Vij’s removal: a lesson to learn

A. R. Siddiqi

THE summary removal of a general officer commanding, an active corps-level formation, poised for action to say the least, has been most intriguing, if not without a precedence. Lt-Gen Kapil Vij had been in command of II Corps, the linchpin of India’s strike force designed and deployed to carry war into the ‘enemy’ territory.

It stands almost eyeball-to-eyeball opposite our own II Corps forming the heart of our Strategic Reserve (South) deployed as offensively as its Indian counterpart.

That the summary action was taken in the thick of the pre-war high alert riddles the case with certain questions not easy to explain. The only tangible reason given officially for the extreme action — a soldier’s ultimate disgrace short of an ignominious defeat — was that the general officer exceeded his brief by moving his armoured columns dangerously close to Pakistan’s border. How close and threateningly so as to precipitate a war contrary to South Block’s main plan, has been left unexplained.

The general area where the India’s II Corps is deployed in full battle order remains in close vicinity of our own so-called soft underbelly stretching from Reti Rahim all the way down to Bahawalpur and further downstream to Khairpur.

In an operational environment like that even a routine rotational move of one or more armoured column back or forth would, in any case, bring it dangerously close to our borders. And such moves would be quite normal, even necessary, if only as a part of warming up procedure and to test the combat worthiness of the men and materials involved.

Furthermore, within the relatively more decentralized command and control of field formations, corps commanders enjoy a large measure of initiative and autonomy. Unlike Pakistan where corps are controlled directly by the GHQ, India has five zonal commands, viz Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and Central. Each command is placed under a field army headed by a GOC-in-C, that is General Officer Commanding-in-Chief. This leaves the corps commander directly responsible to his army commander to make for quicker decision-making and prompt action on the spot.

Gen Vij’s initiative in moving and deploying his armour upfront should, therefore, be quite in keeping with the measure of autonomy given to the local commander. What then might have been the compulsion behind the South Block’s auto-de-fe? Surely, something much more than meets the eye.

That’s as far as the internal compulsion was concerned. As for the external factor, intelligence gathered by the American satellites and the relevant ‘imagery’ handed over to India’s ministry of defence (MoD) tolled the bell of Vij. No matter how hard, India might try to deny eavesdropping by the American spy- in-the-sky of their mounting aggressive build-up and the pressure subsequently brought to bear upon on it to wind down, truth cannot be brushed aside completely.

In fact, India and Pakistan both should be wiser after the event rather than wish away the bitter truth. What good would be their operational security and secrecy with America closely monitoring their operational movements?

How to define exactly ‘unauthorized deployments’ carried out under orders of the local commander and according to MoD/GHQ main plan? What happens to the corps / army commanders ability, authority and initiative to operate according to the fast (quite often mind-boggling) changing battle picture?

In a Dawn report (dated 24.1.2002) New Delhi was ‘somewhat less ambiguously’ told by the Americans to ‘de-escalate its military build-up against Pakistan if it wants Washington to signal its approval of the long-pending Phalcon (perhaps the second or third generation US Phantom?) to India. The single piece of information blows the lid off the ‘long-pending’ Indo-Israel arms collaboration via America.

Even more than summary dismissal of Lt-Gen Kapil Vij from a war theatre is the extended American intrusion in the India- Pakistan military beeline. By itself such a government fiat as the removal of general officer under abnormal conditions (defiance of civilian authority or outright defeat etc.) would not be so shocking. MacArthur’s summary dismissal by Truman remains perhaps the most outstanding such case of the century.

In India and Pakistan perhaps the most glaring such example was Lt-Gen B. M. Kaul’s summary dismissal and retirement for his loss of nerve and defeat in NEFA (North-Eastern Frontier Agency) against the Chinese in 1962. Yet another Indian general, Niranjan Parshad, was court-martialled and dismissed from service after deserting his formation in the Wagah-Attari sector during the 1965 war.

Two of our own general officers were removed from command through the thick of action. They were Gen Akhtar Malik and Gen Ghulam Umar, respectively, in the 1965 and 1971 wars, both in the Chaamb sector.

— The writer is a retired brigadier of the army.

Literary sitting at Goethe

The Literary Forum at the Goethe Institut held its meeting on Friday with Shakeel Adilzada in the chair. Two literary pieces were presented for the discerning writers to give their opinion on them.

