Mohammad Asghar Khan. My Political Struggle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 595 pp. $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-547620-0.

Reviewed by Umair A. Muhajir

Published on H-Asia (January, 2010)

Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin)

One of the grave problems confronting Eng‐ its citizens--thereby privileging and perpetuating lish-language political discourse in Pakistan is the the essentially bureaucratic model of the nation- almost universal indiference of the country’s in‐ state inherited from the British Raj. This problem telligentsia and English-speaking elites to the is hardly unique to Pakistan, but the country’s question of ideology in “normal” politics. That is, particular historical experience means that the leaving aside the meta-narratives of the pre-inde‐ stakes might be higher for it. Simply put, a preoc‐ pendence Pakistan movement (for a separate cupation with “efciency” and “honesty” can all homeland for India’s Muslims), and the current too easily become a preference for the orderliness national debate on Islamic extremism and the fu‐ and authoritativeness of military rule, as opposed ture direction of Pakistan, in both of which in‐ to the unglamorous horse-trading, venality, and stances ideological issues have been front-and- sheer messiness of “normal” politics. This attitude center (not coincidentally, both are seen as calling was clearly visible in the response to Pakistan’s into question the very idea of Pakistan in one most recent military coup, when far too many in sense or another), the country’s political discourse the country’s urban intelligentsia signed on to is largely conducted as if ideology had no role to Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 deposition of Prime Min‐ play in everyday politics; indeed, as if it did not ister Nawaz Sharif’s spectacularly corrupt civilian even exist for the most part. government. Nor can anyone say with confdence The objection is more than merely academic. that Musharraf’s 2008 exit has settled once and An indiference to ideology means that political for all the question of military involvement in discourse in Pakistan remains mired in techno‐ Pakistan’s politics. As long as the intellectual hori‐ cratic questions of efciency, “development,” and zon remains an essentially bureaucratic one, the “corruption”--rather than those of (e.g.) social jus‐ likelihood of support for a military intervention tice, fairness, and the relationship of the state to H-Net Reviews by the very social groups who have benefted searches in vain for any indication, much less ex‐ from the status quo cannot be ruled out. planation, of Khan’s ideology, or that of his party. The above goes a long way toward accounting The format of My Political Struggle com‐ for what is wrong with Air-Marshal (retd.) Mo‐ pounds the problem. According to Khan, the hammad Asghar Khan’s My Political Struggle-- book’s chronicle of “the picture as I saw it over and toward explaining why what is right about three decades”--i.e., 1972-2001--is “based on Khan does not begin to address the problem. And Tehrik-i-Istiqlal’s record of events (19 December there is much that is “right” about Khan (b. 1921), 1971-12 January 1975), and a diary that I kept of the one-time head of Pakistan’s air force for eight events thereafter” (p. ix). “[R]ather than repro‐ years, beginning in 1957. Subsequent to his 1965 duce the diary in full,” Khan “thought it would be retirement, Khan was appointed to lead Pakistan’s more appropriate to give a general overview of airline by the country’s frst military dictator, events as I saw them and reproduce only those Ayub Khan, and resigned in 1968 to plunge into entries that are likely to interest the reader.” But active politics, frst against continued military Khan provides no insight into what Tehrik-i-Is‐ rule, and then, more famously, against the civilian tiqlal’s “record of events” consists of, who wrote government of Zulfqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan Peo‐ it, what “based on” precisely means, and what ple’s Party (PPP), that assumed power after the se‐ sort of political material has been left out of the cession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh in 1971. Al‐ personal diaries reproduced here. Turning to the though Khan’s own political party, the Tehrik-i-Is‐ record and diaries as published, one fnds oneself tiqlal, has never enjoyed electoral success, includ‐ drowning in minutiae: no fewer than 491 of the ing after the restoration of Pakistani democracy in book’s over 550 pages consist of these entries, 1988, Khan is remembered fondly by many as an most of them simply accounts of trips undertaken honest politician, a decent man at odds with the by Khan in the course of his work, records that endemic venality surrounding him. Indeed, his meetings with various political fgures took place decency is even held up as explaining his lack of (the content of these meetings is usually indicated success. Not least by Khan himself, who responds only in the most general terms), or recitations of to charges of political failure by noting that “[t]o the iniquities of this or that government against succeed in being elected by dubious means or to Khan or the Tehrik-e-Istiqlal. The reader gets bend the law ... is considered the hallmark of a hardly any favor of Khan’s “political struggle” to successful politician. Those who do not do so are mobilize support for the Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, and the considered ... ‘failures in politics.'”[1] Khan’s per‐ result is a book that falls between two stools, lack‐ sonal goodness is of course beside the point. But ing the insight and sweep of a book on politics, as quotes like the one above, while admittedly well as the illusion of intimacy aforded by an au‐ poignant, illustrate that Khan is squarely within tobiography. the “bureaucratist” tradition of Pakistani political Moreover, despite the plethora of diary en‐ discourse this review started out by critiquing, a tries, important events are inexplicably glossed tradition within which there can be no greater over. For instance, a June 1977 diary entry sug‐ virtue than fnancial probity and orderly, efcient gests Khan might have been administered poison governance. If this sounds unfair to Khan, his at Bhutto’s behest (p. 102)--but the subject never books (My Political Struggle is a follow-up to crops up again. And one searches in vain for any 2005’s We’ve Learnt Nothing From History) don’t explanation as to why the Tehrik-i-Istiqlal allied help much. The combined length of these two with the PPP after 1990 (after Benazir Bhutto’s books runs to over eight hundred pages, yet one PPP-government was dismissed by the country’s

