Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Early Ayub years

The Quad struck.
Citing widespread disturbances, inability of the government to cope with breakdown of law and order, death of the deputy speaker in East Pakistan during a fracas in an assembly session in which chairs were sent flying as unguided missiles, lack of concerted effort to develop the country’s resources, and failure to ameliorate the living conditions of the masses President Iskander Mirza declared Martial Law, suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament and appointed the Army Chief Ayub Khan the Chief Martial Law Aministrator (CMLA). Mirza omitted from the declaration the inconvenient fact that he had, for several years, been the prime mover and final arbiter of all government decisions.
Ayub had prudently and with Machiavellian finesse refused to take over with out a Presidential proclamation. He had been deliberately coy. He was even reported to have demurred, asking the President plaintively if an extra-constitutional measure was necessary . Pakistan had inherited the British traditions of representative government and supremacy of civilian authority. Ayub was not sure of his hand. He was to reveal his inner thoughts later in his book “Friends And Masters”, that he had been planning a take over ever since he had tasted blood when in 1954 Ghulam Muhammad had appointed him Defense Minister and had allowed to hold his job as Army chief simultaneously. In any case, Generals close to him were given key ministerial appointments. As a sop Air and Navy chiefs were given relatively less important titles of Deputy CMLA.
Ayub addressed the nation over the radio. He spoke eloquently, and with martial thrust and precision. I am paraphrasing but it went something like this. It was his duty to save the nation from the sharks and the vermin and the leeches, which had infiltrated the body politic. He would clean the house thoroughly and completely, give good and honest government to Pakistanis they so richly deserved and which they had been robbed of by traitors, foreign agents etc.
Mercifully, he did not declare that Islam was in danger, and it was his mission to save the faith too. He was secular in the tradition of officers of the colonial army. Officer’s mess had not been Islamised yet; dressing to dinner; drinking and carousing went on as in the good old days. According to army officers I have met over time, all the “enjoyable” features of the Raj are still in place, only put under cover and wrapped in the green flag of Islam . The slogan “Islam is in danger” had long become stale. People knew very well that it was bandied about to mask failures, corruption and other immoral, unethical and unprincipled acts of commission and omission. To his credit Ayub availed of the opportunity to sideline Mullahs.
I distinctly recall listening to Ayub’s speech. I was a second year Medical student in Karachi and was spending rather more time in political activism than on my studies. I had already graduated from Karachi University more in doctrinal than in the academic sense. But I had not yet adopted dogmatic thought process I was to later, which I was to shed in its turn in after years! A few “progressives” were sitting on a lawn in the midst of the college campus. Sher Afzal, our political guru, described in detail later in chapters on student movement, was pontificating as usual. He, unusual for him, was not getting a sympathetic hearing. We were not as versed in Marxist analysis as he was. I had concentrated on History, Current affairs and Political science rather than on comparative political-economic philosophy. He was telling us that military take over was a retrogressive fascist step which would retard progressive struggle for a long time to come. We listened to him out of politeness rather than any interest in his analysis. I was frankly impressed by Ayub’s straightforward demeanor and palpable sincerity. So were others among those present .
The public took to Ayub like a drowning man does to straw. Muslims have always have had a penchant for the man on the white charger. During the period of intense Hindu-Muslim riots I heard otherwise quite rational and literate persons tell stories of a headless Shaheed tearing through the ranks of infidels, like a knife through soft butter. Ayub appeared like the proverbial knight in shining armor, or to give it sub-continental color, like a legendary Ghazi on horseback. Even the much-venerated Miss Fatima Jinnah, sister, confidante and long-term companion of the founder of the nation M.A.Jinnah, popularly known by the affectionate title of Madar-e-Millat- mother of the nation- endorsed the take over.
Iskander Mirza was in the mean while having second thoughts. He meant to continue his personal rule through the army as he had through politicians. Ministries had performed veritable musical chairs with the President controlling the music. He sought to make Ayub PM. Army brass would have none of it. Once confident of his standing with the public and not subjected to international opprobrium which was to be the fate of coup leaders from Zia on, he packed Iskander Mirza, reportedly at the point of a gun, into exile and assumed that office as well.
