IN hindsight or historical perspective, Ayub Khan’s downfall can be traced to the 1965 War. The aura of invincibility that surrounds strong men is indispensable to sustain a dictatorship. Once chinks appear in this invincibility, it becomes a different ball game.

There was no doubting the valour of our armed forces. Everyone had done his duty and even above and beyond the call of duty, but all wars have a political cost. There was no alternative to a ceasefire. Even the brashest ‘hawk’ would have seen the folly of continuing a war in which there would have been no winners, just more casualties and a huge loss to the economies of both countries. But there was a national temper that had to be reckoned with, heroes and legends had been created, those who died on the field of battle were crowned as shaheed. Even as Pakistan accepted ceasefire, Bhutto made an impassioned speech of defiance to the Security Council and in a voice that trembled with wounded pride, had sworn, “We will wage war for a thousand years, a war of defence.”

Bhutto was a personal friend of mine and I did not doubt his sincerity, but one could not help feeling that this was political grandstanding and the rhetoric was loaded, and he seemed to be distancing himself from the ceasefire acceptance. It was, too, the first shot across the bow and the launch of his political ambition.

Ayub Khan was a military man and as Stanley Wolpert wrote in his book, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: “The field marshal understood enough about war to know that the first trick of his Grand Slam had been trumped.” Yet, he had lived in an ivory tower, as political leaders in oligarchies are inclined to do, soothed by reassuring lullabies that God was in His Heaven and all’s well with the world. He was out of touch with the emotions of the people who saw the ceasefire as surrender. He had journeyed to Tashkent where the Soviet Union, with the blessing of the United States, had midwifed a meeting between the Pakistan and Indian leaders where the status quo ante bellum was restored. What else was agreed upon was not disclosed, and Bhutto was able to exploit Tashkent in the movement (popular uprising?) he launched against Ayub Khan.

Ayub Khan told G.W. Chaudary who wrote Last Days of United Pakistan that starting the conflict with India in 1965 had been the fatal mistake of his career, and he blamed Bhutto and Aziz Ahmed, the foreign secretary, for misleading him. Both were removed from their offices. I had met Bhutto before he had been sacked and he was laid low with some ear trouble. His spirits were low, he was no doubt contemplating life without the trappings of high political office and without the fanfare of power. He had been non-committal when I had asked him about the rumours of a tiff between him and Ayub Khan. Instead, he preferred to ask me about some of our mutual friends from the days when we were students at the University of Southern California. “Good days, yaar,” he had said, like something valuable that had been lost. This detour into sentimentality confirmed that he was adrift in a sea of troubles. Ayub Khan was not a vindictive man, otherwise Bhutto’s exit from his cabinet would not have been painless.

But if the West Pakistanis felt deflated, East Pakistan felt isolated and there was the feeling that in matters of defence, it was considered dispensable. It was at this stage that Mujibur Rehman put forward his Six-points and subsequently he was arrested along with some others and accused of a secessionist plot which became known as the Agartala Conspiracy. One other notable event occurred. The Nawab of Kalabagh, the governor of West Pakistan and acknowledged by all as Ayub Khan’s hatchet-man, was relieved of his duties.

It was in such an uncertain political climate that I returned from England and to the tranquillity of PIA that seemed outside the fray, though relations between Ayub and Asghar Khan, correct at all times but never warm, appeared even more correct and even less warm. Asghar Khan’s tenure was for three years and it became apparent that he would neither accept an extension nor would he be asked to stay.

I got an indication or a sniff when we got a letter from the Ministry of Defence that in October 1968, Ayub Khan would have completed ten years and the government proposed to celebrate it with great pomp and which would be called ‘Decade of Development’. The timing could not have been more disastrous. The country was simmering with unrest, was this a modern version of the band that kept playing as the Titanic was sinking?

PIA was expected to participate wholeheartedly. Asghar Khan handed me the notification and told me rather tersely that he wanted nothing to do with it and I could do what I saw fit. My own position became untenable and I decided to stone-wall. If the reaction to the ‘Decade of Development’ in West Pakistan had been far from enthusiastic, imagine what the reaction in East Pakistan would have been? But I will come to this later.

Asghar Khan and I had been close and there was for him, on my side, respect and affection in equal measure. Many considered him a ‘hard-hat’ and someone who was unapproachable and rigid in his views. This may have been the notion of others, but as far as I was concerned he was open to ideas and I was assured of a cup of coffee whenever I saw him in his office. And our conversations became more general but there was no inkling, as yet, that he proposed to go into politics.

IATA had a public relations division and each year there would be an IATA PR Conference. I did not always attend them, though I had been to a few of them and had found them a waste of time. But that year, the conference was in Rio de Janeiro and I had never been to South America and probably would never get another chance. South America was too far away even in this jet-age. I was familiar with the memorable lines from the play of Brandon Thomas, Charley’s Aunt: “I am Charley’s aunt from Brazil — where the nuts come from.”

Of course, Brazil meant football and the magical Pele and the Amazon River and the rainforests. I decided to attend the conference. I flew via New York and arrived in Rio in the morning. The air-conditioning in the terminal building was not working and it was already getting hot and humid. When I presented my passport at the immigration counter, the official who could have been Peter Lorre in one of his sinister film roles, paused at the China visa that was stamped on my passport, and without a word disappeared with it. I was left cooling my heels and efforts to find out what the hell was going on were met with glares of angry incomprehension: How dare I disturb their repose? After nearly half an hour, Peter Lorre reappeared and stamped my passport. By now, it was sweltering, I had taken off my jacket and loosened my tie and the perspiration stuck to my shirt. It was literally a warm welcome. I was determined not to like Rio, it had the stench of a police state and I thought of Graham Green’s The Comedians and the peering eyes that followed the hero and the shadows that trailed him, and the threat of personal violence that seemed to be in the air.

I took a taxi to my hotel and the first thing I did was to telephone the Pakistan Embassy. I spoke to the acting ambassador, Humayun Babar, and he immediately invited me to lunch. Though I was jet-lagged, I accepted and he came and collected me and took me to his flat that overlooked Copacabana Beach and met his wife who turned out to be a pupil of my sister-in-law, Maki Kureishi. He gave me a general briefing and told me not to make too much of my ‘reception’ at the airport. Appearances were deceptive. I was, after all, in a Third-World country and paranoia was a cottage industry. “But I must give you some advice,” he had said seriously. “Discuss whatever you like with the locals, but don’t discuss football.” Surely, I thought, he was being frivolous. He was not. He was in deadly earnest.

I looked at the view of the Copacabana Beach and could see Brazilian boys kicking a football. How many great footballers had started their careers from there? And I thought of the streets and alleys of our own cities, of our own boys, playing cricket to whoops of joy, making the most of a disadvantaged childhood with only the love of their families to sustain them. It seemed odd to be looking at the Copacabana Beach and being reminded of the Polo Ground in Karachi.