Side a SAHABZADA YAQUB KHAN Pakistani Former Foreign
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Writer Mod Date & Time PARTITION: Tape 42 255MODEM 255MODEM Mar 15 09:35 TAPE 42 Side A SAHABZADA YAQUB KHAN Pakistani former foreign minister interviewed at United Service Institution, Delhi on 15 Mar 1997 Indian army officer; served in Tobruk and Syria during WW2, PoW in Germany, escaped, recaptured; after WW2, was adjutant on viceroy's staff in 1946-7, and part of ceremonial bodyguard; from Rampur in UP (Zaffar says from a princely family); opted for Pakistan - was in Karachi on independence day; recently Pakistan's foreign minister in the caretaker government (Zaffar says regarded as a dove) tall, elegant, immaculately dressed (with more than a passing resemblance to Jinnah); regal and courteous; in India to attend 75th anniv celebrations of Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun; 5 - no involvement in ML pre-partition; 'I was a soldier, and I had nothing to do with politics' 24 - was adjutant of viceroy's bodyguard under Wavell, and later under M'batten; posted to b'guard c Feb 46 - and continued until post until partition; bodyguard - which had S and M portions - divided, and led M portion which contd to serve as b'gd of G-Genl of Pakistan, Mr Jinnah 51 - did not know J well before joining his staff, 'of course I had boundless admiration for him and for what he'd done, I'd watched it at close quarters from the V'roy's house ... I was not in the midstream of politics, but sufficient to hear in the alleyways and byways what was going on; by then my sympathies were engaged ... we had to make up our minds in the month of July or Aug [47] whether we wanted to serve I or Pak, I had decided to opt for Pak' 78 - 'it is true to say that he was a rather distant person, ... my iprn of him was as a gt leader, a little imprsonal in his dealings, and we knew he had stood up v soliodly and courageously not only to the l'ship here but also on many counts when he had stood up to the v'roy and the establishment' 102 - 'it is true that [J] ... did not come out as a warm, outgoing person ... but he generally had the reputation of being very correct, courteous, but impersonal in his dealings with those other than whom he was most intimately linked ... it was I wd say slightly distant, dignified and an imposing personality' 121 - [opting for Pak] 'it was not an easy decision to make, at the same time I made it cos I realised that the future of the ms in I was dark, sommbre and therefore as a young man ... I thought Pak was the place, and I've never regretted it since, where the Ms wd live in an atmos of relative equity and justice, and all those benefits that one expects to receive as a citizen in a state that is not ruled, dominated by a strong rel or sectarain views towards the minority ...' 147 - in Indian army, rel differences always secondary; 'we were taking part in Delhi in the quelling of the disturbances here ... and during this period we continued to perform our duties ... you cd see the strains and stresses ... beginning to appear; they did not manifest themselves ... in virtual disobedience of orders ... or mutiny, or ugly incidents of that kind ... but the strains were certainly there' 172 - 'the bodyguard was a premier unit of the I army and it had a disc that was part remarkable ... but I did feel, and accordingly reported to the commandant, a Br officer ... saying that ... as partn had already occurred and we contd to stay on for 2 or 3 months after that ... the earlier [separation] happened the better; I wd say that the I army was under a tremendous strain, and that the physical partn took place ... in a less messy way than wd otherwise have been imaginable' 186 - 'it wd have been incongruous for an army not to have been separated when the countries to which they owed allegiance were being split apart' 202 - 'many of men I commanded, Punjabi Ms, they had homes in what wd become Pak, but in the villages there had been many cases of abduction of women, and some of the men were affected, their families and so on had been abducted ... but I must say this also, their S comrades made many efforts to go down to those villages and to try to secure release of abducted women, not always successfully; but you can imagine that events of that kind, which touched so deeply, ... were bound to prey on the minds of the people conmcerned; these incidents wee a strong indication that the fabric wd not be able to hold together' 228 - 'there were incidents of killing, but most imp was this