Good book, fitful journey

Islamabad diary
The first test of a book - prose, poetry or philosophical treatise - is whether it reads well. This test Abida Hussain’s account of her life and politics – Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman – passes bravely. You can pick it up and, with some skipping – too many aunts and uncles, and Bunnys and Poppys – read it at a stretch.
Abida is an engaging raconteur…you could say a brilliant conversationalist, although just a bit relentless at times, for like most good talkers she can’t stand interruptions or anyone else holding the stage. To these memoirs she brings the wit and vivacity of her conversation, without the relentlessness, which is why it is such a good read.
‘Privileged childhood’ is a phrase that can stick in many a throat but here nothing else will do: only child of well-heeled parents, father prominent landowner and politician, ancestral acres, horses, stud farm and then Swiss finishing school. Nature too lends a generous helping hand for the heiress with the Swiss finishing touch is a budding beauty, as some of the photos vividly testify.
But it’s all in a good cause because the picture we get is of upright maidenhood, exemplary adolescence, no touch of rebellion, not the slightest hint of any deviation. Flamboyance is all too apparent in the looks, but from this account there is little of it in the conduct. This explains something of what follows: the political choices made – district council Jhang, etc – the staid political course which stretches into the distance, punctuated only momentarily by the squall caused by husband Fakhar Imam’s defiant speakership.
He is elected as speaker against Gen Zia’s wishes and far from resting on his laurels goes on to deliver rulings upsetting to the general and his selected prime minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo. (That Junejo in his turn goes on to upset the general is of course another story, highlighting the enduring inability of the Pakistani state to find the right balance between the civilian and military spheres.)
There’s an amusing vignette about Abida Hussain, now chairman district council Jhang, wanting very much to be part of the delegation going to attend the annual session of the UN General Assembly (“the thought of going to the UN electrified me”) but not wanting to ask the governor, Lt Gen Sawar Khan. She turns to Agha Shahi, Zia’s foreign minister: “I would rather not solicit the Governor of Punjab, but you are a friend, so you can ask him if you like. That way I would incur no obligation to military authority.” The rationalisation is ingenious.
When Benazir Bhutto is elected prime minister the opposition parties quickly form a united front against her. Nawab Bugti, Balochistan chief minister, invites them all to Quetta. The discussion is about to start when Nawaz Sharif says he has to make an urgent telephone call. As he takes his time returning the other leaders start fidgeting, before finally asking Abida to fetch him: “Saudagar (Bugti’s PA) was outside the door. He welcomed me enthusiastically and informed me that Nawaz Sharif was singing on the phone!”
Posted as ambassador to Washington, Abida gets early lessons in real politik, or strong-arm diplomacy. The Afghan ‘jihad’ has ended, the Geneva Accords signed, and the Americans are piling pressure on Pakistan to roll back its nuclear programme. Invoking the Pressler Amendment they have cut off all aid to Pakistan.
Reginald Bartholomew, under-secretary for political affairs, is visiting Islamabad. Abida is there when he delivers a tough message to president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The president shows him a letter he had written to the US president. “Having read it, Bartholomew threw the entire file on the table in front, muttering that if we Pakistanis did not wish to understand what the United States government was urging us to do, it was too bad for us.” With that he stomps out, slamming the door hard behind him.
The US embargo meant that we weren’t getting the F-16s for which we had already paid $500 million. Another instalment of $200 million was now due and if we stopped payments altogether, we would forfeit $150 million as fine. There was no clause in the agreement about any fine the suppliers would pay if Pakistan failed to get an exemption under Pressler, this being the one-sided agreement our officials had signed.
The ambassador visits the Pentagon where she is given “full protocol” and received by Deputy Assistant Secretary Carl Ford. The latter takes out a pad and says what we needed to do was simple arithmetic. If we didn’t make the payments we would lose the 150 million plus 30 million dollars as “administrative charges”. What on earth were those for? “This was the amount deducted from the down payment by (the Pakistani interlocutors).” The penny drops. This was the amount pocketed by the go-betweens, the deal-makers. Someone in PAF or the defence establishment would know. Who were the lucky guys?
Gen Asif Nawaz visits the Pentagon and defence secretary Dick Cheney wants to have a word with him alone. The message he conveys is that if it made it any easier for the Pakistanis to step back from the ‘red line’ (nuclear programme) the Americans would tolerate a military takeover. The general said no, thank you but while talking to the ambassador opined that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if someone else were to replace Nawaz Sharif. According to Abida, she said it would make no difference. The Americans were interested in compliance, not individuals.
The other thing worrying the Americans was the belief or rather the conviction that we were harbouring ‘terrorists’, including one Osama bin Laden. From this account it is clear that far from making an effort to come clean, or wake up to this problem, our response came in the form of the standard excuses.
Soon Nawaz Sharif is out of power and after a mid-term election Benazir Bhutto back in the PM’s seat. She had given some sort of assurance to Ghulam Ishaq Khan to have him elected as president but seems to have forgotten it now. Party man Farooq Leghari becomes president.
And soon, as if to confirm that the more things change the more they remain the same, the winds of intrigue and conspiracy start blowing again and Bibi Abida (not for the first time) is in the thick of them, helping to establish lines of communication between the Sharifs and the president (whom she knows intimately, as she knows everyone in the upper registers of Pakistani society). She is invited by the elder Mian Sharif, ‘Abaji’, to visit them in Murree: “what a fortunate day it was for him that late Syed Abid Hussain Shah’s daughter was gracing his home”.
He was sure President Leghari would never refuse her (Abida) a favour. “And the favour that Mian Sharif requested me to ask was that the President put aside whatever grudges he bore against his sons, and he, Mian Sharif, a humble and God-fearing man, would always remain beholden to Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari and Syeda Bibi Abida Hussain.” Abida is charmed, finding Mian Sharif’s declaration “…premised on disarming humility, compelling”. So much for Swiss finishing schools.
Leghari duly axes Benazir’s government. The ensuing elections are swept by the PML-N which wins a ‘heavy mandate’. In quick succession Nawaz Sharif clips Leghari’s wings by amending the constitution to take away the president’s powers to dismiss the National Assembly; picks a quarrel with Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and ultimately sees him home; leaves Leghari with little option but to leave the Presidency; and finally can’t even stand General Jahangir Karamat who thinks it fit to hand in his papers as army chief. The new army chief is Gen Pervez Musharraf.
Abida never gets around to saying what she thinks of her role in this entire episode.
Tailpiece: The book could do with better editing…too many mistakes of syntax and even of grammar. The Polish resolution was torn up in 1971, not 1965. Looking for his blood on someone’s hand is Mustafa Zaida, not Munir Niazi. And Churchill, although a Marlborough, inherited no estate. He lived all his life on his salary or his (considerable) earnings as a writer. The book-launch is in Islamabad on the 12th, 5 pm, PNCA hall.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com