Khayaban-e-Pakistan

Then I read it in the Dawn, the leading Pakistani daily, which expounded, more or less, the same line of thinking. On 17 December 2004, Masud Mufti wrote in The lessons of 1971, that "16 December 1971 was merely a demarcation" in the two phases of Pakistan's history. In the first phase, the feudal-military-mullah alliance got rid of East Pakistan as if to jettison an unwanted weight, which threatened to sink their ship. The second phase started with the elimination of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was a member of the same team until he proved risky, followed by weakening of the 1973 Constitution, all institutions under its umbrella, contours of civil society and any prospect of clean politics.

Masud vouched that since 1947, the Pakistani politics evolved in the shifting equations amongst the feudal lords, the mullahs and the military. He gave evidence to back up his hypothesis. The military rulers never rattled feudalism and avoided effective land reforms. The feudal lords in return always indemnified the misdeeds of the military dictators. All of them invited the mullahs to get involved in politics.

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But how does it show that the Pakistani rulers wanted to give up East Pakistan in 1971? While the nation riled in humiliation of defeat, Masud claims, the alliance reveled in its hidden victory. East Pakistan was more vocal and politically conscious, and they were glad to let go of it.

Proofs galore! Even three days after twelve divisions of Indian Army openly attacked East Pakistan on five fronts, Pakistan had not complained to the UN Security Council. Masud refers to news dispatch sent by a foreign correspondent, which said that Pakistan wanted to go to a mock war and quick surrender. Even better, nobody was subsequently punished for the failure in East Pakistan, which indicated that there was not much griping about the loss. When General Yahya died, he was buried with full military honors. Maulana Kausar Niazi, who acted as an intermediary between the mullahs and the establishment, was rewarded with a full cabinet posting.

But what does it matter after 33 years? Perhaps historians will go on forever, digging for truth with prospector's nose. How does it matter to the rest of us? Ejaj Shafi, a prominent leader of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) died of a heart attack on 16 December 2004. Hours before he died, Ejaj spoke at a seminar on "Commemorating East Pakistan: Will History be Repeated?" Mind the title of the seminar, and you have got your answer. It still matters in the minds of people.

To us in Bangladesh, it is a reminder of the long struggle for freedom, the language movement, martial law, agitations, the armed struggle, deaths of multitude, plunder, arson and rapes, horrors of being 56 percent of the population, yet mindlessly exploited like a miniscule minority. It marks a proud departure in our mind and history, like waking up from a bad dream to find freedom on a bright morning.

But it ratchets up different emotions in Pakistan. Brigadier A. R. Siddiqi, who was Chief of Inter-Services Public Relations and Press Advisor to the President and Chief Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan in 1971, has written a book called " East Pakistan: The Endgame", published in 2004, and "Dedicated to East Pakistan, The Land I Loved". The Brigadier criticises the civil society of the then West Pakistan for its deep and deliberate silence to the military actions of 1971. He resents how the political parties in the Western wing shamelessly joined the fray to fill up the vacant seats of the Awami League MNAs, who had fled to India. Those parties included big names like PPP, the various Muslim Leagues, Jama'at-i-Islam, and even the relatively liberal Tehrik-i-Istiqlal of high-minded Asghar Khan.

In the epilogue of his book, Brigadier Siddiqi gets emotional and talks about poetic justice. When he saw General Yahya last in Lahore, he lay in bed completely immobilised, his eyes wide open, staring blankly into space, hardly recognising anyone. General Abdul Hamid Khan outlived Yahya by a number of years and died at his Lahore residence, unsung and unmourned. General Gul Hassan would be promoted as Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army by President Bhutto, and then summarily retired. Disfigured by leukoderma, he died at CMH, Rawalpindi after a long bout with cancer. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would be gunned down in a coup in 1975.

Next in line came Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. A senior journalist of Pakistan told me that General Ziaul Haque had agreed to release Bhutto, and a Libyan plane was going to whisk him out of the country. Two Lieutenant Generals, a Brigadier and a Judge went to see Bhutto, trying to get him to sign a confession before he left the country. By then Bhutto was confident that he was walking out free. He refused to sign anything and, when pressured, got abusive with his guests. In the fit of anger, the Brigadier physically attacked Bhutto, who was already suffering from numerous complications, and he collapsed on the spot. Many people in Pakistan believe that Bhutto was already dead before he was hanged for a ‘mock execution’. You may not want to believe it, but a fascinatingstory nonetheless.

The last piece of the jigsaw puzzle was Indira Gandhi. Brigadier Siddiqi writes that Indira suffered her worst electoral defeat in 1977 and then would be assassinated by her own bodyguards in 1984. If my father were alive, he would have thrown one more name on the heap. He blamed Richard Nixon for being a party to this all-out conspiracy theory, and thought the Watergate scandal rightly served him for his sins.

One of the stories last week was about the Pathans, who get emotionally involved with trucks and buses, which they drive. They buy trinkets, pieces of metals and colorful clothes, and keep decorating their vehicles as if those were some kind of a shrine.

Why does not anyone tell them anything? Because, it would be easier to sit a camel in the rickshaw than to ask a Pathan change his mind.

A Mohajir friend related this story to his disdain for the Punjabis. He said that the history of Pakistan had been a contentious and divisive road of politics, dominated by the Punjabis, who were emotionally involved with power like the Pathans were with their vehicles. Then he referred to an interview of MQM leader Altaf Hussain, which appeared in the Sunday edition of The Nation. The Punjabis run Pakistan, controlling the reins of power and trying to mould the identity of a common Pakistani in their own image, he complained.

A taxi driver, who hailed from Bangladesh when it was East Pakistan, told me another story, simple and straight. The Bengali-speaking people were still not issued national identity cards although they had settled down as citizens of Pakistan, not as immigrants or illegal aliens. He compared it to the traffic on the road. New traffic was building up, while some of the old traffic remained backed up on it. Such was the condition of Khayaban-e-Pakistan -- the Pakistan Road, he said. He was happy for Bangladesh, because we did not get stuck on it.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.