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Author: M.A. Niazi
Publication: The Nation
Date: December 16, 2005
URL: http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/dec-2005/16/columns1.php
Today is the 34th anniversary of the Fall of Dhaka, and it is with a certain sense of shock that one realises this means an entire generation has passed. The old men of 1971 are no more with us, replaced by a new generation. Today's 34-year-old, in early mid-career, will have heard of East Pakistan only at second-hand, and no one under 40 can claim to have any reliable personal memories of that fateful day.
So many of the players are dead, having taken to the grave questions that might have been asked. Yahya, Indira, Mujib, Bhutto, Noorul Amin, Manekshaw, Hameed, Niazi, Tikka, Aurora. These names were once on everyone's lips. Now, most of today's younger generation (in all three countries) would find it difficult to recognise their picture, if at all. And yet Pakistan has not achieved closure, and has not internalised its break-up.
There are disturbing signs that the nation has not yet absorbed the lessons of 1971. The biggest symptom of this is that, after a political defeat which led to half the country hiving off, and the second biggest military defeat this century, we still have army rule behind a thin civilian veneer.
The military worked assiduously since 1971 to make two points, mainly to overcome the memory of the ceremony at Paltan Maidan. First, Bhutto and Mujib were primarily responsible for the break-up, not Yahya. Second, it was a political defeat, not a military one. Since Bhutto was hated as much as he was loved, it suited his opponents to follow this line. (Mujib's supporters of course did not deny the charge; rather they gloried in it, for to them it was not the break-up of Pakistan, but the creation of Bangladesh.) Yet it is ridiculous to suggest that Yahya Khan, who was executive President at the time, can escape responsibility for what happened. It should also be remembered that he was also Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, which leads us to the second issue. Political defeats occur to political forces, like parties or states. The East Pakistan garrison was neither: it was a military force, and it did not lose an election, nor was a resolution passed against it. It surrendered to an invading force. If it was inadequate or poorly equipped, as has been alleged, that was the responsibility of GHQ, which was under Yahya, not Bhutto. If it was poorly led, Niazi and his team had been posted by Yahya, not any politician.
Despite that disaster, certain lessons were not learnt, neither by the military, nor the politicians, nor the people. Otherwise, we would not have a President in uniform today. The ominous rumblings from Balochistan and the Tribal Areas would not be going as unheeded as they are. Someone would have realised that throwing development money at a restive province has been tried before, in East Pakistan, and does not work, because the alienation is not caused by deprivation, but lack of participation. The reliance on American support would not be as absolute as it is. Popular leaders would not be criminalised (as were Bhutto and Mujib). The popular mandate would not be treated with contempt.
The Army did not learn that it should stay out of politics, no matter what. Instead, it has intervened twice, and not just as a temporary interregnum. Zia brought his project of Islamisation; Musharraf of enlightened moderation. Politicians neither learnt now to treat the Army properly, either engaging in power struggles with it, nor did they learn to resist it. Bhutto, Benazir and Nawaz all wanted to use the Army as a buttress to their rule; today's ruling party members are content with a subordinate role. And the people? Those who supported Zia when he took over, and those who supported Musharraf, should be ashamed of themselves, not for their lack of commitment to democratic ideals, but because of their lack of common sense.
But perhaps none of these forces are acting. Perhaps one has to look at a wider dimension, that of the nature of the people. One common allegation is that Muslims are by nature anti-democratic, and inclined favourably to accepting military strongmen as rulers. This is mentioned as the major reason why Bangladesh itself has faced military rule thrice in the first couple of decades of its existence, along with Pakistan's own chequered history, while India has never been in danger of a military takeover, nor even has Sri Lanka, which has faced a debilitating separatist struggle for decades, and where conditions might be considered almost ideal for a patriotic military to attempt to uphold the national interest.
Is there something in the murmured theory that Muslims are somehow culturally more attuned to accepting military rule, that the 'man on horseback' holds greater appeal in the Muslim world than elsewhere? What about Latin America? That is explained away by the Arab component of its Hispanic culture, or alternatively the militaristic culture that developed in the course of the Reconquista.
While militarism, which is a people's acceptance of military rule, is not a purely Muslim phenomenon, it must be accepted that there does seem to be something in the Muslim culture as it has developed, which makes for readier acceptance of military rule. Muslim monarchs did not have a Divine Right to rely on as did their Christian counterparts, and so their equivalent was to establish themselves as Ghazis, defenders of Islam and the Muslims. Dynasties did not last. The longest-lived Muslim dynasty was the Abbasid, which held the title of Caliph from 750 to 1517, but after 861 lost real power, and was either under the tutelage of some military leader or another, or confined to a small area outside Baghdad.