2 H-Net Reviews president, efectively on the say-so of the military, realities, much less recognize the status quo ele‐ as prelude to a Nawaz Sharif victory in elections ments the ideology encodes. widely seen as rigged). Khan contents himself Furthermore, Khan (and not only Khan; to the with an August 1990 diary entry that elevates extent we are speaking of a failure here, it is that blandness to an art form: “Discussed the forth‐ of an entire class) is unable to see that this world‐ coming elections [with Benazir Bhutto] and view leads to practical difculties, by raising the agreed on an alliance for the elections and ‘there‐ stakes to unfortunate efect. A worldview that after’” (p. 402)--this barely two pages (and eigh‐ sees political disagreement as borne of the contest teen days) after a diary entry noting that Khan between good and bad people, not contending ide‐ had “[a]greed to enter into an alliance with one of ologies, is one that elevates ordinary politics to the two major political forces, the PPP and the IJI the level of metaphysical confict, rendering com‐ [headed by Nawaz Sharif] or other opposition promise all but impossible. Thus, although Khan parties” (pp. 400-401). gets credit for being one of the few prominent In the absence of any serious ideological en‐ West Pakistani voices in 1970 to argue that the po‐ gagement with the politics of Pakistan (as opposed litical crisis enveloping the country had a simple to with mere events), My Political Struggle leaves solution--the Awami League, representing the in‐ the reader with such generalities as Khan’s oppo‐ terests of the more populous East Pakistan, and sition to military rule, and his proposal for how having secured an absolute majority in the Pak‐ power might be decentralized from the central istan legislature despite failing to win any seats in government to the individual provinces. These West Pakistan, should have been asked to form are eminently sensible ideas, but in the absence of the government--his explanation for why this was a coherent program, they skirt banality, and are not done centers on the imbecility and iniquity of reducible to little more than exhortations to good Pakistan’s military ruler, Yahya Khan, and even governance. Ultimately, and likely unwittingly, more so, on Bhutto’s ambition. On Khan’s view, Khan appears to share the worldview of a cultural Bhutto--whose neo-socialist PPP had won an over‐ and bureaucratic elite that has historically set far whelming majority of seats in West Pakistan in greater store by the appearance of decisive action, the 1970 elections, but had fewer than half the than by the appearance of democracy; by the slo‐ seats nationwide--wanted a political “solution” gans of honesty and wiping the slate clean, than that would ensure his primacy, even at the cost of by those of social justice and redistribution. In Pakistan’s unity. Bhutto’s motivations need not be other words, like so many others, Khan’s call is for underplayed, but it is surely reductive to ascribe a renewal of the dispensation symbolized by Pak‐ the break-up of Pakistan, the product of a quarter- istan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a vision of century of East Pakistan’s underdevelopment and the country as an ordered rule-of-law state where exploitation, culminating in Bengali support for politicians would strive to serve the people with the Awami League’s vision of recasting Pakistan honesty and selfess dedication: “[i]f the values as a confederation of its two wings rather than a that the founder of Pakistan had given us were to centralized nation-state; not to mention the geno‐ be summed up in one word, it would be ‘honesty’” cidal massacres conducted by the Pakistani mili‐ (p. 519). An ideology, in short, that presents itself tary in East Pakistan as a “solution” to the politi‐ as neutral political virtue, and the practitioners of cal deadlock; to the machinations of any one man. which do not even feel that they need to make any That man remains Khan’s blind spot. Perhaps case for its relevance to Pakistan’s socioeconomic with good reason: there is no denying that Bhut‐ to’s socialist rhetoric was leavened by no small

