An entire generation has grown up in the loving embrace of generals in a country in perpetual crisis of one sort or the other. The younger people may have heard stories about the past, but they would not know that it was another country. A vastly different Pakistan, in fact.

The older generations have only hazy notions of it. Mostly, they are far too busy milking this one to have the time or the desire to recall the other. Yet, before examining the wreckers' handiwork of the past 25 years, that country needs to be summoned. It is the only means of bringing into focus the enormity of the demolition.

A clutch of generals had drawn the dividing line on July 5, 1977. The writer has straddled the divide as a professional observer, and spared thus far the national blight of amnesia, can bear witness to the record of both. Let it be said straight out that a citizen of pre-1977 vintage visiting it would have difficulty recognizing the place. Innocent of the new law and order, he may end up being kidnapped for ransom as his compatriots returning from petro-pastures of the Gulf are at Islamabad airport.

A good way to begin reconstruction of the earlier version is to sketch in what it did not have. It was, for instance, totally unaware of heroin and drug addicts; the migrant hippies apart. Klashnikov, the designer automatic, was not known to many. When a quarrel erupted in a locality it was settled with an exchange of blows, not with automatic weapons and rocket launchers.

Armed dacoits did not make a habit of shooting their way into houses in the cities and mohallas in broad daylight and then vanish without a trace. Cars were not snatched at gunpoint at traffic lights at rush hours, or at any other time.

There was petty larceny aplenty and corruption in the districts and provincial towns. Hardly ever at the top or amongst the higher echelons of bureaucracy. Load-shedding was not common. Public schools were not run by indifferent teachers or no teachers at all. University degrees were not sold in open market like chicken tikkas. Hospitals were not staffed and managed only by grasping, heartless doctors. There were problems of course. Political, economic, but they were by no means unmanageable.

That Pakistan was never reviled in the world as the land of cheats or a basket case. The government did not have to beg from foreign banks hundreds of millions of dollars at 14 percent interest every few months to service earlier loans. The maulanas made a nuisance of themselves at times. They did not command armed lashkars. The Sunnis and Shias had brief periods of tension during Muharram, but they did not kill one another or gun down congregations at prayer.

The Pakistan of pre-1977 was no land of milk and honey, of course. It had stumbled badly when another general, trying to perpetuate himself by hook or by crook, had lost its eastern wing. That cataclysmic blow had come close to destroying it altogether. But once Yayha Khan's tottering military regime toppled over and was succeeded by a democratic government, it had made a remarkable comeback.

Fortunately, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the elected President and then Premier, had eight years of actual experience as a minister of Ayub Khan. Leading a team of smart cookies, he had salvaged the ship of state within a matter of months and put it back on an even keel.

The ruling circles do not like to be reminded of Bhutto's contribution. They had given a verdict - Sindhi traitor, dictator, murderer etc - and dispatched him. There is no escaping it, however; specially now that the havoc of past two and a half decades has accumulated into one huge tinderbox and is on a short fuse. The whole picture needs to be put into perspective for the benefit of a multitude of lesser, much tormented beings.

No matter how hard his enemies try to rubbish the record, some hard facts sparkle through the garbage. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto presented the nation its first fully democratic constitution, adopted unanimously by duly elected representatives of all the four provinces.

Driven by a deep nationalist urge for moulding the multi-ethnic people into a cohesive whole, Bhutto ventured into areas, which no head of government had ever thought fit for a visit. Risking assassin's bullet, he went to the wildest parts of the Tribal Areas more than once. He flew into every nook and corner of the Northern Areas to bring succor and hope to people languishing in their mountain fastness.

In Balochistan, that totally neglected province, the Prime Minister loosened the stranglehold of Sardars. He set in place full-fledged district administrations, opening for the tribesmen, virtual serfs, means of escape from the tyranny of tribal chiefs. Bhutto thus tried to pull the variegated threads together to weave a national arras.

A balanced and very ambitious national economic development plan was launched to make the country self-reliant in key areas. Defence production received a priority it had never had before. Kamra aircraft complex, heavy mechanical plant, tank rebuild facility and half a dozen ordnance factories were constructed.

A comprehensive nuclear programme of vital strategic importance was set into motion. It gave the generals the bomb to play with and most probably cost Premier Bhutto his life. In a chance encounter in the lobby of the National Assembly six weeks before the coup, the Premier revealed to the writer that he had fallen foul of the Carter Administration not just because of the nuclear programme. The steel mill, eight fertilizer and eight cement factories were also a factor. The projects would free the country of reliance on US loans for buying these essential commodities and thereby loosening Washington's hold.

The rupee was devalued in January, 1972, soon after Bhutto's takeover, and the rate was 10 rupees to a dollar. Five and a half years later, at the time of his ouster, it was still the same in open market. The foreign debt in 1977, stood at about nine billion dollars only and in soft loans.

The Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Libya were opened up by Bhutto's well-directed diplomacy for workers, technicians, and the armed forces. About a million of them sent two to three billion dollars remittances per annum, a fabulous windfall for the Zia Junta, their cronies and a swelling army of swindlers.

The Simla Pact, the vacation of Pakistani territory under Indian occupation, and the honourable release of 90,000 POWs were Bhutto's achievements. A tremendously successful Lahore Islamic Summit was another. The list is long.

Traveling abroad during the pre-Zia period, one felt proud to be a Pakistani. The green passport was respected everywhere and some half a dozen west European countries had abolished visa requirements. Erasing the stigma of the army's barbarities in East Pakistan in 1971, Bhutto had put Pakistan back on the map of the world. It was a country on the road to becoming a progressive, developed state. If this excursion ruffles the feathers of old Bhutto haters, all one can do is to promise them a promenade in Gen Zia's Garden of Eden.

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