WHEN General Ayub Khan became the Defence Minister in the federal cabinet in 1954, while still in uniform, it had become clear that the armed forces had become an added player in the political future of Pakistan. Indeed, one felt that in the several and rapid changes in government, there was a nod from the GHQ in Rawalpindi. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that something invariably happened when Ayub came to Karachi and stayed at the President’s House. This would be, invariably, noted by us in the coffee-house, coming events casting their shadow.
We discussed the unthinkable in eminently thinkable terms. We had doses of Martial Law during the anti-Qadiani riots in the Punjab, but that was the fire brigade called to put out the flames. But Martial Law as an option was not ruled out. America and the Free World were then preaching the evils of communism and not the virtues of democracy. The Free World couldn’t give two hoots what sort of government Pakistan had, provided it was anti-communist.
Each session of the Constituent Assembly became rowdier than the previous one and there would be brawls and much sound and fury until someone threw something at the Deputy Speaker, some hard object, possibly a paperweight, and it hit him and he died.
On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo by Serbian terrorists abetted by Serbian officials. This, one learnt from history books, was the cause of World War I. The death of the Deputy-Speaker of the Constituent Assembly would be used to explain the imposition of Martial Law.
The rubber band had been stretched too often and its tensile strength had been weakened, and it was no longer capable of snapping back.
I went to the office of my newspaper on the evening of October 7, 1958, a routine wander, to see what, if anything, was happening or likely to happen. That time of the evening, as the twilight begins to change the colour of the sunset from golden to purple, is a quiet time for a newspaper. They day shift is leaving and the night shift is beginning to arrive.
“Anything happening?” I asked one of the sub-editors. “Nothing,” he said, and then nonchalantly mentioned that there had been a telephone call from someone who had observed a certain amount of military in the city and wanted to know what was happening. I thought nothing of it, just some eager-beaver, allowing his imagination to play tricks.
Tony Mascarenhas, who was our City Editor, rolled up at the office, and I mentioned the phone call to him. Tony invested a certain amount of melodrama in his job, and fashioned himself on a movie version of a reporter, a crumpled felt hat on his head, in studied sloppiness, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his tie loosened and though his speech was normal, he thought in headlines. I said to him: “Let’s drive around the town.” Tony protested mildly, calling it “a wild goose’s chase.” But he did get in the car, my Standard-Vanguard, a car that functioned on its own terms, almost as unreliable as Tony.
Beyond the normal hurly-burly, the busyness and activity of a city wrapped up in its everydayness, cars and rickshaws congealed in traffic-jams, pedestrians beating the system by weaving and side-stepping through the traffic, earnest pedestrians desperate to cross the street, as if late for some assignation or tryst, shopkeepers turning on their lights or pulling down their shutters, there was no suggestion of anything abnormal.
Tony said: “Let’s drive past Radio Pakistan.” This was smart thinking. The Radio Station is the first building that is surrounded in a coup. For the first time we sensed that something was not quite right. Army jawans had taken up positions and I was both excited and frightened.
We drove to the General Post Office on Mcleod Road and once again we found that army jawans had occupied the building. “I think this is it,” I told Tony, and he agreed. We passed the President’s House and though there were no tanks on the streets, we were convinced that something had happened or was happening.
In those days, newspapers used to print a court circular that gave the appointments and social calendar of the President. There would be an item, once in a while, that General Ayub had come to stay. On October 7, Ayub was in Karachi, but he was staying in his railway-saloon that had been parked at a siding at the Cantonment Station. We drove past and the saloon was well guarded.
We went back to the office. It was plainly evident from the high excitement that the newspaper the following morning would have no ordinary headlines. The phone kept ringing incessantly, though the teleprinter seemed unusually quiet. Late in the evening, the teleprinter started to crackle and there was an urgency about the sound it made. It spelt out what we had already surmised. Martial Law had been proclaimed. At midnight, we got official notification of it.
When something as staggering as this happens, there is very little to do on a newspaper, except throw away everything else from the front page, and start pagemaking again, with the largest block letters available for the headlines that would be bannered.
Reams of agency copy were spilling over. They would be snatched from the teleprinter, read quickly, subbed and sent for composing. Nothing was to appear except the agency story. The telephones kept ringing, and anxious readers wanted confirmation of the most outlandish rumours. The paper was finally put to bed and I left strict instructions that no changes were to be made. In the early hours of the morning, I drove home, neither stunned nor alarmed. Just tired.
There is about the start of a Test match a reverential fear and an excitement. It does not matter that the Test match will go on for five days. The crowd has ceased its chattering and is expectant and silent, the fielders are in their position, on high alert, the batsman has assumed his stance, his bat going tap-tap, the bowler has reached the top of his bowling mark with long, measured, menacing strides. The umpire calls ‘play’. As the bowler thunders in, he grows in size, awesomely, until he looks ten feet tall. In a lifetime of cricket, this has been for me, the first ball of a Test match, the moment of truth.
Martial Law was like that first ball of a Test match. But unlike a Test match, we did not know what the rules would be. How would it work? How would it affect me as a working journalist? It was an unknown. Was this going to be a ‘punitive’ Martial Law? Censorship had been imposed. No time-frame had been given for this Martial Law. When would it be lifted? Would it ever be lifted?
Although it was Iskandar Mirza who had informed us that the Constitution had been abrogated, the legislatures closed down, political parties banned and Martial Law imposed, there was little doubt in our mind who was in charge. Already people were beginning to draw parallells with Egypt where Neguib and Nasser had turned out King Farukh and seized power, but Neguib was the figure-head and would soon fade away, and Nasser would be left in sole power. We would know soon enough. On October 27, the dual-control was done away with, Iskandar Mirza ‘deposed’ and General Ayub took charge.
There was no doubt that the imposition of Martial Law had been well received. The politicians had lost all credibility and would have been considered comic-figures had the consequences of their actions not been so tragic. No one seemed to mourn the passing away of democracy for the simple reason that there had been no democracy. But the expectation was that there would be general elections after which the Army would return to its barracks. In the meanwhile, there would be much needed cleaning up.
How wrong we were in our expectations. A new chapter had opened, indeed a whole new book. Somehow, I felt that my career as a journalist was coming to an end. But, as if to remind myself that life goes on, Pakistan was due to receive the West Indies and we would get a chance to take a look at a wonder-cricketer called Gary Sobers, who had scored 365 against us when our team had toured the West Indies. This was the advantage I had, having more than one iron in the fire.
WHEN General Ayub Khan became the Defence Minister in the federal cabinet in 1954, while still in uniform, it had become clear that the armed forces had become an added player in the political future of Pakistan. Indeed, one felt that in the several and rapid changes in government, there was a nod from the GHQ in Rawalpindi. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that something invariably happened when Ayub came to Karachi and stayed at the President’s House. This would be, invariably, noted by us in the coffee-house, coming events casting their shadow.