business of abducted women and inability to find redress for them' 238 - in Delhi generalised killings; 'many calls that we got by the time you got there the disturbances had happened, you found people on the ground that were killed ... it was mostly Ms who were getting the worst of it ... he curfew had been declared, and anybody who came out you shot, you tried to use min force, but you didn't know whom you were shooting at' 257 - 'generally when the troops appeared, they had armoured cars, the crowds dispersed, and you didn't have to resort to shooting, but you saw the results on the ground ... or others, the Red Cross, came to pick up the dead and the wounded; you went to the PQ, which was full of refugees' 264 - 'the PQ was under attack occasionally' 269 - 'the PM, Pandit Nehru, was asked after a part ugly series of incidents in D, and he had sd I have supped fill with horrors, quoting Macbeth, and some of us met him that night ... at a banquet, and three or four of us were standin rounding him and sd what a horr bus all this was; he sd yes, it was heartbreaking, and then he took the view of a sort of historian looking back from a long dist ... and sd it's a lower m/c upheaval and lit a cigarette; and I've often thought of that ... he essentially had a socialist turn of mind ... it just stayed in my mind; he lit a cigarette and had a distant look - it's a lower m/c upheaval' 287 - 'it was communal down to the fingertips, it was not essentially a class struggle ... if there were class elements in it, they were swamped by the communal character' 299 - [re army discipline] 'it was cracking, it was cracking', and Auchinleck shared this view 307 - [independence day] 'the bodyguard was here, and I had to take a contingent of footguards ... I took about 20 men to go to Karachi by air, to be on duty in their full dress for the ceremonies'; later left them behind, came to Delhi, to bring back the rest of the bodyguard 322 - 'we were present at the Durbar Hall for the swearing in and the reception' 32B - [own emotion] 'as far as I am able to recapture ... they were more kaleidoscopic nature ... my memories are kaleidoscopic in nanture ... the the extent that one can recapture feelings, they were a medley, mixture of many things, but by and marge the string currents that were swirling around us at that time ... did not give much time for deep reflection' 345 - 'I did realise that it meant saying goodbye to my homes and friends ... most people didn't think that an iron curtain wd come down, we realised that there had been a lot of killings and exchange of population, but that after all both countries had wanted what they were getting, both cos were going to get independence, and surely the joy, satsifn and fulfilment of that desire ... wd act as a relief for the many sorrows that accompanied it' 358 - 'in the case of Pak it was a double independence, it was an ind ... of a minority from a stringhold of the maj under which they were living; even so, I can't say the feeling were pure jubilation; they were mixed and areas of sadness at what you'd seen, the blood letting, and the extraodrinary pain with which a new state was being born, you fel it every day, you felt it every day, you didn;t have a table to work on ... and you were carried thro really by the strong feelings of patriotism for a new-born country' 375 - 'the dominant feeling was still relief, happiness; but it was not unalloyed' 377 - the Karachi cermonies 'carried out with v scanty means and not in as perfect a manner as at Delhi ... but that never struck one as incongruous ... it was improvised, Pk itself was being improvised' 389 - feel of improvisation contd for a year, 'and just when it felt that the improvisation was over ... the unsettling effect came again with the death of the Quaid-e-Azam, that was another shock which had a resonance which was v deep' 405 - 'I think the seige mentality pervaded at that time, unfortunately; of course, it continues to this day' 411 - 'I was in the Gym;na club in Lahore and the news came, I felt the shock of it, and there was a person whom I still remember ... he got up and spoke to us ... and he was much more unsure about the future of Pak ... I did not feel that this was the end of Pak, it was a grievous blow but I did not imagine that as a result of that Pak wd come apart; it was as tho suddenly a tree, a vast, enormous beautiful tree under which the shadw you had gone, it felt as tho yr sheet anchor had been removed, but I did not think that the time that this wd mean the disintegration of Bak' to 425.