3 H-Net Reviews measure of demagoguery and intolerance, and in to them to take over the country,” strikes one as the years after Bangladesh’s secession, when the disingenuous.[2] The tone of the letter, its casting PPP dominated Pakistan’s political life, Bhutto and of Pakistan’s elected head of government as prac‐ the PPP did their best to make life difcult for tically a traitor, and the appeal to the military to Khan and his party, by means of, as Khan tells the “[a]nswer” the call “and save Pakistan,” was high‐ story, trumped-up legal charges, intimidation, out‐ ly improper and loaded with incitement--not to right thuggery, and, ultimately election fraud. mention cynical, given that it implicitly absolved That last proved to be a fatal mistake: the rigging the military of any responsibility for the atrocities of Pakistan’s 1977 elections in favor of the PPP-- it had committed. While no one can deny Khan’s elections that many (though not Khan) believe the years of harassment and illegal detentions by PPP might have won anyway--was the spur for a both the Bhutto and Zia regimes for no good rea‐ massive oppositional mobilization, in which son, the April 1977 letter, and, more broadly, his Khan’s Tehrik-e-Istiqlal, along with other political equivocations when the democratic regime being parties, played a major role. Ultimately, the fragile overthrown happened to be Bhutto's, remain a system gave way in July 1977, when General Zia- black spot on Khan’s record. Bhutto’s wickedness ul-Haq deposed Bhutto and imposed martial law, was self-evident, Khan seems to suggest, and he promising to hold fresh elections within ninety brought the catastrophe on himself. The diary en‐ days. Two years later, Bhutto was convicted of try for the day following Zia’s coup against Bhutto murder and hanged; the promised elections is telling: “Was told that army had taken over and would not be held until after the general’s own as‐ Bhutto had been removed. An inevitable end to sassination in 1988. an inglorious fve-and-a-half years of a power- Khan’s own role in the deposition of Bhutto’s hungry, mad man in ofce” (p. 108). government is itself the subject of some contro‐ Khan isn’t alone in his loathing of Bhutto, es‐ versy, principally due to an anti-government let‐ pecially among the Pakistani bourgeoisie, and one ter he wrote to the “Chiefs of Staf and the ofcers might speculate as to the reasons why Bhutto has of the defence services of Pakistan” in April 1977. attracted especial opprobrium. Whatever his oth‐ The letter is nothing if not infammatory, claiming er failings, Bhutto was the most explicitly ideolog‐ that “the military action in East Pakistan was a ical of (West) Pakistani political leaders since conspiracy in which [Bhutto] played a Machiavel‐ 1947, the only one to buttress the nation-state’s lian role,” and that Bhutto was “guilty of a grave foundational ideology of Muslim otherness with crime against the people”: “It is not your duty to the emancipatory rhetoric of socialist redistribu‐ support his illegal regime.... As men of honor it is tion for the masses. The sincerity of Bhutto’s pop‐ your responsibility to do your duty, and the call of ulist convictions has long been mocked (the man duty in these trying circumstances is not the blind remained a large landowner from Pakistan’s obedience of unlawful commands. There comes a Sindh province to the end of his days), but the time in the lives of nations when each man has to need (and opportunity) he sensed was real. Bhut‐ ask himself whether he is doing the right thing. to’s deployment of redistributive and emancipato‐ Answer this call honestly and save Pakistan” (pp. ry political tropes powered an unprecedented po‐ 501-502). litical mobilization among poor Pakistanis in the Khan’s bland defense of this letter, to the ef‐ provinces of Punjab and Sindh, unmatched by fect that he was simply “remind[ing] the armed anything before or since in (West) Pakistan’s his‐ forces” that they were only supposed to follow tory. To the extent Khan (or other Pakistani liber‐ “lawful” orders, and had not issued “an invitation als) wonder about Bhutto’s greater ability to mo‐ bilize the people of Pakistan, the diference might

4 H-Net Reviews perhaps be explained not just in terms of Bhutto’s decency-defcit; but because the promise of “Bhut‐ toism” proved more meaningful in the context of Pakistan’s day-to-day realities than the desiccated parliamentary liberalism on ofer from the other side. Therein, perhaps, lies food for thought of greater relevance to Pakistan’s struggle for democracy. Note [1]. M. Asghar Khan, We’ve Learnt Nothing From History (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 226. [2]. Ibid, 132.

, emphasis added

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Citation: Umair A. Muhajir. Review of Khan, Mohammad Asghar. My Political Struggle. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. January, 2010.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25696

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