A lawsuit against dissolution of the parliament and suspension of the constitution was filed in the Supreme Court. The court, which had caved in when hearing a case against the much weaker Ghulam Muhammad regime, could not possibly stand up to the military.
Rumors were rife in Karachi that a leading racketeer had given a diamond necklace worth a million and a half to Mirza’s Iranian born wife Naheed. If that be true, she subscribing to the view that diamonds were a girl’s best friend, never let go of it. I saw the former King maker in London years later. He had been reduced to working as a restaurant manager and buying his own grocery! That, at least, testifies to his financial probity. Contrast it to the opulent life styles of Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and their minions in exile. Even if their fortunes were inherited or legitimately made, they had broken the laws of the country against keeping money abroad with out informing the government.
The early performance of the regime was all one could desire. Streets were cleaned, garbage collected, and polluters were punished on the spot. Trains ran on time, mail was delivered regularly and government servants arrived in offices punctually and spent time on actual work rather than on socializing. Adulteration of food stopped, black marketeers offered products at fair price, hoarders let go of stocks, and smugglers and racketeers were jailed. Fashionable stores in down town Karachi which specialized in contraband imports took advantage of the allowed grace period and displayed silk ties and other items of luxury on foot paths out side the stores. A shirt, which sold for Rupees twenty-five before martial law, could now be had for five.
Underlying the ready compliance with martial law was the fear of the unknown. People did not know what to expect of military rule. The only previous experience they had of military dispensation was the martial law imposed in parts of the Punjab in the after math of anti-Qadiani movement. But only a tiny percentage of the population was exposed to it. The military had brought the situation in control in a matter of hours but the over all duration of army honesty and incorruptibility was short .
Ayub announced land reforms with a lot of fanfare. A new organization was setup to look into the productivity of land in different regions. Bureaucracy found new ways to fill slots with their favorites. Beyond making pious noises nothing was achieved. Legal advisers found means to insert an extravagant number of loopholes in the ordinance. Feudal landowners wriggled through the gaps and distributed land among their relatives and faithful retainers. Some barren land was given away to favorite peasants . It was all done with active connivance of the administration.
Ayub’s basic failure was that he did not develop durable base of institutional support for his regime. (I will visit this aspect of his rule later in greater detail). With out developing institutions responsive to the public and empowering its representatives who may monitor compliance even an earnest attempt at reform would fail. Ayub was only indulging in a fake populist exercise. Army learnt the ways of the civilian security agencies and those of civil servants soon enough and it was back to old ways again. People were also to lose faith in the much flaunted efficiency and integrity of the men in uniform.
A brusque general Azam Khan, the very same gentleman who had so expeditiously restored law and order in Lahore after Anti-Qadiani riots, was assigned charge of East Pakistan as Martial law Administrator and Governor. He turned out to be a closet populist and did not keep his distance from the common man as army officers with the spit and polish image of the British were wont to do .He opened the Governors mansion to the public, to visit, have tea and gossip. At times he himself joined the merry throng. You can imagine the joy and pride of the ordinary mortal who had hitherto been treated as a coolie by all, his own compatriots included. Soon many a person was heard boasting that “hum governor ke sath Chai pia” I had tea with the governor .
While visiting a flood stricken area the Governor was incensed to find the divisional commissioner not among those present and assisting the workers in helping the victims. He ordered the man to present himself immediately. The bureaucrat arrived wearing a three-piece suit, with a peon carrying an umbrella over his head. The general angrily snatched the umbrella from over the man’s head and ordered him to change into half-sleeve shirt and shorts. The high dignitary had to work with his own hands along side the relief workers. The general himself was already in short sleeves and shorts and joined the throng doing rather better than men much younger in age. Public response was frenzied. At the end of the day, the general, much to his discomfiture, was carried on shoulders for about half a mile, and then in a palanquin hoisted on the shoulders of his admirers in a procession worthy of a conquering hero. For as long as Azam was there, the provincial government was responsive to the public as never before or since. People worked hard and with rare devotion, as they knew that “Ajam”, as they pronounced his name, worked day and night for them. If any thing was amiss, it was the fault of some officer who did not do as the hero told him. Ajam could do no wrong. Ayub was, in due course, to get jealous of the adulation proffered to his deputy and to recall him to the center.
