Pakistan Eye on the Storm

Pakistan Pakistan Eye of the Storm Owen Bennett Jones Yale University Press New Haven and London Copyright © by Owen Bennett Jones All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections and of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: U.S. Office: [email protected] yalebooks.com Europe Office: [email protected] www.yaleup.co.uk Set in Columbus by Northern Phototypesetting Co. Ltd, Bolton Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Jones, Owen Bennett. Pakistan: eye of the storm / Owen Bennett Jones. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ––– (cloth: alk. paper) . Pakistan—History. I. Title. DS .J .—dc A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Plate captions: () Stanley Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times, Oxford University Press, New York, , p. ; () Confidential telegram from the American consulate in Karachi to the US State Department, July ; () Guardian, May ; () Stanley Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times, Oxford University Press, New York, , p. ; () Benazir Bhutto’s speech to the US Committee for Human Rights, May ; () Guardian, May ; () Hindustan Times, July . For my parents Contents List of Illustrations viii Preface x Introduction xii Note on Spellings xvii Chronology xviii 1 Musharraf ’s Challenge 2 The Coup 3 Kashmir 4 Nationalism 5 Bangladesh 6 The Bomb 7 Democracy 8 The Army 9 The Day of Reckoning Notes Bibliography Index Illustrations Plates . Mohammed Ali Jinnah. © Government of Pakistan . Partition. © Associated Press . Mujibur Rahman. © Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh . Dacca beating. © Associated Press . Ayub Khan. © Government of Pakistan . Yayha Khan. © Government of Pakistan . Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. © Government of Pakistan . Zia ul Haq. © Government of Pakistan . Nawaz Sharif. © Newsmakers. Photo: Getty Images . Benazir Bhutto. © Karen Davies . A. Q. Khan. © Government of Pakistan . Celebrating nuclear tests. © Reuters . A Ghauri missile. © Karen Davies . The coup. © Associated Press . Pervez Musharraf. © Karen Davies . Karachi violence. © Liaison. Photo: Getty Images . Siachin. © Bob Nickelsberg/Liaison/FSP. Photo: Getty Images . Soldiers pray during the Kargil conflict. © Karen Davies . Line of control, Kashmir. © Bob Nickelsberg . Madrasa. © Karen Davies . Jaish placard. © Getty Images . Islamic demonstration. © Getty Images Maps Pakistan, xx Kashmir, Pakistan, East Pakistan, Designed with the help of the Army Press, Rawalpindi Illustrations ix Tables Sectarian violence, – Kashmir killings, – Provincial breakdown by population, Languages spoken, Heads of state, –present Chief executives, –present Comparison of men and hardware in India and Pakistan Social indicators in Pakistan, Tax revenues in Pakistan as a percentage of GDP, – Figures Defence expenditure in India and Pakistan, – Defence expenditure in India and Pakistan as a percentage of GDP, – Cartoons ‘st century’, The Muslim, January ‘The nuclear club’, The News, May ‘What have you done to your skin?’, The Muslim, May Preface Pakistan is an easy place for a journalist to work. Most Pakistanis, from policemen to politicians, shopkeepers to soldiers, love to talk about politics. Admittedly, the more they know the less willing they are to speak on the record but nevertheless Pakistan remains a very open country. Indeed, Pakistan’s willingness to tolerate the scrutiny of local and foreign journalists is one of the reasons it has an image problem. Countries such as Saudi Arabia manage to avoid hostile media coverage simply by refusing to grant journalists sufficient access to do their work. My first thanks, then, are to the many Pakistanis who were so willing to share their views with a foreign visitor. I should mention in par- ticular the BBC’s long-standing Islamabad correspondent Zaffar Abbas, who was remarkably generous with both his time and his unrivalled knowledge of Pakistan. For over a decade now, he has had the unenvi- able task of explaining the finer points of Pakistani politics to succes- sive BBC correspondents sent from London. Beyond expressing my thanks, all I can say is that I look forward, one day, to reading a book written by him. I would also like to record my thanks to Shahid Abbasi, Idrees Bakhtiar, Amit Baruah, Jaffar Bilgrami, Admiral (Retd.) Fasih Bokhari, Cecil Chaudhry, Paul Danahar, Karen Davies, Michael and Kim Keating, Ms. Ha, Hussain Haqqani, Mishal Husain, Abida Hussain, Mushahid Hussain, Talat Hussain, Fakhar Imam, Chris and Valerie Preface xi Kaye, Saleem Khan, Tanvir Ahmed Khan, Shahid Malik, Farooq Memon, Jugnu Mohsin, Niaz Naik, Abbas Nazir, Bob Nickelsberg, Richard Parrack, Haroon Rashid, Brigadier Saulat Raza, Najam Sethi, Akhter Shah, Brigadier (Retd.) Shaukat Qadir, Andrew Whitehead, Ali Faisal Zaidi and S. Akbar Zaidi. Jaleel Akhtar did a tremendous job in responding to my ceaseless requests for books, figures and various documents. Last, but by no means least, thanks to my