Shahnaz Shoro presented her Urdu short story ‘titled ‘Haveli’, depicting the inhuman social behaviour of the feudals, particularly oppressive towards women. Shamshad Ahmed, himself a story writer and author of several story collections, admired the story as “highly appealing”.

Similar was the opinion of Ali Haider Malik who said the story portrayed the backwardness of a decaying social order, self-deception of the ‘Waders’ and the unjust treatment accorded to women for centuries.

Asif Malik found the theme shorn of freshness, “ yet the style of the writer is her own”. Nasim Anjum thought the story was” unnecessarily lengthy”, while Fake Mushtaq found it “fascinating” despite the ‘span and stretching’.

Among others who admired the treatment of the story were Nasir Shams, Jamal Naqvi, Amber Laghari and Waist Nasim.

Shakeelzada appreciated the story with two minor objections, on one the undue length of the story and, the other, on the writers own commentary at occasions.

On Hasan Akber Kamal’s poem ‘Doosra Admi, presented later, Wazahat Nasim was first to speak, finding it strikingly different from Kamal’s other verses, a refreshingly new poetry.

But Tashna Barelvi soon after disapproved the verse as ‘a total failure’, the narrative of a ‘deceitful lover, “a story rather than verse” But others, including Haider Malik and Jamal Naqvi, differed from those harsh remarks.—Hasan Abidi

Pity the PTCL subscriber?: Social Themes

Nusrat Nasarullah

I am sure that the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) which is doing plenty of advertising these days is also looking for a consumer feedback. And why not? There is a great deal that needs to be set right. On many fronts.

Dawn’s story on January 24 says that “defective phone bills irk subscribers”, and the next day the PTCL clarified and denied this, and then promised to introduce “Online billing”. A kind of futurism is what the PTCL is showing, like the World Bank perhaps. Looking at the future with an optimism that seems so misplaced.

Like eating cake, if there is no bread! This is what appears to be the case of the huge advertisement that is being repeatedly published (costs money, one assumes) that “International calls now made more affordable”. And this advertisement says that there is a countrywide per minute rate reduction. The range is from 16 to 36 per cent! Good. It is 36 per cent cheaper now if you call someone in Australia, if you know someone there, that is. Saudi Arabia: 18 per cent. But what if you don’t know anyone there, which is what is the case, with the majority.

The majority wants to make trouble free, local calls. The majority wants to have land lines installed as they are cheaper to have than mobile phones. The majority wants its regular bills correct and on time. It wants to have trouble free phones and it wants to have telephone directories. Above all, it wants local calls to be cheaper, not more expensive, which is what the PTCL is still seeking. Is it part of the privatization strategy for what would a strategic investor want? Keep in mind local calls are free in many places in the world, reminds one dissatisfied local subscriber.

It is relevant to mention here that the PTCL plea of a tariff increase for local calls was rejected last month by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) at a public forum in Islamabad. But subscribers fear that the PTCL will keep on working on the idea of raising local call tariff this year.

The case that the PTCL officials argued at the above public forum was that “some changes in the tariff structure was the need of the hour aimed at protecting the interests of the organization”. Strange.

Now the issue that remains unsettled is who will protect the interests of the consumers, and in this case the telephone subscribers? Who will speak for the thousands of subscribers who are harassed for a variety of reasons that continue to exist, # despite all the modernization that is taking place, and for all information technology that is being introduced. The sorry state of a Pakistani consumer, which is to say a Pakistani citizen, is known to all. Whether it is at the hands of the utility companies, or the shrewd petty traders and clever market manipulators (call them by any name) the consumer cannot fight his / her case, if there is a problem. Be it fake or substandard goods, or half baked services, there is little that he can do.

For all the expansion that has taken place within the PTCL and for all the digitalization, where is the telephone directory that Karachi’s subscribers have been promised? Most of us still have the 1996 directory (which is in effect almost seven years old). And for all our talk of accountability and good governance where is the concept of deadlines in all this. For all the penalties that the PTCL imposes on subscribers in the context of bills, even when the errors are caused by PTCL’s own systems, why doesn’t the organization fix responsibility on who is to be held responsible for delay in the delivery of directories.