Ayub had attained power through thinly camouflaged unconstitutional means. He had got rid of the legally elected President with impunity. He had been welcomed with open arms by the public. All the approbation would turn the head of a bigger person. He now arrogated himself to a status above law and custom. Several hundred civil servants were dismissed with out due process. Vast majority of the officers who fell under the axe were non-Punjabi immigrants. Allow me to touch on a rather sensitive point here. Officers born in Indian East Punjab were treated as “son of the soil”, much as those born in West Punjab were. The term meant a person born in the territory, which was to become Pakistan. Discrimination was further finessed. Persons born in NWFP, Sindh, Baluchistan, and Bengal were less “sons of the soil”, in that order. Those born out side the geographic boundary of Pakistan were in practice discriminated against as “aliens” and not sons of the soil. Government of Pakistan (GOP) were to make the measure more intrusive by asking applicants for jobs and admissions into colleges where their fathers and later even where their grand fathers had been born. This was a blatant attempt to exclude person of immigrant stock born after 1947 from government service, lucrative contracts and licenses.
He had a personal vendetta too. He had reportedly been rubbed the wrong way by some civil servants. Under the British hierarchical system, the service chiefs ranked under the secretary of the ministry. He was especially cruel to the incumbent defense secretary, who had at one time made him wait for fifteen minutes. But he was essentially catering to the Punjabi bureaucratic lobby, who had not been able to break the strangle hold of immigrant civil servants on higher services. When we arrived in Pakistan in 1951, practically all the secretaries in central ministries hailed from the Muslim minority provinces, as did the heads of technical departments. I recall that the Directors General of the Post and Telegraph, Metrological services, Custom, the National airline and Railways were immigrants. The dismissed officers appealed to the judiciary, who were not known for independence, and had not too long ago, collaborated with Ghulam Muhammad in legitimizing his quasi-legal acts. They had put a stamp of legitimacy on Ayub take over by embracing the law of necessity enunciated by a leading advocate Sharifuddin Pirzada, who had worked as a private secretary to Jinnah and whom the redoubtable Cowasji was to call Jadoogar (magician) of Jeddah, after the latter had served as secretary general of Organization of Islamic conference (OIC) to be described further in the chapter on Bhutto.
Politicians were jailed on flimsy and trumped up charges. Naturally the ousted defense minister was the object of Ayub’s fury. The man had, reportedly made Ayub wait in his anteroom for the better part on an hour. This ex minister was kept in solitary confinement for a month and in the third class in jail with common criminals for much longer. Suhrawardy was tried on charges of misuse of office. The actual indictment was that he had failed to stop one of his ministers from awarding a contract to an acquaintance, with out due process. The prosecution never claimed that Suhrawardy was aware of the misdemeanor or profited from it. If the level of graft had remained at that level Pakistan would be a model of probity for the rest of the world. Suhrawardy, a brilliant orator, made an inspiring speech in the court during which he tore Ayub’s character apart. Later proceedings were held in camera. He was sentenced to a longish term in jail. After release he went into a self-imposed exile in Beirut where he died alone and nearly penniless. He had commanded a fee of fifty thousand rupees, equivalent to ten thousand dollars at the time, per court appearance, but had spent it all on his political party. He left only a modest house in an unfashionable area of Karachi.
Trade and students unions were proscribed, press gagged, and journalists were dismissed. The only progressive publishing house, which brought out Pakistan times, the largest circulation English daily of the country, was taken over by the government. This Publishing House was the pride and joy of enlightened Pakistanis. Besides Pakistan times it published a sister Urdu daily Imroze and a weekly Lail o Nahar. This House owed its existence to an enlightened feudal, Mian Iftikharuddin, who had “declassed” himself. Faiz, the doyen of Pakistani intellectuals, formerly professor of English, arguably the most admired Urdu poet of the twentieth century and unarguably the most respected progressive muse of the era, was the chief editor of the group. Mazhar Ali, father of the better-known Tariq Ali of the UK edited the English daily. Tariq Ali was the toast of the radical student movement in Europe in 1968. The Urdu paper was edited by one of the protégés of Faiz, a poet Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi . Yet another leftist Sibte Hasan edited Lail o Nahar. It was a vibrant, radical group.
