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Friday March 29, 2024

Who’s afraid of the holy warriors?

To a political landscape devoid of true excitement – is Mansoor Ijaz anyone’s idea of excitement? –

By Ayaz Amir
February 24, 2012
To a political landscape devoid of true excitement – is Mansoor Ijaz anyone’s idea of excitement? – the knights of the Pakistan Defence Council, dubbed by uncharitable critics as Gen Pasha’s Own Fusiliers, have brought a much-needed dash of colour and theatre.
The PPP and PML-N are fixtures of history, fixed in their grooves and little capable of drastic makeover or change. Imran Khan came with the promise of assaulting the bastions of the established order but he already looks jaded and worn-out. This is perhaps a function of our climate where new things don’t remain fresh for long.
A year more of Zardari and Gilani – and my guess is that they aren’t going to be stampeded into anything like early elections – and Imran will have a struggle on his hands trying to look fresh and clean. (He could cut down on his TV appearances. Carefully-choreographed TV is the opiate of our times and no politician can do without it. But indiscriminate TV is a turner-off, making one reach for the flick button.)
The undisputed maestro of Karachi can give riveting theatre performances. When he is funny he is very funny; even when appearing contrite there is a twinkle in his eyes. But his is a limited stage confined to Karachi and Hyderabad, the MQM’s attempts to spread itself further afield not a spectacular success.
Into this vacuum have stepped the well-funded warriors of the Pakistan Defence Council. The well-funded bit is a great argument in its favour because at my age I find in me a growing partiality for things arranged and done well. Travel one must but the virtue of travelling in discomfort, when alternatives are available, is questionable.
Idealism and sacrifice and stuff like that are great things but something also has to be said for being able to take one’s ease in the manner one likes at an inn of one’s choosing. From what I have observed of the Pakistan Defence Council, mine necessarily a cursory view, its leading lights have a proper regard for time and place, and the requirements of the moment. Perish the archaic thought that they are blind devotees of discomfort.
Politics is a profession and no professional class – military, political, juridical, medical, legal, clerical or theological – is given to pursuing the paths of discomfort. The motor of much of human activity is the urge to get ahead. Those who make the tallest claims about serving humanity or serving the people often turn out to be the biggest rogues and scoundrels.
In my experience, arguably limited, some of the most honest persons I have come across are ladies of the night...dedicated to the oldest profession. At least they don’t pretend to be what they are not. The politician or bureaucrat who talks about serving the people makes me reach for my pistol. Self-advancement is the driving force of politics and anyone who says differently deserves to be arraigned on charges of hypocrisy.
There is something similarly transparent about the Pakistan Defence Council. My friend Gen Hamid Gul, one of the original inventors of the concept of strategic depth, has been playing salvation and national redemption all his life. He hasn’t changed his spots and he has an ease of manner and a ready sense of humour which belie the image of the holy warrior. Those without humour are the ones to be the most feared, and certainly the most avoided.
Or take Maulana Samiul Haq who has a ready wit and a keen sense of the ridiculous. Maulana Ludhianvi of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba – both organisations now wearing, for the sake of appearances, other sheep’s clothing – are a different thing. But it is far better that they fulminate at rallies and pronounce war against India and the United States than lurk in the shadows and there nurse their dangerous grievances. Whatever the original purpose of the Defence Council, the public exposure accompanying the Council’s activities is a good thing and something to be encouraged.
Although, on second thoughts, I must slightly amend the encomium I have just paid to humour. Ziaul Haq had a sense of humour. Stalin had a keen sense of humour. Kamenev and Zinoviev agreed on self-denunciation during the Moscow show trials on the condition that their lives would be spared. “It goes without saying,” replied Stalin. When they had thoroughly confessed to their imaginary and wholly fictional crimes, to the extent of implicating other innocents in the same imaginary crimes, no time was wasted in having them shot.
It was Stalin who said, “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” You need to have a sense of humour to say this.
There is a Sandy Gall interview of Gen Ziaul Haq available on YouTube. This was when Bhutto’s murder trial was still going on and Gall asks him whether he would influence the judges. Zia chuckles and says (something on the lines of), “Sandy, I don’t know about England but you can’t do this sort of thing here.” How he must have laughed to himself afterwards.
Our ideological guardians have a long history of alliance-formation: from the PNA which proved instrumental in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ouster in 1977 to the IJI which successfully checkmated Benazir Bhutto’s political path in 1988-90. Times have changed but the old impulses remain alive and well...with one crucial difference.
The old alliances were against internal enemies. This one is against the new bugbear of the security elite, the United States. The agenda of the fusiliers is less internal cleansing than external sabre-rattling: no Nato supplies across Pakistan, no drone attacks, no trade with India. This reads like a manifesto of our ideological guardians – leading the uncharitable to make that jibe about Gen Pasha’s Own Fusiliers.
The parliamentary committee on national security is said to be reviewing relations with the United States...this in the context of the American attack on our border outpost which left 24 soldiers dead. The committee will only make the right noises. The real review or vetting will be done, as everyone understands, in Rawalpindi. The fulminations of the Pakistan Defence Council are part of the background music to this ongoing exercise. When the new parameters, if there are to be any, are announced, let no one expect the Defence Council to strike a discordant note.
I forgot to mention the name of my friend and Islamic scholar, Allama Tahir Ashrafi. Close to Maulana Samiul Haq, he is one of the leading ideologues of the Defence Council.
Tailpiece: The devotional piece on “Commander-in-Chief Ashfaq Pervaz Kayani” appearing in one of our leading papers deserves to be framed and put up in all army messes and auditoriums. “A man not fully understood...a completely positive man...the most striking thing about this unique individual being his capacity for hard work from early morning till late at night...a solitary man who will remain thus until his last breath...(so simple that) in his household only one dish is cooked...the son working in Army Welfare Trust but father and son so careful that every month his pay cheque is returned to the same organisation...in the quiet of the night holding his emotions under check as he explains (the cruel rumours about his brother’s business undertakings)...a man of reflection, deep reflection...patriotic and limitlessly patriotic but obviously not an angel...those saying ill of such a man deserve to lick dust.”
With such qualities surely no ordinary mortal but a new Salahuddin Ayubi. But what is to be said of the Pakistani nation which doesn’t recognise merit the way it should?
Tailpiece: To all poets and lovers, especially disappointed lovers, may I commend the following three songs composed by the incomparable Madan Mohan and sung by the divine Lata: “dil unko utha ke de diya, kuch ghabra ke, kuch sharmah ke...”; “hamare baad ab mehfil mein afsanay biyan hongay...”; “sapne mein sajan ki do batein, ik yaad rahi, ik bhool gayi...” They are available on YouTube.
I can’t resist adding that while Madan Mohan was born in Iraq where his father was accountant general with the Baghdad police, he and his family were from Chakwal.

Email: winlust@yahoo.com