I have spoken to a number of persons on the subject of PTCL landlines and mobile phones, and bills and installations, and shifting and so on. Not one person seemed satisfied with the quality of service, I know someone who is hoping to have a PTCL phone installed at his residence in Azizabad, but only if he has paid money “beneath the counter”. He has made half-hearted efforts, for eight weeks now only because the atmosphere is discouraging.

There are others who complain about billing errors and how they have to go from pillar to post, to have them rectified. Others lament that the monthly bills are delivered late, and that because the overall psychology is consumer unfriendly (hostile?) the bills have first to be paid regardless of error!

Perhaps nothing has really changed as far as for the telephone subscriber goes. The process of its eventual privatization has in a way begun, and it makes one wonder whether when that goal is fully achieved — will the subscriber be king. In the spirit of what a market economy calls “the consumer is king”.

When it is said that nothing has changed, it is also a reference to the fact that telephone number inquiry remains elusive and inaccessible; telephone complaints (though reduced) still time-consuming harassment, and often the lineman’s manipulation still an operative factor; and paying phone bills at banks still a matter of waiting in long queues in open weather (thanks to security guards at times).

That is the reason, perhaps, why the country’s cell phone phenomenon has surfaced so overwhelmingly, and continues to grow. Here is a world of convenience, but here too are handicaps and problems, where mobile companies do not demonstrate a consumer # friendly attitude, all the time and whenever they can.

The indispensable and the inevitable

WITH the prospects of general elections this year improving all the time, the statement politics, always its funniest in an election year, is regaining the lost ground in newspaper space.

The frenzy of activity last week, that has failed so far to unite various factions of the Pakistan Muslim League, was not without some very revealing and, therefore, quotable quotes.

The most remarkable probably was Syed Kabeer Wasti’s suggestion that the question of who headed the hopefully unified PML initially, was not so significant since in the end the party was going to be led by President Gen Pervez Musharraf. Mr Wasti was not just convinced that this was the way it ought to be, he was also confident, and satisfied, that this was the way it was going to be. The general, was not just indispensable, he was also inevitable.

For ever the spoilsport, Mr Hamid Nasir Chattha, who heads another faction of the party, insisted that nobody could be given an office without first serving the party as a worker for at least two years. Mr Chattha also denied that Mian Muhammad Azhar was the only realistic option for leadership. If that was not enough to shock those seeking the unification of ‘all four’ factions, he revealed that his list included the Nawaz loyalists. In any case, he concluded, nobody could decide for those who were not part of the consultation. This last, finally, was something Mian Azhar could agree to.

If past experience, particularly the PML experience, is anything to go by, Mr Wasti’s assertion cannot be dismissed as lightly as Mr Chattha would wish. The party’s willingness always to accommodate the ‘winner’ has been indisputably one of its defining traits. The party, it has been argued, owes its vital resilience to this realism — some would say cynicism.

THE notification last week of Punjab Medical and Health Institutions Rules, 2002, restricting private practice by doctors in public service was undoubtedly a landmark.

The Medical Teachers’ Association and the Pakistan Medical Association, two organizations representing those affected directly, regretted the lack of consultation, pointed out several flaws and warned in general that the rules would prove counterproductive.

Proponents of the policy, led by the health minister, himself a senior doctor, accused the opponents, particularly senior doctors, of putting their interests ahead of their patients. The charge, understandably, irked the doctors and there were not just vehement denials but also some counter-allegations.

Some of the leading professors, it was feared, were preparing to quit to press their point. The minister said he would try to dissuade them individually but added that the ‘handful of annoyed doctors,’ who he implied were acting out of selfish motives, were hardly so indispensable as they themselves believed or suggested. Earlier, show cause notices were served on several professors for voicing dissent.

Lost in the din was the opportunity for a very enlightening debate on how best to organize the health sector. The two sides obviously have not just access to much more relevant information than the layman but also insight coming from some very distinguished careers in public service. The debate, possibly the first of its kind in the country, could even become a model for similar exchanges in other sectors.

Interestingly, none of the political parties seemed to have an opinion on the issues involved. The introduction of technocrats’ seats in the Senate since 1985 and more recently in the National and Provincial Assemblies, has apparently changed little.

A newspaper report last week said the United States Agency for International Development planned to train political parties in making democracy work. On wonders how anybody can help those unwilling to accept help.