Not content with proscribing newspapers and magazine the regime banned Progressive Writers Association (PWA) . It was replaced with Pakistan Writers Guild run by a banker-literary Jamiluddin Aali. It naturally initiated a campaign of unabashed hagiography of the government.
Backed by brute force, and with popular support Ayub got away with it all. We were to rue the day we all fell for Ayub. We could not have been more misguided in our assessment of the man. It was small consolation that the vast majority of our countrymen had made the same mistake. All civil rights were suspended, and all organized activity prohibited in the name of rooting out corruption. What was worse was that the armed forces got a taste of blood- of bribery, nepotism, and jobbery and living beyond means. Exercise of unlimited power, with out even going through a legitimate electoral process was to turn out to be a harbinger of the end of united Pakistan. Armed forces were now to become full partners of the feudal/bureaucratic cabal. Mullahs, disdained by Ayub, had yet to gain political respectability.
He arrogated himself to the rank of a political and social philosopher. He presented the idea of indirect elections to the legislative assemblies and the office of the President as his own brainchild. His henchmen formed a polit bureau with him at the head. Their combined theoretical base would not get them admission in a good undergraduate school. Their collective practical experience would not get them hired as office secretary in a self-respecting political party.
The critical mistake, though, that Ayub made was to mistake transient adoration for permanent fealty. He did not have adequate political savvy to develop any institutions to support him or a political structure to shore him up and generate dedicated workers. He was not immune to the Bonapartist virus; rather he was enamored of it, as are all adventurers whom circumstances throw onto a seat of authority. Bureaucrats groomed as the servants of the Raj served as his advisers. They had been trained to serve apolitical masters, were contemptuous of the political process and disdainful of the common man as bereft of any sense or knowledge of what was good for them. They were in mortal dread of the electoral process, and representative government. They had had no indoctrination or experience of working under the supervision of their political masters as their Indian counterparts had. Their saints were GM, Chaudhury Muhammad Ali and Iskander Mirza, all erstwhile civil servants who had risen to the highest political offices by default. Like courtiers all over, they helped inflate Ayub’s already prodigious ego that he was a man of destiny charged with revitalizing Pakistan. His brightest acquisition Zulfiqar Bhutto also called him uncle and fawned on him.
Ayub could have translated his popularity into founding a political party at grass roots level. He would have found eager hands to help him. They would have given honest advice. Men and women of stature would have emerged who would have assisted him in governance and economic revitalization of the country. He did discover ZA Bhutto, who, though he harbored over powering ambition, was unarguably a talented person. If he had cast his net wider, not just on scions of feudal houses, he would have found many worthy associates. (Bhutto did. His first cabinet did have men of vision and imagination. The vestiges still make up the scant respectability that Peoples Party commands). East Pakistan offered a wealth of dynamic political aspirants. But Ayub only recruited hackneyed discards from both wings. After lifting the Martial law, he was to recruit the same mediocrities in his party. His was too small an intellect to see beyond the sea of servile sycophants. It takes a man of much higher moral stature to rise above the adulation he was the object of.
He went through the charade of appointing a constitution commission headed by a Supreme Court judge. They presented a report, proposing a bicameral legislature, an executive and a judiciary all balancing each other. The draft was hastily shelved. A constitution in the image of Ayub’s vision incorporating a provision of electing eighty thousand Basic Democrats (BD) through unrestricted adult franchise was promulgated through ordnance in 1962. BDs were to run municipal and local affairs under the supervision of District officers and their assistants. They would, in addition, serve as the Electoral College for provincial and central assemblies as well as for the office of the President.
Ayub could have won any election held on the basis of adult franchise, hands down against any conceivable opponent. But he despised the common man, and publicly stated that the latter was unfit to make a choice. Further, he argued that direct elections based on unrestricted franchise were chaotic, the people were not ready for them, were not disciplined enough, and could easily be misled by charlatans. His narrow and regimented military mind could not cope with the free for all. He must have had subliminal inferiority complex too, and must have had a low opinion of the founders of Pakistan who subscribed to the idea of elections based on adult franchise and a parliamentary form of government. He obviously thought that Muslims were not intelligent enough to sustain democracy. He would have otherwise given some thought to the success of the electoral process in next-door India, and tried to emulate them. In the event he latched on to the half-baked concept of restricted Electoral College of 80,000 members, not some 50 million voters, comprising mostly hand picked second raters, job seekers and toadies. . He frittered away all his political capital by depending on the coercive powers of the police, the district officers and the feudals. In East Pakistan he enrolled the support of proven losers.
