Bhutto To Mujib: "Na main na tum, hum dono aur ek Pakistan"

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

 

 

Life in Pakistan ever since the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (April 4, 1979) has been 27 years of gory developments, conspiracies, disruptions, dislocations, rise of ethnicity, divisiveness, sectarianism and an unending struggle between the Bonapartist generals, the military establishment and the people who have so far refused to allow dissipation of their democratic dream of a homeland promising them freedom from exploitation of all sorts and equality in life irrespective of one's caste, creed or colour. This tug-of-war that has been going on since almost 58 years has brought the masses to the point of no return. Challenge before them is clear-they have to bury the perception for all times that Pakistan was created for the army and that it can only be kept together by the military. And that, no more barrel of the gun will be the source of power. If Pakistan has to stay, it will be its people who shall be the sole sovereign rulers.

 

How much longer this struggle shall continue is written large on the walls. The battle lines have been drawn. On the one hand are the forces led by the military establishment and Bonapartist generals doing every bit in their power as parasites to scavenge the body, while on the other are the patriotic political elements who still see hope for a national survival through restoration of democracy as envisaged by the Quaid. No doubt odds are heavy, the multifaceted socio-economic and political challenges are much too many. Not only they have to get rid of the Bonapartist generals but also to show boot to their foreign godfathers.

 

By opting the role of human condoms, Pakistan's otherwise anorchous generals have sold Pakistan's vital national interests. General Pervez Musharraf chosen as the blue-eyed 'democratic' leader by the West of one of the "most militarised states" in the world keeps getting pats of legitimacy on his back not from his own people but from President Bush for being his Knight Templar in war against what they call Islamic terrorism and executioner of President Bush's grand design for "enhancing uncertainties abroad". No doubt all of Pakistan past military dictators-starting from Ayub Khan-had been in the pay of their Western masters for services rendered to them in the Cold War in return for support to their own illegitimacy in total denial of the democratic rights of their own people, General Musharraf, however, has outdone all of them. He has rendered Pakistan into a stable for the American horses. And that is the reason that the most despised man in the West on the eve of 9-11 continues to be Bush's "best friend" although the game of his running with the American hare and hunting with the jihadi/Taliban hounds is wearing off the gloss of his credibility in Washington's eyes. That perhaps is the reason that the recent visit of his mentor to Islamabad caused spate of rumours, raised question mark on his future and signalled the beginning of a countdown on him.

 

Significant indicators have started firming up and the writing on the wall spells worsening scenario all over. While the powdered-kegged pile of self-created problems that he haunches upon is getting heated under him like lava waiting to explode any moment. Notwithstanding the limits of self-censorship on the Pakistani media, the amount of growing criticism against him in the West is enough to give him sleepless nights. His game of deceit and chicanery stands completely exposed. Not only the Western press is full of reports these days about his increasing game of deception to blackmail Bush and party in providing him continuous sustenance, numerous analytical reports by prestigious think tanks that have been surfacing since quite some time especially those on the eve of President Bush's visit to Pakistan, have made it clear to Washington that time has come to call off Musharraf's bluff about the growing Islamist peril. Their sane advise to Washington is to withdraw support from the last of the military dictators-a source of great embarrassment for democratic movements--- and to put in action measures that could ensure earliest return to democracy through free, fair and transparent elections with level playing field for the main stream political parties and their leaders including former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif since only a strong democratic government in Islamabad can guarantee democratic stability and peace in Afghanistan and in the region.

 

There is a consensus that the Bonapartist generals have pushed Pakistan into a quagmire of problems that pose much more serious a challenge than that of 1971. Although fall of Dhaka was a colossal tragedy in Islamic history, the country had in the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto a saviour who had the enormous capacity to pick up the pieces, re- ssure its people, re-galvanise them into a nation, give them hope and carve a new state of Pakistan out of the debris of the old.

 

Shaheed Bhutto's crowning glory-first and foremost task that he took upon himself-- was to rally round the political leadership of the four remaining provinces of the dismembered and vanquished Pakistan at the hands of the Indian army. When he mentioned about a New Pakistan in his initial speeches after the fall of Dhaka many criticised him for it since according to them there was an element of self-glorification in it. A devout and serious student of history that he was, his words had enormous depth in them and force of historic conviction to carry him forward in his mission to establish a New Pakistan, bound by a sacrosanct constitution that resolved the most sensitive issue of provincial autonomy-that is---fair and just sharing of power between the provinces and the Centre-an issue whose failure to resolve had played a major role in the break up of Quaid's Pakistan and earlier also had led to the partition of India.

 

The 1973 Constitution is the crowning glory of Bhutto because it served more than the religion Islam-a binding force to gather around once again the four residual federal units into re-establishing a new state voluntarily when the old state of Pakistan that had come into being through a British imposed partition plan had ceased to exist with the creation of new state of Bangladesh overwhelmingly Muslim in population. Remember in case of Quaid's Pakistan he had no options in 1946-47. The British ultimatum to him was to "take it or leave it". And he had to accept a "truncated Pakistan" perforce of the British imperial diktat.