Most Muslim rulers derived their legitimation from the Abbasid caliph, rather than in their own right. In internecine conflict and flowing borders, military prowess decided who could command a greater area, and who could hold power. Rebelling commanders or coup-makers would establish their legitimacy by obtaining the Caliph's approval. Ask an average Muslim who the later heroes of Islam are, and the list will consist of military men: Muhammad bin Qasim, Tariq bin Ziyad, Mahmood of Ghazna, Salahuddin Ayubi, Muhammad the Conqueror, Babar, Akbar, Aurangzeb, Ahmad Shah Abdali. The rulers were also essentially military men, and it is glossed over that some of them had a lot of Muslim blood on their hands, along with infidel.
So in the 20th century, the examples abound. Indonesia, ruled for almost four decades by General Suharto; Nigeria, where the first coup was military; Pakistan, with its four martial laws; Turkey, where the founder of the modern state was a military leader, whose military retains enormous influence. In the Arab world itself, the monarchs ensure that senior dynasty members hold key military positions: Saudi Crown Prince Sultan is Defence Minister, UAE's Defence Minister is Prince Muhammad bin Zayed, and Jordan's Abdullah was commander of its commandos before becoming king. While Nasser and Mubarak in Egypt, Assad in Syria, and Gaddafi in Libya, were military men, Sadat and Arafat, who had brief early stints in the Egyptian army, used military uniforms extensively. The most egregious example was Saddam Hussein, who never served in the military, at least not until he was commissioned directly as a lieutenant-general while Vice President.
Small wonder then, that Al-Qaeda is provoking such fascination. Usama is cut of the same cloth: the Ghazi, whose efforts in jihad prove his sincerity. However, the leadership of the military has never really generated the best results for society. It is noteworthy that the civilian rule of the early Caliphate, and to a large extent of the Umayyads and the Abbasids, ultimately led to the conversion of the indigenous populations, which experienced improved administration under their Muslim rulers. However, this was not the case in the European conquests of the militaristic Osmanlis, or the equally militaristic Mughals' Indian conquests. Military leaders' training and experience leads them to a different approach to governing when compared to political leaders, who are more used to persuasion and consensus building than to merely issuing orders. Politicians are also more inclined to serving people; military rulers tend to lay greater emphasis on preserving order.
Interestingly, while modern democratic concepts and the Islamic tradition diverge in many areas, this issue of civilian control over the military is one area of convergence. Modern democracy insists that the popularly elected leader must have ultimate control over the military. Interestingly, the early Caliphate showed the same principle at work. The dismissal of Khalid ibn Walid as a wartime field commander is instructive. He was accused of giving a poet an excessive sum for a poem, and of mixing expensive perfume in his bath. If he has spent public funds, he was an embezzler; if his own money, it was extravagance (israaf). He was arrested by the Caliph's representative, and led through his camp with hands bound, on his way to Madina. The modern equivalent would be Commander CENTCOM Gen Tommy Franks being led handcuffed through his headquarters base in Florida, arrested for audit objections in the middle of the Iraq invasion.
This concept of civilian control is probably because the source of legitimacy in both democracy and the Caliphate is popular consent, and both are vulnerable (as Pakistan has learnt to its cost) to military takeover. Without careful control, there are always risks. The Caliph Umar knew Khalid was a skilled general, but he also knew that he was the putative hereditary war leader of the Quraish (an office by then abolished), and his renown could pose a danger to the nascent state. His subordination had to be demonstrated. As the Caliph told him, "The people were ascribing victory to Khalid. They have to know that victory is not due to Khalid, but to Allah." And by the way, Khalid was his first cousin.
Muslims must accept that militarism is indeed too easily accepted by them. There are understandable historical reasons, but that does not mean this is immutable. Germany and Japan have overcome their militaristic phases, and so it seems Latin America is doing. Whether inspired by modern democratic notions, or whether reverting back to the Islamic ideological tradition, militarism, in the sense of military rule, or even the military as a partner in governance rather than a subordinate, is abhorrent. Whichever direction the Muslims take, militarism can form no part of their future if they are to make anything of themselves. Here is a common meeting-point for political forces throughout the Muslim world, whether of the modernising and Westernising variety, or of the Islamist bent.
E-mail: maniazi@nation.com.pk
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