There were several legitimate theoretical and practical objections to the system. The BD were to be elected on a non-party basis, and therefore not amenable or subject to any disciplinary force of a party mandate as would be the case in a political culture where established political parties control members elected on a party ticket. Once elected, there would be no binding on them to vote according to the wishes of their constituency. They could easily be persuaded to vote for the establishment candidate. Persuasion could be monetary gain; promise of a lucrative contract, job for a loved one or if all else failed a minion of the ruling junta could always employ the state coercive apparatus to bring the recalcitrant ones in line. Elected by a small constituency, they would not have the stature to stand up to authority. Persons of self-respect, conviction and principles would not contest for such a meaningless office. They would shun the inevitable taint associated with it. After serving as the Electoral College they would become practically redundant, reduced to begging for favors from the local police inspector, assistant district officer and the likes of such functionaries.
From the perspective of the government machine, however, it would be much easier to control 260 BD’s-the number of electors for a seat in the national assembly-than it would be to manage 26,000 voters in an average parliamentary constituency. The poet Habib Jalib aptly caught the mood of the public. In his inimitable style he wrote a poem
“Aisai Dastoor ko Subhe Be noor Ko,
Main Nahin Manta, Main Nahin Janta”
I do not recognize, nor do I accept such a constitution. It is like a morning with out light.
Ayub wet on to compound his political mistakes by launching a political party in a convention. By the token it was called Convention Muslim League to distinguish it from the other already existing Muslim league. He chose a discredited politician Chaudhury Khaliq uz Zaman as the president of the party. Bhutto was appointed the secretary and preliminary to the first session promptly got into a fistfight with some students.
First elections under the system were held in 1960. All kinds of candidates with scant political background, track record of service /activism of any kind, history of participation in independence movement, trade or student unions or professional bodies, offered themselves as candidates for membership of the electoral college. They turned out to be all minions of petty officials, informers of the basest kind, in fact nonentities whose only qualification was official backing of the state apparatus and who could be depended on to be at the beck and call of the establishment. The level of public apathy was such that most were elected with out a contest. This bunch of toadies now proceeded to elect members of the various local bodies and assemblies at the provincial and central level. The candidates for latter offices, for the most part, were no better than the electors. Some idea can be had from the person who stood against Bhutto, the rising star of the regime, from their common hometown. A second rate lawyer filed his nomination papers for the seat. Bhutto got the man to withdraw his papers and as quid pro quo sent him as the country’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The man was a mediocrity in all respects, in intellect, in intelligence, manners and cultural upbringing.
Pakistan’s finance minister, a man of impeccable background, a sophisticate and an accomplished writer, and unlike most ministers in Ayub’s cabinet, a collateral member of a political house, happened to visit Saudi Arabia soon after this man presented his credentials. The minister arrived at the Pakistan embassy and asked the protocol officer, who had escorted him from the airport, to send word to the Ambassador that he would like to confer with his Excellency before negotiating with Saudi finance people. The protocol officer demurred. Won’t the Hon’ble minister prefer the Charge de affaire? The Ambassador was new. The minister told the protocol man not to talk through his hat, his opinion will be asked for in the unlikely event of its being required, and to get the Ambassador forth with.
A year or so later the finance minister regaled his admirers with the story during a break in a Mushaira . The minister had been a bit taken aback at the Ambassador’s non-appearance. A man presented himself after a while. The minister testily asked him, what the devil was taking the Ambassador so long. The new arrival nearly prostrated himself, and humbly stated “ Sain - a sindhi salutation- I am the Ambassador.” The minister not having come across the man before had taken him for a lowly minion. He decided to confer with the charge-de-affaire after all, humiliating the Ambassador with an unkind remark that His Excellency (H.E) no doubt had more weighty affairs to look into and was free to leave. He did not quite apologize to the protocol officer, but conveyed appreciation of his earlier advice.