 

A fractured, mauled out of shape Pakistan that was what General Yahya and his coterie of drunkard generals had handed over to ZAB in late December 1971. Not only General Manekshaw (later made Field Marshal for his Bangladesh operation) had promised the Indians yet another "good news and a bigger gift" (after all, under his heels were writhing generals like 'Tiger' Niazi plus 90,000 Pakistani troops, his military was in occupation of over 5000 square miles of West Pakistani territory and an international war crimes trial was threatening a defeated Pakistan army for committing massive genocide). A broken Pakistan lay asunder with its so-called invincible military establishment in shambles, no face to show to their people who had preferred to self- starvation to feed them fat, while the Bonapartist general (supported by the West Pakistani civil and judicial bureaucracy) had bypassed Pakistan's political leadership including its founding fathers, overwhelmed its civil society at gun point and held it hostage to their whims and ambitions of converting it into a garrison state. Had General Ayub, and his coterie comprising of senior generals, civil and judicial bureaucrats including the then Chief Justice of Pakistan-Justice Muhammad Munir-not subverted the 1956 Constitution, allowed the principle of parity accepted generously by the Bengali leadership sacrificing Eastern Wing's numerical majority to work-Pakistan by now would have remained united and would have perfected a federal system of co-existence on the basis of just and fair arrangement of autonomy, power and resource sharing.

 

Being a student of history with keen insight into the forces that interplay and generate dynamics of their own ZAB who had seen the growth of an absolute West Pakistani oligarchy as a member of Ayub government, left no opportunity go by to plead for sanity and caution since he also had eyes that could read the writing on the walls in East Pakistan that warned him of imminent secession if genuine provincial autonomy and democratic rights of the people were not restored. Being an insider who was witness to the obduracy of absolute power he raised his voice time and again that step-motherly treatment of the people of East Pakistan, denial of democracy and oppression through an over-centralised system would leave the Bengalis with no other option but to secede. And when Sheikh Mujibur Rehman came up with his six points-drafted and given finer shape by Ayub's Goebbels (late Choudhri Muhammad Ali, Maulvi Farid Ahmed and Fazlul Qadir Chouhdry among many others, had openly accused Altaf Gauhar as the author), the conspiracy to break Pakistan as hinted by Justice Muhammad Munir in his book "Jinnah to Zia" as a move under Ayub to peacefully detach the majority province from the rest of Pakistan started taking firm shape towards what was described as logical end.

 

ZAB's pleadings for sanity fell like seeds on the stony ground. His repeated warnings that Mujib's six points should not be taken lightly were ignored. At that juncture he had realised that the Ministry of Information's propagation of Six Points had a hidden method. I remember as a working journalist then we were discouraged by Altaf Gauhar's eyes and ears not to be critical of the Six Points. And that the government wanted it to gain circulation came out in the open when ZAB-still a minister in Ayub's cabinet-threw a challenge to Sheikh Mujib for a public debate on his Six Points at the Paltan Maidan in Dhaka. He even announced a date for it. This Bhutto challenge to Mujib tantamount to ZAB throwing a spanner in Ayub-Gauhar sinister scheme of things. Ayub did not allow Bhutto to go to East Pakistan and stopped him from debating Six Points. He knew well that Bhutto's higher intellect, his razor-like sharp logic and legal acumen would make mince meat of the Six Points and thereby subvert his dream of getting rid of "a liability" that was hanging around Pakistan's neck as an albatross.

 

Pakistani military establishment's mindset is self-deceptive. It has the mentality of a prostitute who would sleep with a dozen of her customers but whenever she is in the company of a new client she would not only pose but also insist on her being a virgin. Both in the battlefield and in the art of state management Pakistani Bonapartist generals have proved to be no more than tin pot soldiers. They failed in the first Kashmir war and tried to blame it all on Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Not only that, while they had no contribution in the struggle for the creation of Pakistan, once it had become a reality some of the more ambitious ones among them, set the precedence for coups as early as 1951.

 

Remember Operation Gibraltar of 1965. It was a brainchild of Pakistan's first ceremonial Field Marshal and his so-called highly professional colleagues. When their operation miserably failed to get the necessary support from the local population resulting in deaths of hundreds of our valiant commandoes and led India into crossing militarily the international border to the point of almost capturing Lahore, no military heads rolled over this outright bankruptcy in professionalism. Rather, Ayub and his Goebbels who had drowned Pakistan's virtual defeat in their propaganda blitzkrieg, picked on Pakistan's Foreign Office with ZAB as Foreign Minister of having advised the Field Marshal that "go ahead and send whatever number of commandoes you want to into Indian-held Kashmir" and Delhi would keep quiet about it and would not dare choose opening of a front on the international border. What a joke!! I am sure Ayub and Altaf would have put the blame of their sell-out at Tashkent on ZAB had he not distanced himself away from the Soviet-sponsored surrender and made his opposition to it publicly known followed by his resignation from Ayub's government.

