Nobody is Indispensable? Not Always!
Reply to Question Raised by Brig. Javed Ashraf khan
When the TV anchors started to say that the real government of Pakistan was the GHQ, I wrote to the press and any one willing to listen that it was patently untrue and very damaging to the country. If General Kiani was shown special deference in Washington DC, it was for a reason. When TV anchors in Pakistan took the line of our perennial enemy, India, one could see what that reason might have been. Thankfully, they stopped parroting that line.
The matter of extensions to the COAS is indeed not a legitimate area for press discussion and speculation. But when the Minister of Defence starts talking about it six months in advance, he has a political purpose. I responded to a sinister political statement from the platform of a political party – Rifah Party. That is quite legitimate.
Military Mutinies have a special place in the history of South Asia. The Muslims ruled India for 800 years because of the feudal military system that underpinned military loyalty with land grants (Jagirs). The British changed that system and relied on alleged but non-existent “resentment of Muslims” and recruited only non Muslims in the colonial army until the ‘Indian Mutiny’ of 1857. They punished the mutineers severely and changed the recruitment policy. They identified some tribes, races and religions as ‘martial races’. The British ruled India for another ninety years with the help of martial races most of which were from the North West – the Punjabi Musalman (PM), Sikhs and Pathans. It was the INA desertions (a form of mutiny) to join the Japanese and Naval Mutiny of 1946 that convinced the British they should leave India quickly.
There was no popular movement for secession in East Pakistan. The secession became inevitable after the mutiny of Bengali soldiers who started to kill Bihari Muslims. The carnage was started by Major Zia ur Rehman, who became the President in consequence of another mutiny in August 1975 in which President Sheikh Mujib was killed. President Zia ur Rehman himself was assassinated by military mutineers in Chittagong. That set the stage of two female inheritor of the mantle of mutineers as leaders in perpetuity.
India wanted to eliminate Begum Khalida Zia from politics and shrink the power base of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) so that its protégés – the Awami League- could rule unchallenged. India relied on the tried and tested method – mutiny – to secure that objective. Its intelligence Arm – RAW - organised the most diabolical mutiny in February 2009, in which 57 senior officers of BDR were murdered and their wives raped with the consent and connivance of the Sitting Prime Minister – Hasina Wazed.
In the eighties India very nearly succeeded in arranging a mutiny in Pakistan. Brigadier (retired) Imtiaz has since revealed that as head of counter-intelligence he unearthed a plan for a few military officers to gate crash corps commanders conference and kill General Zia ul Haq and as many other generals as possible. He identified erstwhile crony of Benazir - Ghulam Mustafa Khar - as the link of the ‘mutineers’ with India. Khar avoided arrest and prosecution because he was living in the UK at the time. But he did return to Pakistan, fought an election on PPP ticket, and was Minister of Water and Power in the first Benazir Administration. Imtiaz revealed that Khar went to India and was seen by Indira Gandhi. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to infer that Benazir was complicit in the plan.
Asif Zardari was the First Husband throughout that period. His ‘fondness’ of India is not founded on the beauty of Indian actresses alone; he is their man. The article by Anatol Lieven that I circulated concludes that it will take something much more than US Drone Attacks to create a mutiny in the armed forces of Pakistan. But he expresses the view that American boots on the ground just might create a mutiny. If that happened, he says, Pakistan could disintegrate. India hopes that ‘another friend ‘ the Taliban, would ‘succeed’ which might also create the mutiny in the armed forces. Can you see the thread? Whereas the article appears to be making a case for Pakistan to remain whole and united for the stability of the region, it is also suggesting that a mutiny would make that impossible.
Nobody is indeed indispensable. But some persons acquire special importance on some occasions. We are not fighting against any vain ‘doctrine of indispensability’; we are fighting against Indian protégés ruling Pakistan badly, even treacherously, and still winning elections. You can keep defending some principle you divine but I am in politics to defend Pakistan from Indian protégés in politics.
General Kiani is identified by the present rulers of Pakistan as a patriot and a hurdle in their way. Every COAS stayed in office for four years. If General Kiani is retired in three years, Zardari would perhaps earn your admiration for having upheld a dubious principle but I see that as a sinister move to ease the path of India into the centre of power in Pakistan. I am in politics to expose conspirators and Indian collaborators.
+ Usman Khalid+
