April 11, 2004

This book by Salim Alvi, a veteran journalist, is the story of Pakistan as seen by him. It is a new narrative and is quite distinctive as it comes from a person who has lived through the entire period. Beginning with the Pakistan movement, Alvi brings his narration right down to today. One wishes him a long life to enable him to realize some of his hopes and dreams.

Alvi began life at the right place, Delhi, where much political action was taking place in the pre-1947 period. What makes the timing perfect is his coming of age in the year the Pakistan Resolution was adopted. This was also his freshman year at the Anglo-Arabic College in Delhi.

With a realistic appreciation of objective reality, the author does not make his narration a eulogy of the Pakistan idea nor a denunciation of the historical developments of the time. He is scrupulously fair and balanced in his approach — an uncommon trait among Pakistani writers.

If the Pakistani political class failed to produce a democratic constitution for nine long years after Independence, one can hold the social origins, interests and the resulting political outlook of the leading actors in the sorry drama as Alvi rightly points out. Pakistan’s geographical division in two widely separated wings, each with its own demographic characteristics, also split the people linguistically, racially and culturally. Added to this was the economic factor.

Although both wings were primarily or predominantly Muslim and both were agricultural, land was very unequally owned by individuals in the two wings. Absentee landlordism was originally the norm in East Bengal where landlords were largely Hindus. Political movements of Muslims that made a mark in Bengal’s history had as their leitmotif the highlighting of the evils of landlordism and the need for sympathy with the poor tenants. This is what characterized the nineteenth century’s Faraizi movement. Thus the first thing East Bengal’s Muslim League leadership did after the creation of Pakistan was to expropriate all landowning interests (without any compensation).

In West Pakistan, where land was privately owned, things were vastly different. There were rich canal colonies in Punjab where peasant proprietors owned most of the fertile land. Although they owned small farms, they were distinctly better off than a common East Bengali tenant where such tenure system was unheard of. In the rest of West Pakistan, land was owned by big landlords who exercised much influence over large numbers of their tenants-at-will. Most of these huge farms made their owners rich and politically important, although the tiny-sized tenant farmers were often as poor as in East Bengal, especially in Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP. Politics in West Pakistan was the exclusive domain of rich landowners unlike in East Bengal.

The revolutionary action by the East Bengal Muslim League had had a tremendous impact on West Pakistan’s Muslim League leadership, almost all of them big landlords. They regarded their East Bengali Muslim Leaguers as dangerous Bolsheviks. They noticed that East Bengali deputies in the Constituent Assembly, with one or two exceptions, were all sons of tenants, shopkeepers, postmen, constables and the like while West Pakistani deputies came from landed aristocracy. The West Pakistani leadership was afraid of the Bengalis because they constituted a majority of Pakistan’s population. Hence the leadership from the west decided to prevent the East Pakistanis from coming to power as they could use their vantage position to hurt the interests of West Pakistani aristocracy.

Thus, West Pakistani leadership began railing against the “permanent majority” of Bengalis (who would always rule Pakistan) in much the same way as the All India Muslim League had done in the past rejecting the ‘permanent majority’ of the Hindus. Their modus operandi was to prevent a constitution being framed so that free general elections could not be held.

Salim Alvi brings out the poignancy of this sordid inter-wing rivalry without losing his objectivity. It must have been hard to stay cool and detached while narrating these developments as this reviewer can certify. Alvi’s book also gives an account of how the Pakistan Army began to intervene in politics by underlining the national and international circumstances in which Pakistan joined anti-Communist alliances and the Nazimuddin ministry was dismissed as a joint enterprise of governor general Ghulam Mohammad and Gen Ayub Khan, after which the latter became a uniformed defence minister. Weaved into this account is the story of the evolution of the bureaucracy’s cornering of power.

The story of Pakistan, otherwise well told, is weak on calling a spade a spade insofar as the collapse of the old Pakistan in a vast pool of blood in 1971 is concerned. Not that the facts have been left out. By remaining too objective and studiously striving to be non-partisan, Alvi gives the impression that in his narration he has not stood up forthrightly against the usurpers of powers and for the inherent demands of democracy and fair play.

The rise of the Pakistan People’s Party and its stormy seven-year rule have been adequately described in terms of the social factors that prompted its emergence. The account of the PPP is above all objective — which is saying a lot because not many contemporary writers can treat Z.A. Bhutto impartially. The controversial figure as he was, the PPP leader is either lionized or condemned outright by journalists and scholars.

Zia’s 11 years at the helm brought in its wake the rise of the heroin and Kalashnikov culture and the large inflow of money. Zia encouraged divisive tendencies and the author describes all this very dispassionately.

A fine feature of the book is the chapter on the rise of the Mohajir (later Muttahida) Qaumi Movement. It is a distinctive contribution, as even handed as could be desired, as the author’s insight into the MQM phenomenon is deep. After all Alvi should understand them better because he too comes from Delhi, though he takes care not to show any bias towards the MQM.

His last chapter, “An introspective review”, manages to show Pakistan’s various fault-lines and vulnerabilities, not the least of them the obsession about Afghanistan. And yet it ends on a note of optimism that it might not end up as a failed state.

The book can be an invaluable background reading material for students, and even teachers, of Pakistan Studies. The work is, however, marred by bad editing. The publishers should have engaged a proper editor of their own to ensure an error-free publication. There are errors in dates and the spelling of names is not uniform throughout the book. The writer can also be faulted for what is his forte as a journalist.

Most journalists when they turn to writing a book regard a chapter as a longer article. Publishers should beware. Journalists can do an excellent job as authors but they need to be assisted by an editor.

Pakistan: Illusion and Reality — Observations of a Journalist
By Salim Alvi
Ushba Publishing International, 194-S, Block II, PECHS, Karachi
ISBN 969-8588-36-1
204pp. Price not listed

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