Ayub had no better luck in his electoral opponent. Politicians of stature had been disqualified. A few who had escaped the hatchet were in no mind to take on a candidate who had stacked all the cards in his favor. They could not hope to match all that the state could offer by way of blandishments. Their participation in the futile exercise would only lend legitimacy to an anomalous system. His lone opponent was an erstwhile camel driver named Bashir, whose claim to fame was that the then US Vice-President Johnson, during a visit to Pakistan, had had a beach ride on the man’s camel, and Caliph Haroon Rashid style, had invited the driver to visit the USA. On his return from the land of promise, he had become something of a celebrity, and had sold his camel. He was now obviously too exalted a person to carry on in the humble work. He had got himself elected as a BD, and cast his own, and as it turned out, the only vote in his favor.
BD’s elected members of the national and provincial assemblies, and all officials of local bodies, municipalities, and district councils. Such a concentration of toadies, sycophants and hangers on, which would put to shame even a convention of the most obedient servants of the Raj, had not been seen before, or since . They were a thoroughly rotten lot, corrupt, inefficient, with little insight or even the will to be productive. They treated the offices as cash cows. They were worse than the Jagirdars favored and endowed for life by Moghal Emperors, who at least looked after the Jagirs (estate), worse even than the British created feudals who took a long term view and lived off the land with out making a deliberate attempt at despoiling it. Mercenaries risk their life and limb for their keep. These were among the lowest of low lives, truly comparable to leaches and vermin.
Ayub’s reign was thus marked by unprecedented disregard for moral values and ethics. The element of uncertainty and insecurity ushered in the higher civil service, made the hitherto financially upright bureaucrats, stoop to taking bribes and accepting favors as a hedge against arbitrary dismissal. They also became unduly servile to the military, meekly accepting the role of a junior partner in the cabal. They cast aside all their wonted rules, regulations and principles and did as they were told.
Corruption in the public sector reached new heights. Ayub’s son Gohar, to be the Speaker of the National assembly under another dictator Zia, became the leading industrial entrepreneur over night, as did his father-in-law, a general in the army. Before Ayub, cabinet ministers were relatively careful of their good name. Rarely would one be accused of, or caught at putting his hand in the till. Their limit was to award a contract to a crony or a party faithful, in return for donation to the party funds, never to their personal account. They would also appoint a favored person to a job in preference to another more deserving candidate.
Now nearly all the minister raked it in. The institution of kick-backs on any contracts, licenses and any sort of government approval, which developed into an art form under Bhutto and later dictators, and quasi-democratic set ups, was founded under Ayub.
He, though, had taken care to induct only a core of selected military supporters into civilian jobs. But they had to retire from active military service before induction. Administration was left to “son of the soil” civil servants who were only too happy to have been spared the axe that had fallen on immigrant officers. There was, however, no surviving “son of the soil” Bengali civil servant. The lone Bengali among the higher ranks, inherited by Pakistan had actually been born in Indian Bengal. Virtual absence of representation in the Civil Service, judiciary and the army was one of the major factors in alienation of Bengalis from Pakistan. This combined with far lower investment in, lack of the safety valve of representative government, and contempt of the better built West Pakistanis far Bengalis of slighter physique eventually led to the demise of United Pakistan. Ayub in his book “Friends and not Masters” expressed the opinion that Bengalis were the progeny of the original Dravidian Indians. This is a very unflattering description for a north Indian.
But the biggest curse of Ayub’s dictatorship was suppression of all forms of political activity; freedom of expression and organization, political parties, students and trade unions had been proscribed for a while. Strikes had been banned. Intellectual development, level of social consciousness, concept of civic rights had all been stunted. Judiciary had been thoroughly cowed. This elimination of all kinds of freedoms far outweighed the substantial benefits stability of the regime brought with it. Government did not change every few months. Functionaries worked fairly honestly, for the first two years at any rate. Industrialists were given incentives for investment. Cumber some import/export regulations were eased, infrastructure, roads, bridges, train tracks and canals were attended to. Revenue was collected more efficiently if not equitably. Pharmaceutical industry was built in East Pakistan. It was a first. Hitherto all investment in the Eastern wing had benefited the Western wing, and all the surplus capital was transferred there too. Riverboats vital for East Pakistan were refurbished, and ports were better maintained.
