Asghar Khan’s designation was President (PIAC). The Ministry of Defence had been at pains to point out that it was mandatory to affix PIAC after President, the assumption being, of course, that lest people may confuse him with Ayub Khan who was President of Pakistan. Was it a straw in the wind of a mutual hostility?
Asghar Khan had arrived at the PAF Drigh Road base in a C-130, still in his uniform. PlA’s top brass had been present to receive him and after shaking hands with them had wondered, with some slight sarcasm who was minding the store? Later, a circular would be issued that he did not expect all and sundry to receive him or see him off, a chamcha practice that had been in vogue whenever Ayub Khan travelled from point A to point B and beyond.
Dressed in civvies, he came to PIA the next morning. Whenever there is a management change, there are rumours and everyone seems to prepare his own hit-list. I had been close to Nur Khan. But there was nothing personal in the relationship. It was the nature of my job. I had to function at that level to be effective. I might add here that he had showed me no special favours. Still, my staff was concerned, not so much for me as for themselves.
Within an hour of Asghar Khan being in the office, he sent for me. My staff feared the worst and had gathered in my office.
I entered his office and was greeted by a warm, reassuring smile. He asked me to sit down. “Tell me how you work and I’ll tell you how I work and let’s see if we can work together,” he said.
I felt that my response would be crucial to our working relationship, if any. I told him that I was an unorthodox operator and I believed in results. That I didn’t much care for protocol and if I needed to see him, I would walk into his office.
“Good,” he said, “we will get on well.”
Asghar Khan was also the Chief Administrator of Civil Aviation and Tourism. He said he wanted me to handle the public relations for that as well. It had been a brief meeting but it marked the beginning of a working relationship that was at all times close and honest. It was said of him that he was difficult to work with and that he was inclined to be rigid, fixed in his views. Nothing of the sort. He was a bold administrator and open to new ideas and he gave me a free hand. He was never too busy to see me. He was known as a man of unassailable integrity. In all the years I have known him, he never compromised on integrity. He set a high standard.
But Asghar Khan did not have time to settle down. Relations between Pakistan and India were heating up. Normally confined to an exchange of words and rhetoric, something far more serious was in the works, some dangerous miscalculations had been made. Chief of which was that an uprising in Kashmir could be engineered. About Operation Gibraltar, I will write later but on September 6 when I got to the office, I was told that PlA’s overflying rights over India had been cancelled. An American news agency reporter had telephoned me to get PlA’s reaction. As I was talking on the telephone, Air Commodore Piracha, who was our Administration VP, walked into my office, overhead the conversation and informed me: “Eff the overflying rights, we are at war.”
I felt myself getting numb. There was a radio in my office and I put it on. Radio Pakistan was playing martial music and patriotic songs and soon General Musa, the C-in-C would be making an address. He came on the radio and confirmed that a state of war existed and the Indian armed forces had crossed the international border and its armies were heading for Lahore.
Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming concern for Pakistan and with it came the realization how much I loved my country. I was not one of those who wore his patriotism on his sleeve. But a sort of affirmation of my patriotism had been provided by my mother. She understood enough English to get by but would not have been able to follow the cricket commentary. Yet, she would listen and when I would return home, she was able to tell me whether Pakistan had done well or poorly. How did she know? She said that she could tell from my voice.
The radio and television commentator Brian Johson had said much the same. He was asked a question about me and he said that I did my best to be impartial but it was obvious which team I was cheering for. It was meant to be a compliment.
As a journalist, I had sometimes been critical of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Subsequent events had proved that I had been right. I had called it a “toady” policy. At the same time I had been distrustful of the flag-waver and had tended to agree with Aldous Huxley, who had seen patriotism as group-hatred of a common enemy. But now, with Indian armies marching on Lahore, I wanted to do something.