 

Tashkent Declaration proved to be a catalyst. Wheel of fortune took an adverse turn for Ayub Khan. Both Bhutto's formation of PPP and his manifesto of roti, kapra and makkan and Mujib's Six points caught the imagination of the masses in West and East Pakistan respectively as the panacea to their socio-economic and political ills. Public agitation against Ayub mounted and restoration of democracy through elections became inevitable. Instead of choosing an honourable course to facilitate return of democracy, Ayub preferred to violate his own constitution and instead of handing over power to the Speaker of the

National Assembly for holding elections, transferred power to his Commander-in-Chief General Yahya Khan who imposed yet another martial law in the country.

 

Yahya and his coterie resorted to a web of deceptions. People were made to believe that martial law would not last long and that power would be transferred to the elected representatives whoever the electorate chose. Elections were announced and one-unit was dissolved. While the public posture of the regime was encouraging, behind the scene moves were being made by his generals to support the Islamists and rightwing parties and dilute PPP's support in West Pakistan while undermining Mujib's in East. However, 1970 cyclone in East Pakistan altered their whole scheme of things. As recorded by late Brigadier Siddiq Salik in his "Witness to Surrender" and Brigadier A.R. Siddiqi in his book "East Pakistan: The End Game", Yahya and his generals resorted to various overt and covert moves that were aimed at retaining Yahya in the office of the President.

 

Yahya and his coterie had believed that by felicitating secretly Dr Henry Kissinger's visit to Beijing to negotiate the historic American surrender in North Vietnam, they would get a free hand to commit genocide in East Pakistan. To an extent they were right. The book

"Kissinger on Trial" says it all in so many words that the American State Department under Kissinger slept over and ignored the classified telegrams from its diplomats in Dhaka and Islamabad reporting to Washington about the genocide and of rapes by the Pakistani army.

Indiscriminate massacre of the civilian population had so heavily burdened the conscious of some of them that they preferred to seek transfers so that they do not act as silent witness to one of the most horrendous human mayhem in modern history. It is also a historic fact that Pakistani troops had looked hopefully forward to be rescued by the American aircraft carrier "Enterprise".

 

As a consequence of Praetorian machinations to deny people their right to have their own government and to keep the Bonapartist generals and military in power, Pakistan was dismembered. While it was part of an age-old scheme hatched by the overbearing West Pakistani oligarchy to shed the East Pakistani liability, they had in ZAB on the western front a challenger to their status quo. Despite his warnings, pleadings and protestations they deliberately pursued the path to dismemberment and through a sinisterly conceived conspiracy, put the blame for their military and political defeat on ZAB on a trumped up slogan udhr tum idhar hum.

 

I distinctly remember his speech of March 14, 1971 of Nishtar Park in Karachi. Each and every word that he spoke that day as doubly confirmed by my friend Parvez Ali (He has written exhaustively and with finality on the controversy) was filled with appeals to Sheikh Mujib to see reason, putting it again and again to him that a compromise was possible but let us agree to a constitution acceptable to all the people of Pakistan without insisting on Six Points, "let us try to keep the country intact". Reciting the "Kalima" and swearing by Allah, ZAB spoke on conspiracies being hatched against the people. He dwelt at length on the Six Points telling Sheikh Sahib that if you have majority "there" we have majority "here" (udhar tum, idhar hum) and I have to explain to the masses all facts about the Six Points before agreeing to them, if at all. He again appealed to Sheikh Sahib not to "act upon incorrect advice". He said a constitution could be framed.to the mutual satisfaction for the sake of Pakistan. "But if you're to go on talking about a 'Bangladesh', we too in view of our majority can talk about Sindhudesh or Punjabidesh." But in that case, said ZAB, people will ask where has the Pakistan of the Quaid-i-Azam gone?

 

Except Daily Azad of Lahore no other newspaper in West or East Pakistan (including the government owned National Press Trust papers that had been pouring venom against him) carried the headline "udhar tum, idhar hum". Subsequently the very next day (March 16, 1971) Daily Azad carried ZAB's categorical rebuttal under the headline "Na main na tum, hum dono aur ek Pakistan" (Neither me, nor you, but us and one Pakistan). It is nothing but typical of military mindset that to this day Praetorian henchmen in and outside the media especially in the rightist press and the rightist parties who had been collaborators in the massive genocide in East Pakistan with the army, leave no stone unturned to keep on orchestrating udhar tum, idhar hum distortion without ever referring to Bhutto Sahib's rebuttal, to blame it all about dismemberment on ZAB in their crude attempt to launder themselves of the rivers of blood that they shed so that they could remain in power.

 

History has the tendency to repeat itself especially when it has to cater to the mindset of those people who are condemned to make the same mistakes. Like Yahya, General Musharraf too, has opened too many fronts. Like Yahya he is drunk with the support of his foreign mentors who only know expediency as the name of their game. The free hand given to Musharraf in the name of their war against terrorism, to carry on genocide against his own people in Balochistan and northern areas, to deny the people of Pakistan their right to rule through a democratic civil society, their share in resources and provincial autonomy-it is nothing but an agenda for total disaster in the region.