wife Amanda for her support throughout the time I was writing this book. An editor by profes- sion, she not only improved the text but also ensured I had the time necessary to complete the task. Introduction Those Pakistanis old enough to remember the advent of independence in could be forgiven for thinking that they have been in the eye of a storm all their lives. Ever since its creation, Pakistan’s political devel- opment has been turbulent and chaotic. The country has been under military rule for nearly half its existence. No elected government has ever completed its term in office. It has had three wars with India and has lost around half of its territory. Its economy has never flourished. Nearly half its vast population is illiterate and per cent is under- nourished. The country’s largest city, Karachi, has witnessed thousands of politically motivated murders. Religious extremists have been given free reign. Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan, Iran, India and China; its political volatility; and its need for huge foreign loans; have ensured that the country has always been the subject of considerable international concern. But after May , when Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, those concerns became still more acute. Indeed, South Asia’s nuclearisation has rendered it one of the most politically sensitive regions on earth and made the dispute over Kashmir one of the world’s most potentially dangerous conflicts. When Britain’s last viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, organ- ised the partition of India he approved the incorporation of the state of Kashmir into India. Pakistan’s insistence that it should have been given control of the Muslim-majority state has given rise to a bloody and debilitating dispute that remains unresolved half a century later. The fight for Kashmir, which began within months of independence, has cost tens of thousands of lives and, arguably, has been the single most Introduction xiii significant reason for Pakistan’s chronic instability. The dispute has encouraged the growth of militant Islam, drained scarce economic resources and fuelled Pakistan’s sense of insecurity about India. Visitors to Pakistan sometimes wonder why the country should be so ‘paranoid’ about its southern neighbour. India’s image as the world’s largest democracy and its success in creating a polity where, for the most part, different religious and ethnic communities can live side by side, leads many to conclude that Pakistan’s concerns are irrational. Yet those fears are genuine. The Kashmir dispute has helped Indo-Pakistani hostility to thrive. But there have also been other factors at play. Immediately after independence many Indian leaders made no secret of their hope that Pakistan would collapse and that the subcontinent would consequently be reunited. The belief of many Pakistanis that India secretly wished to demolish their country was reinforced by the wars of and . In Indian forces struck across the international border between the two countries and came close to occupying one of Pakistan’s most important cities, Lahore. Of course, the immediate cause of the war was Pakistan’s decision to send in fighters to renew the fight for Kash- mir. But to this day, many Pakistanis tend to overlook their own country’s role in triggering the crisis and dwell instead on the subsequent Indian invasion. The war was an even bigger blow. When Pakistan came into being it was composed of two geographically separate entities, East and West Pakistan, which lay a thousand miles apart.1 Even Mount- batten predicted that this arrangement could not last for more than twenty-five years. Events fully justified his pessimism. Almost certainly Bangladesh would have come into existence without India’s help. The attitude of Pakistan’s first generation of politicians, who tended to treat the Bengalis in East Pakistan as little more than colonial subjects, undoubtledly contributed to the break-up of the country. But for all that, India’s decision to invade East Pakistan in support of the Bengali independence movement inflicted on Pakistan a humiliation from which it has still not recovered. India’s victory left a wound that festers to this day. If many outside observers fail to appreciate fully Pakistan’s sense of insecurity, some Indian leaders have shown greater understanding. In xiv Introduction February the nationalist Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, accepted an invitation from his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, to visit Lahore. During his trip Vajpayee made a point of visiting the Minar-e-Pakistan, a monument built to mark the spot where, in , the Indian Muslims had first articulated their demand for a separate state. Vajpayee’s advisers made it clear that their prime minister had chosen the site deliberately. The Indian leader wanted to show the Pakistani people that Delhi fully accepted their right to live in a separate country.

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