ACT I, Scene 1, Islamabad, March 9: General Musharraf in full army regalia summons the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and dismisses him for being too serious about his job.
Act I, Scene 2: the next day stormtroopers smash the office of a private TV channel for telecasting the truth.
Act II, Scene 1, Manchester, March 21: two suspected terrorists are arrested on their way to their alma mater somewhere in Pakistan.
Act III, Scene 5, Jamaica, March 22: the Pakistani cricket team is held for questioning in the suspected murder of their coach. A wonderful global advertisement of rank bad behaviour.
At school, Brother McCann used to say that one could judge the character of a person from the way he behaved on the playing field. He used to say that you could distinguish between the magnanimous victor and the poor loser and how each would play out his life. One wonders how old McCann would have reacted to the Pakistani behaviour in the West Indies. As with individuals, so with nations.
Pakistan has always reacted thus in any adversity. Each adventure with India has led to immediate retribution at home — a change of government (post-1965), division of the country (1971) or a coup on the last occasion in 1999. This is possibly because Pakistan has never been allowed by its military rulers to be what one would call a ‘normal’ country. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had once boasted that he had won Pakistan with the help of a clerk and a typewriter. Pakistan was conceived by a group of the elite that had never lived in the part of the country that was to be theirs.
The campaign was fought ostensibly on behalf of millions who were ultimately willing to stay behind and on behalf of people who were really not interested in this new entity. Some of them like the Baloch led by the Khan of Kalat or the Pathans led by Badshah Khan were opposed to the idea of a merger with Pakistan.
The problems for Pakistan began right at the beginning when governance was hijacked by the Punjabi feudals and their bureaucracy and then with vehemence and tenacity by the Punjabi army. Over time, Pakistan’s USP became its ability to be a nuisance in the neighbourhood while being a client-state of distant powers. It was this military and economic sustenance from friends that gave Pakistani rulers the false sense of power and influence in the region as the people were misled in a march towards a khaki rainbow of greatness and glory.
From its early days, Pakistani rulers denied their new country’s Indo-Gangetic past and promised its people a glorious Islamic future with its moorings away from ‘Hindu’ India. India had a glorious past but its future in 1947 was uncertain. The Cold War painted India as a Soviet ally and we were sneered at for our ‘Hindoo’ rate of growth. With all its institutions of legitimate governance trampled beyond recognition, Pakistan today is a country with a murky past and uncertain future. India, on the other hand, despite its institutions having been mauled, has orderly changes of government and an assured future. Not for a moment can anyone in India dream that the President or the Prime Minister would summon the Chief Justice and then sack him. Nothing defines the nature of Pakistan or its leaders more than this single episode and the contrast between the two countries.
There are many who believe in the glib phraseology of ‘enlightened moderation’ and that Musharraf will restore democracy in Pakistan. But a General who leads an army that wants to retain total control of the country, where criticism of the army is blasphemy and alternative opinion is unacceptable, can hardly be expected to champion democracy.
Act I, Scene 2: the next day stormtroopers smash the office of a private TV channel for telecasting the truth.
Act II, Scene 1, Manchester, March 21: two suspected terrorists are arrested on their way to their alma mater somewhere in Pakistan.
Act III, Scene 5, Jamaica, March 22: the Pakistani cricket team is held for questioning in the suspected murder of their coach. A wonderful global advertisement of rank bad behaviour.
At school, Brother McCann used to say that one could judge the character of a person from the way he behaved on the playing field. He used to say that you could distinguish between the magnanimous victor and the poor loser and how each would play out his life. One wonders how old McCann would have reacted to the Pakistani behaviour in the West Indies. As with individuals, so with nations.
Pakistan has always reacted thus in any adversity. Each adventure with India has led to immediate retribution at home — a change of government (post-1965), division of the country (1971) or a coup on the last occasion in 1999. This is possibly because Pakistan has never been allowed by its military rulers to be what one would call a ‘normal’ country. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had once boasted that he had won Pakistan with the help of a clerk and a typewriter. Pakistan was conceived by a group of the elite that had never lived in the part of the country that was to be theirs.
The campaign was fought ostensibly on behalf of millions who were ultimately willing to stay behind and on behalf of people who were really not interested in this new entity. Some of them like the Baloch led by the Khan of Kalat or the Pathans led by Badshah Khan were opposed to the idea of a merger with Pakistan.
The problems for Pakistan began right at the beginning when governance was hijacked by the Punjabi feudals and their bureaucracy and then with vehemence and tenacity by the Punjabi army. Over time, Pakistan’s USP became its ability to be a nuisance in the neighbourhood while being a client-state of distant powers. It was this military and economic sustenance from friends that gave Pakistani rulers the false sense of power and influence in the region as the people were misled in a march towards a khaki rainbow of greatness and glory.
From its early days, Pakistani rulers denied their new country’s Indo-Gangetic past and promised its people a glorious Islamic future with its moorings away from ‘Hindu’ India. India had a glorious past but its future in 1947 was uncertain. The Cold War painted India as a Soviet ally and we were sneered at for our ‘Hindoo’ rate of growth. With all its institutions of legitimate governance trampled beyond recognition, Pakistan today is a country with a murky past and uncertain future. India, on the other hand, despite its institutions having been mauled, has orderly changes of government and an assured future. Not for a moment can anyone in India dream that the President or the Prime Minister would summon the Chief Justice and then sack him. Nothing defines the nature of Pakistan or its leaders more than this single episode and the contrast between the two countries.
There are many who believe in the glib phraseology of ‘enlightened moderation’ and that Musharraf will restore democracy in Pakistan. But a General who leads an army that wants to retain total control of the country, where criticism of the army is blasphemy and alternative opinion is unacceptable, can hardly be expected to champion democracy.
Source : hindustan times 27th march 2007
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