THE provincial assembly of the Punjab has finally outgrown its ‘colonial mould.’ The historic assembly hall, a Dawn report points out, cannot hold the 390 members the house will have as a result of the reform package announced last week.

Another consequence, Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa, former governor and PML’s Punjab chief, said would be the change in the quality of legislators. The worst hit by the requirement for a university degree, he announced not without some satisfaction, had been the turncoats who had brought a bad name to politicians by their susceptibility to horse trading. Good news that. Ironically, Mr Khosa, too, would be excluded.

THE Anjuman Difa-i-Pakistan reported last week the findings of a survey of the border villages it said it had taken after troops were deployed there. Predictably, these included a decline in crime and a boost to the morale of the people remaining in the largely deserted villages.

In view of the hardship faced by the people resulting from the border situation, the city district government has deferred recovery of its dues and the Nazim has requested the provincial and federal governments to provide similar relief. He has also instructed public schools in the district to admit students who had been going to schools located in these villages. Efforts are being made by several government and non-government agencies to alleviate the displacement problems.

There is a tendency in times like this to exaggerate the hardship. The ADP report, interestingly, showed that the villagers had not only sought to play down their difficulties but also suspected that those trying to highlight them had some ulterior motives.

While acknowledging that he expected the government to compensate them for their losses, Hakam Din, the wise man of Nathoke, said they realized that in the larger picture, the losses were indeed insignificant.

FOR decades, the Water and Sanitation Agency of Lahore pumped water into its supply grid that was unaccounted for, given even the number of un-metered connections that are known to be rather wasteful.

A survey, scheduled to be completed this week, indicated at the very early stages that there was a very large number of unauthorized connections. Faced with the magnitude of the problem and realizing that it must share the blame, the Agency offered amnesty to the ‘irregular’ consumers switching to an authorized connection by Jan 31. At last count, 46,500 connections had been regularized. Wasa projections put the likely number at over 50,000. This represents a one-time payment of over Rs50 million and a recurring revenue exceeding Rs60 million a year — more than 10 per cent of Wasa’s current income.

There may be no need, after all, for an enhancement of utility rates for some time. The most interesting part, however, was a plea entered by the Agency’s inspectors and meter readers, suspected of complicity, even abetment, of the theft. They argued that no action should be taken against them in view of the amnesty available to the consumers.

That is equal protection of law for you.

ON public safety front, there was ‘more of the same’ last week. A man killed in a shootout with the police, that according to official account lasted for about 25 minutes, was learnt to have been in custody for several days.

After some kidnap-for-ransom episodes that had a happy ending, tragedy was perhaps inevitable. Time finally ran out for a nine-year-old from Jhang. An aunt is reportedly among the suspects.

A man was burnt alive in one of the two fires in the city on Thursday. The other had a celebrity victim in poet Ahmad Rahi, whose grandson had to be hospitalized with burn injuries.

—ONLOOKER

The horse that led Lahore to wars

IT MIGHT sound amazing today that an entire street of the Walled City of Lahore was cleaned and scrubbed for two whole days just because a horse had to pass that way. It was no religious ceremony, but just the immense passion of horseman who felt more comfortable in his saddle than on his feet.

Almost 200 years ago when the Sukerchakian chief from Gujranwala, Ranjit Singh, declared himself the maharajah of the Punjab in the Lahore Fort on Muharram 10, 1799, the day he conquered the city, he declared that any man with any pride must give top priority to his horses, his work and his women, in that order. If you have visited the Lahore Fort, you will notice to the left of the side entrance a British military barrack. Before the British built this barrack, this was the stable of the Lahore Darbar.

At any one time Maharajah Ranjit Singh could keep almost 1,000 of the very finest horses there. When he ran out of space they went into the Hazoori Bagh, and when that was not enough the horses went into the Badshahi Masjid. Such was the craze of the man who ruled the Punjab for a full 40 years with an iron grip, and rule he did with great wisdom. For a beautiful horse, or a beautiful woman, he would go to any length, for once he got it into his head to acquire the “filly”, it became an obsession with him. Sounds rather logical to any Punjabi male chauvinist.