In the early years there was the psychological boost of believing that a forthright, blunt though arrogant, yet sincere at heart soldier, was at the helm. He, at any rate did not speak with a forked tongue as the politicians did. When political activity was permitted again, it was in a bastardized form. In a bourgeoisie set up elections, assemblies, processions, speeches all function as vectors of emotional release. In this context, a cold war anecdote is very instructive. An East German dog, well fed and robust of build, used to cross the border into West Germany every morning and indulge in a sustained bout of barking. A West German dog, rather emaciated, asked him why did it have to come into “ the capitalist hell from a socialist paradise” every day. Did it not get enough to eat, charming female company or shelter? The East German replied that I have all the worldly comforts but am not allowed to open my mouth. If I don’t bark I would start biting my wife, kids and friends! If kept from letting of steam, pressure builds up, and it erupts into an explosion. And erupt it would, in not a too distant future.
The image of Ayub as a hero in shining armor was gradually getting tarnished. His Government had been found wanting in providing relief to the common masses. It was no better in this respect than the bickering politicians he had swept aside. Soon, too soon for long term survival of the regime, scandals financial and of other salacious kind started to surface. Police and civil servants went back to old ways with a vengeance. They had to share the loot with Army officers and were uncertain of tenure too, “so made as much hay as possible while the sun shone”. The tariff of bribes went up and kept on escalating. Discipline and punctuality went by the board. What was perhaps worse, living ostentatiously beyond means became the accepted norm. Discretion was no longer the better part of valor.
But the single most important, one may say the defining aberration was the racketeering of Ayub’s son Gohar. Army pays its officers enough to live comfortably, and have a drink or two in the evening. Free housing, transport, servants and schools of high standard nearly free of cost are also provided and go a long way in subsidizing the cost of living. But one can by no means live it up unless you have private means. Ayub did not. His father had been a non-commissioned officer in the British army. Gohar had been a captain in the army. On ascension of his father to the “throne” he resigned his commission and started spreading out, junketing around in luxury limousines, consorting with film stars, carousing in expensive night clubs, and abducting women in the style taken to art form much later by Saddam’s sons. People were terrified of him; police and bureaucrats trembled in his presence. His stooges were also frequently seen brazenly dashing around towns, honking their horns, making pedestrians and vehicular traffic alike, take hasty cover. Crowds would literally melt away from the onslaught. This was, however, not all. Very soon he launched, with his father-in-law, also an army general, Gandhara industries, an umbrella group, which worked mines, dug oil wells, founded car assembly plants and owned many other enterprises.
Disillusioned and disgusted, people started openly questioning his source of funds. Servile media tried to feed the public stories of domestic and foreign investors. No body believed them. No one had invested for his son before his ascension to power. This badly reflected on Ayub.
Rulers have poor access to public opinion. They do not have the time to read newspapers or listen to electronic media, domestic or foreign. Once firmly ensconced into the seat of authority they lose even the inclination to keep themselves well informed. They have to depend on briefings by advisers, who fawning sycophants as they usually are, keep all unpleasant reports from the master. In extreme cases they become totally detached from reality. Ayub was always told that people loved him. He was shielded from adverse comments. If he espied a demonstration, he was told that the participants were communists, Indian agents, and subversives of different hues.
Ayub had the mentality of a small peasant. He hankered after acceptance among top feudals. He could not have made a worse choice. The class is corrupt, dishonest, cruel, and unprincipled to the core. I will discuss them later in the chapter on feudalism. He missed an opportunity of ridding Pakistan of the parasites. His public support was such that he could have got away with abolition of Zamindari in his early years Not doing so was to have disastrous consequences for his regime.
