Smokers' corner: Alternative history, anyone?
Alternative History (AH) is a popular fiction genre of speculative history where the story plots are based on ‘what if’ scenarios during certain important points of history. Famous AH novels include Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle set in a world in which Hitler wins the Second World War; Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America in which a populist pro-Nazi candidate wins the US presidential election in the midst of the WWII; Kim Robinson’s Years of Rice and Salt in which the 14th-century plague in Europe wipes out 90 percent of Europe’s population, leaving Muslim and Chinese cultures to control the world.
These are just a few examples but sometimes in the ‘what if’ scenarios, the consequences are not always radically different. It is as if no matter from what angle one tweaks or changes an historical event, the result almost remains the same. This is exactly what happened when, last year, as an analytical exercise for a possible novel, I investigated a ‘what if’ scenario rooted in Pakistan’s history.
I asked, what if after the 1970 election, Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman’s Bengali nationalist outfit, the Awami League had been allowed to form a majority government in the centre? Indeed, there would not have been a civil war in former East Pakistan, no 1971 Indo-Pak war, and, thus, no Bangladesh. But would Pakistan have become a stable, secular and multicultural democracy? Not quite.
What might have happened if after the 1970 election, Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman’s Awami League had formed a majority government in the centre?
One of the consequences of the 1973 Arab-Israel War was a rapid rise in international oil prices; the coffers of oil-rich Arab monarchies and dictatorships filled up like never before. This gave countries, such as Saudi Arabia, immense leverage and influence in world affairs, and a lot of say in the fortunes of the less fortunate Muslim countries.
That’s why from 1973 onwards, many erstwhile ‘leftist’/progressive regimes in the Muslim world began to move towards the Saudi orbit of influence and for this they were willing to change the nature of their ideological disposition. Examples in this respect include Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, Pakistan’s Z.A. Bhutto, Sudan’s Gaafar Nimeiry, and others.
How would Mujeeb have acted in such a scenario? Not very different from Z.A. Bhutto. Here’s why: Like Bhutto’s PPP, Mujeeb’s Awami League too had a populist and ‘socialist’ manifesto. Indeed, as prime minister, Mujeeb would have done much in trying to shift the balance of the country’s economic and political power from Islamabad to Dhaka. His policies too would have been largely populist. Like the Bhutto regime, Mujeeb would also have nationalised major industries and businesses.
Though as prime minister of Bangladesh he nurtured friendly ties with India, such would not have been the case had he become the prime minister of Pakistan. Firstly, despite the fact that that there would not have been a war against India in 1971, there is scant reason to believe that India would not have tested a nuclear device in 1974. It would have still done that. Secondly, in the absence of the 1971 war, the Pakistani military would not have been weakened and its influence in civilian politics would have been far stronger than it was during the early years of the Bhutto regime.