I telephoned Radio Pakistan and told them that I was available to do any broadcasts they wanted. They said that they would come back to me. What was immediately apparent was that the entire country had been galvanised. It was, as if, a switch had been turned on and a dark room had been flooded by light. A black-out had been imposed on Karachi and one did not need air raid wardens to enforce it. The people readily complied. The BBC announced the fall of Lahore and like the announcement of his death, Mark Twain had found the reports to be “slightly exaggerated”. General Choudary had boasted of having a “chota peg” in the Lahore Gymkhana. For the duration of the war, General Choudary would have his “chota peg” in Delhi’s Roshanara Club!
Radio Pakistan came back to me and asked me to do a daily five-minute broadcast. The subject was: Pakistan and the World Press. They counted on me to make the most of it and under its umbrella, I could talk on anything I considered appropriate. These broadcasts were pre-recorded and were on air on the national hook-up at 8.15, each evening. I have done a lot of broadcasting, apart, of course, from cricket commentary. But these broadcasts were the best that I have ever done. They came easily to me. My voice had been associated with cricket and was instantly recognizable. I wanted the same voice to send a message of reassurance. The city was under a blackout and the homes would be darkened and I could sense anxious families huddled together, listening to the radio. I have never felt so close to my listening public, almost, as if I was talking to them individually. I would wind up the broadcast with an almost whispered “Good night and God bless you.”
I would get encouraging phone calls from all manner of people. Brigadier F. R. Khan telephoned me to tell me that Ayub Khan was very pleased with the broadcast, but could I make it longer. I told him that even Churchill was not able to sustain listener interest for longer than five minutes. Air Marshal Nur Khan, now C-in-C of PAF, telephoned me from Peshawar and wanted to know why I was not mentioning the PAF more often. I told him that the PAF was shooting down enemy aircraft so fast that I would have to do the broadcast in short-hand. Zahur Azhar, who was DO Radio Pakistan, sent me a congratulatory message saying that the Indians were jamming my broadcast.
War is a time for great camaraderie. It was about this time that I got to know Rafi Munir. Rafi had had a tiff with his father and had come to work for my brother Sattoo at his factory at the airport. Since I worked at the airport too, he and I started to have lunch together and a friendship developed that lasts to this day. Rafi is one of a kind, a very decent human being who has met both triumph and disaster with the same disdain, his spirit has remained unconquered. Rafi would come to my house every evening. He would be dressed as usual in shalwar-kameez and he wore dark glasses.
I had a Labrador called Maxie, my son Javed’s best friend. Maxie rarely barked in anger and generally ignored visitors. I felt that Maxie was a bit of a snob. But I could always tell when Rafi arrived because Maxie would start growling... “You can’t win ‘em all,” I would tell Rafi.
Another visitor was Waris Ishaq. Waris was an advertising man but he had also been a journalist and much else. He was a man of raffish charm and somehow dedicated to disproving Abraham Lincoln that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Waris would bring us up to date with the latest rumours.
There was a scare when there were reports that hundreds of parachutists had landed in Karachi and they were in disguise. Of course, it was nonsense but in a time of war, fact and fiction get blurred. There was the case of a Brazilian who was staying at Hotel Metropole. Unfortunately, for him, he had red hair and had a beard, a rather smart ‘goatee’. Leaving the hotel, some people saw him as a suspicious character and pounced on him and gave him a bit of a thrashing. He was advised to shave his beard, which he did. The next day when he appeared on the street, he was recognized by the same people. And the fact that he had shaved off his beard confirmed their worst fears and so he was thrashed again. I don’t know if there was any truth in this but it was a story that was doing the rounds. I had heard it from Waris Isheq.
There were, of course, many voices but none more inspiring than that of Nur Jehan, truly Pakistan’s nightingale. She sang to the troops and for the troops, and somehow managed to convey a message to them on behalf of all the people of Pakistan. But there is nothing romantic about war. There are only heroic moments.
Both Pakistan and India had large populations that lived below the poverty-line. War was a luxury that neither country could afford, not just for moral reasons but for hard economic reasons as well. War leaves rich nations poor and poor nations destitute. Any one who has used a credit card knows that the bill comes at the end of the month, the day of reckoning.
