May 16, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1429

KARACHI, May 15: Not all good authors are engaging speakers but Shuja Nawaz, who spoke at the launch of his book Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within, held on Thursday at the OUP head office, gripped the attention of his audience by narrating some known and some not-so-known facts about the Pakistan army, in a simple and yet interesting style.

The author, a younger brother of former army chief General Asif Nawaz, said he thought of the subject when he was covering the 1971 war for the PTV in Shakargarh district. Coming as he did from a family which had many members in the army, he had access to much material that was not so easily accessible to others.

His job in this sense was slightly easy but it took him 31 years of research and analysis to collect enough material to publish this work. It was in fact his wife, Seema, who told him to give up his highly demanding job with the IMF to give the final shape to his work. The writing part took two and a half years of hard work, Nawaz said.

In the current context, he felt reassured that the present army chief has categorically mentioned that the army should stay in the barracks and accept civil supremacy.

The author said the Pakistan army has been trained to fight a conventional war and not to fight against insurgency. “I don’t see the chance of a conventional war taking place in the near future. But the role it has to play is different and more challenging in many ways,” said Shuja Nawaz.

He lamented the fact that the army has become a state within a state and because of its involvement in civil matters, it has become a corporate entity.

He said there is a huge demographic shift in the Pakistan army. Up to the 1970s, the soldiers and officers were mainly from three districts: Jhelum, Rawalpindi and Attock (previously known as Campbellpur), but now they come from different parts. One reason he gave was that during Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime, the Jamaat-i-Islami had encouraged its members to join the army. The members, of course, came from different parts of Pakistan.

The author said more and more people from Karachi, for instance, have started joining the army. As for Sindh and Balochistan, Nawaz said that the people joining the army from these two provinces were generally those whose families had moved there from other provinces.

He maintained that the army has grown conservative just as society has as a whole, but added that it was reassuring to find it is not extremist or fundamentalist.

Talking about Pakistan’s position in the region, he said it is important to the West. “When there are discussions about Pakistan, there is no reference to India; in fact, the huge neighbour is hardly discussed. The focus on Pakistan is in the context of its geo-political position vis-à-vis its western neighbours and the insurgency within the country.”

A question-answer session that followed saw him shed more light on his subject.

Earlier, Oxford University Press chief Ameena Saiyid said the well-researched publication was not a heavy read. Those who have even browsed through it would not disagree.