THE older I get and the more I try to read about the past (although God knows I waste my time and do not read enough) the more convinced I become that there is no reforming the state of Pakistan as it has taken shape these past fifty odd years. It can either be rebuilt - as my faith in its future tells me it can - or it can continue to wend its way to richer harvests of despair. There is no middle way. Of this I am convinced.
Not that Pakistan's foundations were dug the wrong way. To say that would be to question the country's genesis. But the wrong materials were used to fill those foundations. A warped childhood is not the best preparation for responsible adulthood. Foundations with shale in them cannot support the highest walls. Anyone who puts reform - in the liberal, Minto-Morley sense of the word - at the top of the national agenda is turning a blind eye to Pakistan's history. Reform is no answer to its problems. The institutional mess which has stifled the nation's best abilities must first be cleared before Pakistan can embark on a voyage of rediscovery. There are no short-cuts to the promised land.
"Some of the evil of my tale," writes Lawrence at the very beginning of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, "may have been inherent in our circumstances." Read the history of Pakistan and even to the myopic it might become clear that much of the evil in it was inherent in our circumstances. When Jinnah said he and his typewriter had created Pakistan, could a more devastating indictment have been offered of the rest of the Muslim League leadership? No connecting thread runs more clearly through Pakistan's formative years than the poverty of the political leadership and the inexorable rise to hegemony of the civil-military class as represented by Ghulam Muhammad and the sinister duo of Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan.
Reading Humayun Mirza's doting account of his father in From Plassey to Pakistan all I can do is to prevent myself from crying. The son is blind to his father's faults and ascribes his eventual fall and disgrace to his marriage (Iskander Mirza's second) to the beautiful Iranian, Nahid Afkhamy. But to anyone not wearing partisan spectacles, Iskander Mirza's failings are not only obvious but are also a tearful commentary on the early years of the star-crossed Republic. In India could a British favourite like Iskander Mirza - first Indian to get the King's Commission and later a rising star of the Indian Political Service - gain high political office? Could a mediocre military figure like Ayub Khan get endless extensions as army commander?
Humayun himself writes that Prime Minister Muhammad Ali was "...quite adamant that (Ayub) retire when his term as Commander-in-Chief ended in January 1955. Nevertheless, he later got a four-year extension through the efforts of Iskander Mirza, then the Secretary of Defence." For this act alone, Iskander Mirza deserves no forgiveness before the bar of history. And when, sometime later, another prime minister, Suhrawardy, tried to adopt an anti-British stance during the Suez crisis, he was thwarted by Iskander Mirza. Suhrawardy's attitude at the time is described by Humayun as "irresponsible and irrational..." This tell-tale remark aptly reflects the mental make-up of the pro-western coterie which set the country's course for the future. From amongst this coterie arose Ayub Khan and although he would loosen his western moorings, in other respects he exemplified the attitudes and limited imagination of his predecessors. From Ayub's long stay at the helm would come the disastrous 1965 war with India and, in time, the secession of East Pakistan.
History, as much as life itself, is not a series of disjointed incidents. What comes before casts a shadow over the future. Hitler was no mere freak in German history. What he stood for, including his anti-Semitism, had deep roots in Germany's past. Bolshevism was no aberration in Russian history. It had connecting links with strains of thought that were alive in the 19th century. In Pakistan, likewise, it is wrong to draw arbitrarily lines in the sand and declare Zia-ul-Haq or Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif as the sole cause of our sorrows. The roots of military arrogance and civil ineptitude go back to the country's foundations. Experiences gathered up then prefigured later developments.
Jinnah was the true anomalyin our history, less representative of anything native to Pakistan than Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan, who despite their forced exits from power remain the country's real godfathers. Jinnah's influence died with him. That of the godfathers survives even if their names have been washed from public memory. No ruler has been a throwback to Jinnah. So many who have been throwbacks to Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan.
"Some underdeveloped countries have to learn democracy, and until they do so they have to be controlled. With so many illiterate people, politicians could make a mess of things." Who said this? Actually Iskander Mirza but they could have been spoken by any of the apparitions later to appear on the Pakistani political stage. Even Musharraf, although he may not favour the same bluntness (times after all being different) is guided by much the same philosophy when he draws a distinction between 'real' and 'sham' democracy. A conqueror, said Plutarch, is always a lover of peace. He would like to make his entry into your cities unopposed. Military figures who conquer the commanding heights of politics always fall in love with 'real' democracy.
How then to rebuild? But first how to destroy, for much on the national scene is fit only for destruction. Can any good come out of the existing political order? Which political party deserves to exist? Which leader has proved worthy of his people? Neruda's haunting words about the education of the chieftain bear repeating.
He made himself out of taciturn fibres.
He oiled himself like the soul of the olive.
He became glass of transparent hardness.
He studied to be a hurricane wind.
He fought himself until his blood was extinguished.
Only then was he worthy of his people.
Taciturn fibres indeed. Tell this to the Chief Executive and the interior minister both of whom have made a virtue of verbosity. Soul of the olive indeed.
Is bureaucratic destruction a recipe for anarchy? By no means. The administrative services and the police in Pakistan have become so corrupt and useless, and indeed such a burden on the people, that they are past any tinkering or moderate reform. Set up a hundred focal groups to look into their affairs and no one will be any nearer a solution to their problems. The slate must be wiped clean for any new pattern to be drawn. I say this in all seriousness that abolishing the office of district magistrate (overnight and at a stroke) would make not the slightest difference to the public welfare. If the entire Punjab Police was suspended for a week or a fortnight, pending a Stalinist purge of the most corrupt elements in its ranks, I can sign a sworn affidavit to the effect that incidents of theft, dacoity and murder would decline. For this period the people would look to their lives and property themselves and make a much better job of it than the police. If half the ministries and divisions which clog Islamabad were finished, the business of government would dramatically improve.
For years the Punjab University, in thrall to a student mafia, has had more to do with politics and less with education. The only answer to its problems is to shut it down indefinitely, disband its tainted and timorous faculty (or post it out where it can do the least harm) and make a fresh start. The same thing with the police and the civil services: destruction before any act of creation. What was that Maoist phrase? There is great disorder under the heavens and the situation is excellent. Pakistan's problem is that its cultural revolution never happened.
TAILPIECE: Good news though for the vendors and hawkers of Chakwal's Chappar Bazar whose prayers after seven months have been answered. On a visit to Chakwal during which he also toured the Bazar, GOC 6 Armoured Division, Maj-Gen Israr Ghumman, ordered their immediate rehabilitation. God be with him for this although I still cannot understand why a professional army should be entrusting its best officers with civic responsibilities.