5. The Prime Minister concluded her briefing by saying that India will emerge from the war as the dominant power in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. China will respect India and may even decide to improve relations with India. On the other hand Pakistan will lose its economic power without which it will not be able to support a large military complex. The current Pakistani military leadership will not be able to survive the military defeat. Mrs. Gandhi said she expects China and the United States to lose interest in Pakistan. She also noted that she foresees greater pressure for Autonomy in Pakistans Northwest Frontier, Baluchistan and Sind. She expressed the hope that a new democratic Pakistan based on autonomous republics will emerge and that it will desire to have friendly relations with India.

Here, again, the authors quotes and paraphrase are accurate (page 308). The problem arises with the lines that he writes immediately after: Mrs. Gandhi asked her defence chiefs to be ready to drive into Sialkot and then proceed as deep as possible even upto Rawalpindi with the aim of destroying Pakistan. The CIA managed to get actual minutes of the meeting and passed them to Washington urgently. Do the minutes of her meeting with the defence chiefs differ from the CIA report of her briefing to the Cabinet? While Shuja Nawaz provides the source for the CIA report (footnote 58, page 318), uniquely he provides no source at all for her instructions to the defence chiefs. The CIA report adds, after quoting her remarks to the Cabinet: (Text not declassified). But that could not be the minutes of her meeting with the defence chiefs.

The CIA report itself records that she had sent her trusted aide, the highly respected Professor P.N. Dhar, to Moscow to assure the Soviet Union that India has no plans to annex any west Pakistan territory (for the CIAs report of December 12, see Foreign Relations 1969-1976, Volume E-7, Documents on South Asia 1969-1972, June 28, 2005, Document 183). The author drew not on this compilation but directly from the archives. Indira Gandhi could not possibly have tried to deceive Moscow. The author is a responsible person, of integrity. But he makes an assertion of far-reaching implications and does not provide the source, uniquely. This is a problem he alone can resolve and he must. He owes that to the readers and, indeed, to himself. The record, as it stands, does not support his claim one bit.

There is a thorough exposure of the meddling of the Inter-Services Intelligence in domestic politics. It was the ISI that drummed up the alliance that brought Nawaz Sharif to power in 1990. As Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto was no more scrupulous. U.S. Ambassador Oakley recalls that Bhutto believed that foreign (and especially U.S.) support would keep her in office no matter what right up until the last minute (in 1990 before she was dismissed by the President).

The Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy, Beth Jones, recalls getting a call from General Babar Bhuttos special adviser asking her if she could arrange a phone call from the U.S. President so that Bhutto could get the Presidents support for her choice of army chief. Jones told him that arranging a call was one thing, but that if the government of Pakistan were then to release a statement that the President supported Bhuttos choice of army chief, the White House, the State Department and the embassy would deny that.

In 1999 Nawaz Sharif sent his brother Shabaz to the U.S. to secure its support against a feared army coup.

Shuja Nawaz provides overwhelming evidence that Nawaz Sharif was privy to the Kargil venture. Six pieces of evidence are cited (pages 514-522). One alone will suffice. It is by none other than his own trusted man, General Ziauddin, whom he had chosen as army chief to replace Musharraf and triggered off the coup on October 12, 1999: It was at the 17 May briefing that General Ziauddin of ISI recalls a discussion of the Kashmir operations in general and Kargil in particular. He recalls the presence of former CGS and retired Lt. Gen. Majeed Malik and the Secretary of Defence, retired Lt. Gen. Iftikar, both of whom took part in the discussions. The briefing map indicated the location of the 108 bunkers that Pakistan had occupied or constructed, and the briefing stated that the Indians could not oust us. At the end of briefing, there was a suggestion (reportedly by General Mahmud Ahmed) for a dua or prayer for the success of the venture.

Before they dispersed Zia recalls Nawaz Sharif stating: This is a military operation. All I can say is that there should be no withdrawal, no surrender of any post because that will greatly embarrass us. He asked if we could hold on. Both Aziz Khan and Mahmud Ahmed said they could. In assessing the Indian reaction, they talked about the possibility of attacks across the international boundary, but also thought that the Indians would be unable to counter-attack in force. Zia believes that the Prime Minister left everything to the army to decide. Yet, surprisingly for him, he actually asked questions as did Majeed Malik. The DGMO, Tauqir Zia, responded to their concerns. So, in Zias view, Sharif was fully in the picture from the point on. Zia also states that Mahmud used to take maps to the PM House to brief him as posts fell.

According to Zia, the Prime Minister had the authority to order a halt to the operations at any point if he had serious doubts. But he did not. This is damning testimony from a man whom Sharif was later to appoint Musharrafs replacement and who was then under threat of a court martial and under house arrest for almost two years on Musharrafs orders.

However, between May and July, the Indians gradually got the upper hand, using their numbers to great advantage. They even blockaded Karachi with their Navy, in case the conflict erupted into an all-out war. At that point, Nawaz Sharif decided to take matters into his own hands and pressed the army for more details. The army gave more briefings. But as time went by, the ground situation went against Pakistan. An agreement could have been worked out between India and Pakistan even in June without having to go to Washington, according to Sartaz Aziz. It was the prospect of defeat that aroused the politician in Sharif. He went to Clinton of his own volition to seek a way out.

Earlier Sartaz Aziz and Jaswant Singh met in Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka in March to explore options for a Kashmir settlement. Sartaz Aziz claims that Jaswant Singh was open to the idea of geographical division of Kashmir.

The author records: There was a broader Kashmir plan at work that had been presented and discussed by the army chief with the Prime Minister and his key aides in early 1999, although interestingly, even after all the subsequent public spats about who said what to whom and when, not one of the participants will talk openly about that aspect of the discussions. A key participant confirmed this to the author but refused to elaborate on the broader Kashmir plan.

The reflections, at the end of this masterly survey of the armys role in national life, are of direct relevance to the situation that confronts Pakistans leaders today. He quotes from an internal study at the National Defence College, which lamented the rank authoritarianism that afflicted the army and civil society. The author makes an important suggestion. The corps commanders should be appointed, not by the army chief, but the very authority that appoints him.

The political spin-off benefit of such a move would be the elimination of the current all-powerful position of one person, the COAS [Chief of Army Staff], and the division of power among the regional commanders, while making the Chairman of the JCSC [Joint Chief of Staff Committee] the principal military advisor to the Government of Pakistan. It would also eliminate the possibility of a single person effecting a coup detat in the future, since the power of the army will be divided among 3-6 commanders, none of whom owes his job to the COAS or even the chairman of the JCSC. As the Indian experience shows, building up a visible political system helps stave off military coups. It is only in the absence of political stability that a military can make a claim to act in the national interest.

On its side, civilian government needs to ensure that it follows the Constitution fully and does not involve the military in political disputes. If this cycle of a civilian interregnum followed by extended military rule is to end in Pakistan, then the politicians have to play their part faithfully and in the national interest. If they do, the army may play its part too and Pakistan may break out of this vicious circle that has kept it from developing into a true democracy and a progressive nation.

History will not forgive Pakistans political leadership if it fails to rise to the occasion.