archive: Abdication of leadership
Abdication of leadership
Ayaz Amir
Dawn, Karachi
Posted on Wed, 21 Jul 1999 10:20:45 +0530
Title: Abdication of leadership
Author: Ayaz Amir
Publication: Dawn, Karachi
Date; July 16, 1999
THERE is a kind of humiliation which is linked to a chain of iron
circumstances. Germany suffered defeat in the first world war and as a
result had to swallow the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. We
suffered defeat in 1971 and as a consequence had to accept the yoke of
bilateralism which is the principal burden of the Simla accord.
The singular thing about the humiliation which Pakistan has suffered
as a result of the Kargil adventure - for what else should it be
called? - is its gratuitous quality. We brought it upon our own heads,
inviting disaster, and then taking almost a masochistic pleasure in
debasing ourselves before the flawed Caesar of today's Roman empire.
This was self-inflicted humiliation.
But in the anguish which this event has triggered there is a strong
element of naivete. Nawaz Sharif, unarguably the hero of this drama,
may have tripped over himself. But then, to be honest, would it have
been realistic to expect a different performance from him?
Throughout this crisis he was himself, true to his basic instincts.
The impulsiveness and shortsightedness which characterized this
operation; the total absence of institutional consultation; the panic
and wild mood swings when it became clear that the army had bitten off
more than it could chew; the lesson in adult literacy at the hands of
General Zinni; the dash to Washington dictated by the need to procure
a fig-leaf to cover Pakistan's blunder; the first family's photo
session with Clinton the morning after the debacle; and, crowning
everything, the prime minister's shopping in New York on his way home
from Washington - these were things entirely in character.
In emergencies our usual tendencies are heightened, perhaps
exaggerated, but not replaced by qualities which are not there in the
first place. In a moment of danger a coward does not become a brave
man unless there was a dash of bravery in him all the time. Statesmen
too are not born overnight; they await their moment. About his being
called to lead Britain after the fall of France, Churchill said that
all his life seemed to be a preparation for that hour.It is therefore
unfair to accuse Nawaz Sharif of not being able to judge the likely
consequences of the Kargil operation when forethought or institutional
analysis have never had much to do with his pseudo-Mughal ideas of
governance. When it has been one of the distinguishing features of the
Sharif dispensation to take any number of big decisions either on the
spur of the moment or in consultation with a narrow circle of
secretive advisers, with the cabinet usually at sea and Parliament
being considered an irrelevance, how could it have been otherwise with
the Kargil operation?
If one man in his wisdom can decide that there should be a motorway
from here to there, that there should be an airport terminal at such
and such a place, what should induce him to discover the merits of a
broader consultation when an essentially shallow but superficially
attractive scheme to out-flank the Indian army in occupied Kashmir is
presented to him? It is not far-fetched to say that about as much
thought would have been given to this plan as to the various yellow
schemes which constitute the principal intellectual output of this
government.
If anyone or anything is to be blamed for this disaster it is our
stars. Who created the heavy mandate? Its origins lie deep in the
bowels of the Zia regime. It was later nurtured by the military
intelligence agencies which thought at the time that the highest
patriotism lay in sustaining the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, Nawaz
Sharif's step to the prime ministership in 1990. But the popular
ballast to Sharif's leadership came with Benazir Bhutto's second prime
ministership. Without her and Asif Zardari there would have been no
heavy mandate. Thus, to paraphrase T. E. Lawrence (who writes to the
same effect right at the beginning of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom),
the evil of the Kargil humiliation may have been inherent in our
circumstances.
As for the inability to curb the passion for shopping even at such a
juncture, there is nothing much to be said about it. Leaders of the
so-called developing world fall into two categories: they either come
in the Mandela or Castro mould - and therefore, not unnaturally, are
an endangered species - or they are of the kind who milk their
countries and like to shop at Harrods. This is not a matter of taste
but of education and culture.
Just as an artist must have an instinctive eye for landscape and line
and colour (and the other ingredients of his art) a leader worth the
name must have an inherent sense of dignity to realize what enhances
or diminishes his country's honour. If he does not, this is not
something which is easily taught.
But if Nawaz Sharif is not to be blamed for what he is - indeed if
anyone is to expiate for his sins it is the nation which gave him his
'heavy mandate' - the army command cannot shirk its share of the
responsibility for the Kargil disaster. No one forced it to undertake
this venture for which the planning and preparations must have gone on
for a long time. Did it not weigh the pros and cons with the care that
was necessary? Did it have to be instructed by a General Zinni into
the risks Pakistan was incurring by persisting with this venture?
The army's avowed raison d'etre for looming large in national life is
that it is the only organized force in the country, the guardian of
its external and internal stability. But if most people in Pakistan
happily go along with this claim and think it right for the defence
forces to get the lion's share of national resources, they also expect
from the armed forces a high standard of conduct and a commensurate
sense of responsibility. Small wonder then that when politicians make
a mess of things, well-meaning Pakistanis look to the army for
deliverance. Mistaken as this belief is, because the army's share in
worsening national problems is no less than that of the political
elite, the fact remains that it is there.
How cruel the shock then when the army command (not the army as a
whole) is seen as being an equal party to the nation's humiliation. At
least in Chakwal, the heart of the so-called martial belt from where
the army gets its recruits, the feeling against the Washington
climbdown runs deep.
The failure of leadership is thus total. By shooting itself in the
foot, the army command has diminished its ability to look the civilian
leadership in the eye. Accordingly, just when the nation stood the
most in need of consultative government, the trend of the last two
years towards concentrating power in the prime minister's person is
set to become more pronounced. In that case, who or what will temper
the fatal simplicities of the heavy mandate?
The prime minister has reduced his own party to a cipher. Other
political parties live in press statements alone. In the distance the
muffled roll of fundamentalist drums is getting louder. The outlook
for the country is grim.
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