But one horse stands out from any other in the history of the Punjab and Lahore. The maharajah had heard a lot about this legendary horse and vowed to get it no matter what the cost. In the end it cost him “rupees 60 lakh and 12,000 soldiers,” or so the traveller Baron Charles Ilugel quotes Ranjit Singh having told him so himself. By current gold standards that would be almost Rs12 billion and a whole division of infantry. The accounts of the Fakir family of Bazaar Hakeeman also corroborate this figure, actually put it even higher. What was, after all, so amazing about a horse that the Lahore Darbar went crazy to acquire it? After all, the maharajah had a large stable of Arabian thoroughbreds, not to speak of legendary horses like Gauharbar and Sufaid Pari, both of which are said to have “the speed of the wind”. Not a single horse in his stable was then worth less than Rs20,000 by the rupees standard 200 years ago. A joke doing the rounds of Lahore then listed the price of the entire city of Lahore and the cost of the Maharajah’s horses as being equal.

This legendary horse was known as Asp-i-Laila and belonged to the Barakzai tribe chiefs, either Dost Muhammad or Yar Muhammad, it is not clear from a number of records consulted. It was a pure Persian breed, jet black in colour and a “sight to watch.” Its speed was legendary in the whole of the Khyber Pass, and what intrigued Maharajah Ranjit Singh was the fact that it was known for its intelligence. The news of this ‘great’ horse reached the Lahore Darbar sometime in 1822. Immediately Ranjit Singh dispatched intelligence agents to find out where the horse was located. One account put it at Peshawar, while another stated that the Barakzais had heard of the interest of the maharajah from their agents in Lahore, and had shifted the horse to Kabul. This single horse led to a full scale war between the Punjab and Afghanistan.

In 1822, the maharajah sent his special minister Fakir Azizuddin to Peshawar to collect tribute from Yar Muhammad and among the gifts were some very fine horses. But Asp-i-Laila was not among them. On query, Yar Muhammad told him that he did not own the horse. This angered the maharajah who set up a whole team of agents to track down the horse. Once he was sure the horse was alive and well and in Yar Muhammad’s possession, discreet negotiations were conducted. By 1828 the patience of the maharajah was exhausted and he sent a punitive force under Sardar Budh Singh Sandhawalia to acquire the horse. In the battle Budh Singh and hundreds of his solders were killed, but the Lahore Darbar won the battle after the two French generals Allard and Ventura, now buried in Lahore in Old Anarkali, were sent with another force to assist Budh Singh’s force.

At the surrender the French generals were told that Asp-i-Laila was not there. In a rage, they arrested Yar Muhammad’s brother and held him hostage. In the end, the fierce Pathans told the French generals that the horse was dead. This sent the maharajah into a fit of rage, and he sent another punitive expedition under Sardar Kharak Singh to Peshawar, where his agents informed the horse now was. But before Kharak Singh could reach Peshawar, Yar Muhammad was killed by his own tribe for fighting over a horse, and his brother Sultan Muhammad fled for his own safety.

In 1830, Maharajah Ranjit Singh installed Sultan Muhammad as governor of Peshawar. Gen Ventura at that point asked for Asp-i-Laila, which demand the new governor spurned. Gen Ventura immediately arrested the new governor in his own palace and informed him that within 24 hours he would be beheaded. Gen Ventura had built a fierce reputation for executing scores of dacoits in Wazirabad, and they took his word seriously. At this point Sultan Muhammad agreed to hand over the horse, and on doing so, “cried like a child.” The horse was immediately carried to Lahore in a special carriage guarded by well over 500 soldiers.

It reached Lahore at the western Akbari Gate of the Lahore Fort, and the road that comes from Badami Bagh and curves around the fort was all cleaned and scrubbed for two days in advance, and the order was that not a single speck of dust should enter the horse’s nostrils. And so Asp-i-Laila reached Lahore, and the maharajah feasted his eyes on the horse and commented: “It has been worth the trouble.” One account puts the colour as jet black, as the name Asp-i-Laila suggests, another makes it dark grey. But no matter what the colour was, the horse had the honour of not only wearing the Koh-i-Noor diamond around its neck on special occasions, but of also being the horse that was brought out on special occasions.

It was also the last horse the maharajah ever rode. He was lifted in illness and put in the saddle. Once there he was fine, for he was a natural horseman. No horse in history, so the legend then went, has had more spent on it than the acquisition of the Lahore Darbar.