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Pakistan: Eye of the Storm

Pakistan: Eye of the Storm

Author: Book review by M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: April 27, 2003

Pakistan : Eye of the Storm
Owen Bennett Jones; Viking
Pages 328: Rs.395

Some time in 1991, Viking published 'Waiting for Allah' by Christina Lamb, till then probably the best study of contemporary Pakistan.  Ms Lamb had served as Financial Times correspondent in Pakistan for a couple of years and was allegedly quite close to Benazir Bhutto.  Her book created a sensation.

Brutally frank, it was Ms Lamb who had written that Sindhis were "waiting for the Indian Army" to come and were  asking her "why it had not yet come?" Ms Lamb spared nobody.  She treated Pakistani elections as a joke maintaining that in the 1988 elections, of the 237 MPs elected, "more than 230 were major landlords or tribal chiefs, and presumably beneficiaries of the feudal bloc-vote." Corruption, she wrote, was rampant and "one needed to go to the top for everything",. She dismissed Pakistan as "an invented country" which, in the space of forty five years "has gone from a nation searching for a country to country searching for a nation".

Owen Bennett Jones  who was BBC correspondent in Pakistan from 1998 to 2001 is no less frank.  He reminds readers that under General Zia "textbooks were overhauled to ensure their ideological purity and un-Islamic reading matters was removed from libraries and schools". Nawaz Sharief was no better.  He is dismissed as "an appalling administrator who consistently favoured making grand pronouncement rather that seriously attempting to implement policies".  The United States is shown its place.  Jones say bluntly "in the course of their campaign to remove the Soviets (from Afghanistan) the US had spent over $ 7 billion" to create an effective Mujahideen force.  As for terrorism, "Washington's message was clear, if the militants restricted their fight to India's security forces in Kashmir, they would be left alone (but) if they tried to attach Western targets, they would be treated as terrorists".  Jones makes it plain that "successive American administrations were quite tolerant of the militant groups in Kashmir".

Who funded the madrassahs? Why, the United States and  Saudi Arabia, of course.  By 1987, there were 2,972 madrassahs when forty years earlier, in 1947 there were hardly 250 of them in the country.  A survey carried out in Punjab in 1995 had revealed that there were 2,512 madrassahs in Punjab alone producing over 30,000 graduates.  In 2001no other than Gen. Musharraf was to concede that there were 7000 to 8000 madrassahs in Pakistan with between 600,000 to 7800,000 students attending them.  No even Musharraf knew the exact number of terrorists that the madrassahs were churning out year after year! Reading Jones is to get an education in the mindset of the Pakistani armed forces.  Detailed information is available on the 1999 coup during which Musharraf and the Pakistani army overthrew Nawaz Sharierf

Much of what Jones has written on the chapter on Kashmir is known though there are one or two minor revelations.  Of Sheikh Abdullah he writes that "in Public" he stated his commitment to a secular India but "in private he made no secret of his desire for independence" and had told the US Ambassador Loy Henderson "that he favoured Kashmiri independence".  We get a glimpse of the thinking of the Pakistani armed forces prior to the 1965 war.  In  secret not to Gen. Mohammad Musa, Ayub Khan had written that "as a general rule Hindu morale would not stand for more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and the right place" and that therefore, "such opportunities should be sought and exploited".  It was Ayub Khan, incidentally who had said that "one Muslim soldier was equivalent to ten Indian soldiers" . Ghazni Mohammad continues to live in Pakistani army camps and in the hears and minds of Pakistani army officer, no matter if they lost three wars.

Jones provides an excellent study on the subject of Kargil.  He writes to say that "Kargil was a piece of adventurism that totally backfired because Pakistan's High Command had not thought through the consequences" and blame is laid on Musharraf.  Who was responsible for Kargil? Jones lays the blame on Musharraf adding that "the truth is that just as in 1947 and 1965, Pakistan to fudge its offensive by saying it was carried out by volunteers and not regular troops".  In reality Islamic militants probably accounted for no more than 10 per cent of the total Pakistan Kargil force and even these militants "were only given portering duties".  On Kargil Pakistan lies fully exposed in this well-researched book.  And what about Kashmir? Jones maintains that "first, the Kashmiri people are tiring of the struggle" and "most informed Pakistanis now accept that, given the chance, most Kashmiris would opt for independence rather than a merger with Pakistan".  But above all else, Jones insists, "the people of Kashmir want peace". Furthermore he says that "there is growing feeling in Pakistan that India will never pull out", that Pakistan's size and economic weakness means it is not in a position to force the hand of a country with a billion people and that furthermore "if General Musharraf  or any subsequent Pakistani leader did make a compromise on Kashmir, he or she might receive more support than is generally predicted."

Describing the sentiment in Jammu & Kashmir Jones notes that "with the insurgency over a decade old, most Kashmiris are sick of the conflict and are desperate for peaceful settlement".  It has often been claimed that Pakistan's silly desire or aim is to balkanise India but it is left to Jones to say that balkanisation of Pakistan is a more imminent danger. Writing of a Baloch tribal Chief Jones days that "Pakistan may have been in existence for over half a century",   but for the Baloch chief, Pakistani troops in his vicinity is an "occupation army" and Jones adds for good measure "Other chiefs, feudal leaders and politicians in Baluchistan, rural Sindh, NWFP and even some in parts of southern Punjab share his attitude towards Pakistan".  Islam was bound to be the binding force but for many, ethnic groups have proved to be stronger.  And that was what Ms Lamb had stated a decade earlier. Things haven't for the better I Pakistan.  This book has to be read to be believed.

Jones is not as bitter as Ms Lamb; he tries to give credit to Musharraf but even of him he says in clear terms that thought he may be a "benign leader, he has so far failed to do better".  Jones has no respect for the pakistan Army which he says "enjoy a better reputation that it deserves" and that "both on the field of battle and in periods of military rule, it record has been far from glorious".   Indeed say Jones, "democracy has few supporters in Pakistan".  May be President Bush of US should read this book about a failed state in which a list of major defaulters in November 2001 owed the state over Rs.211 billion! Jones insists that Pakistan's state institutions are so weak that the result has been "a prolonged deep economic and social crisis". So right he is.  And the book tells it al. And how!
 


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