He had given Bhutto a seat in his cabinet. Bhutto had turned out to be not a bad choice when compared to the cruel, repressive and murderous feudal, the Nawab of Kalabagh Ayub had installed as Governor of West Pakistan. Habib Jalib used the literal meaning of his title- Kala Bagh means black Garden- and wrote a poem
“ Jab Se Kale Baghon Ne Ghera Hai”,
“ Since the country has been under the siege of Black Gardens”. Kala Bagh met an appropriately gruesome end. His own son murdered him for sexually molesting his friend
The man, Chancellor of Karachi University by virtue of his office as Governor, had to be invited to preside over an academic convocation of the university. This was to be a solemn occasion. The ceremony of conferment of a university degree is the high light of a student’s academic carrier. It marks the culmination of a part of life one cherishes. Students, their families and members of the teaching faculty were extremely unhappy with the choice of the infamous Kalabagh as the chief guest. A delegation of alumni led by a venerated intellectual had called on the vice-chancellor to apprise him of the ground swell of ill will towards the proffered chief guest. The hapless VC, his visage betraying extreme anguish, appealed for cooperation and solicited welcome for Kalabagh in the name of oriental hospitality towards a guest. If it was a question of his job being at stake he could appeal to Ayub. If he had to spend time in jail, he could put up with it. But he could not countenance his women folk being abducted. The man had virtually groveled. Such was the terror evoked by the mention of the name of the ferocious Nawab.
Due to the chaotic pre martial law conditions there had been no convocation for three or four years. The number of prospective percipients was correspondingly larger than usual. The management could not cope with logistics of customary presentation of graduates to the chief guest individually. An announcement that only post graduate and professional degree holders would get the testimonial in the time haloed fashion was greeted with loud boes and cat calls. Even though the chief guest was the accursed Kalabagh, yet the photo opportunity would be once in a lifetime. In the event Kalabagh was hooted down as soon as he started the convocation address. In spite of powerful loud speakers, he couldn’t be heard even in the front seats. I am an eyewitness. I was seated right behind the faculty and doctoral candidates, in the third or fourth row. (This was more due to my connections than to my academic achievements). The chief guest not being able to finish his speech prudently declined to hand over diplomas in individual hands and conferred the honor in the style of a Papal blessing, en masse.
Soon after this event Ayub announced that he would shift the capital from Karachi to a purpose built town to be called Islamabad in the hills conveniently not too far from Rawalpindi, the town which housed the Army General Headquarters (GHQ). The patently spurious arguments offered were that the new Capital would have better climate, and the administration could be better organized in purpose built structures, with easy access to each other. They were scattered over a wide area in Karachi. A further convenience would be that the seat of government would be a stones’ throw from the GHQ. Karachi was vulnerable to attack from the air and sea. The new capital surrounded by hills would be a less easy target.
The Freudian slip of the desirability of the proximity to army GHQ was greeted in Karachi with jeers. We gleefully chanted slogans that we would like to throw stones at both the new Capital and the old GHQ. . The convocation fiasco may not have had a cause and effect relationship with the move but we took the credit of shaking the foundations of the dictatorship. Wits started comparing Ayub to a King named Tughlaq, who had shifted his capital from Dehli and had to bring it back a few years later. During his trial, Suharwardy was to declare famously that the capital had been moved on a train and would be brought back on a plane.
Shifting the capital had a demoralizing effect on Bengalis who had gotten used to Karachi. The hot and humid climate and proximity to the sea was as near as they could hope to get to their home environment. They had had settled in large number in Karachi. The city had been developed, they correctly claimed, with federal funds, at least sixty percent of which came from East Pakistan. The city elite stood to lose the amenities on offer in a capital. They would miss the diplomatic parties with free drinks and freer social environment. Immigrants were also unhappy. They stood to lose most. Access to powers that be was not least among them. They would have to trek to the God forsaken Capital for every little thing, permission to travel abroad, licenses etc. It would entail additional expense on accommodation, food and transport. Sindhis were ambivalent. Karachi would, they hoped, be restored to the province. They were not certain though, that the federal government would not hold on to the city as a federal preserve. Baluchis and Pathans were indifferent; Islamabad would be as alien to them as Karachi was. Only Punjabis were happy, and in the corridors of power they mattered the most. They overwhelmingly dominated the army and bureaucracy and comprised the bulk of feudals.
For a country unable to provide basic needs of food, clothes, and shelter, never mind health care and education, this was a stupendously wasteful project. But the dictator and the cabal supporting him were determined. They dreaded the agitations the politically aware Krachites could mount at a moments notice and render them virtual prisoners in their mansions. No expense was too much for the peace and quiet of the hills.
The next occasion to protest effectively was to hand shortly after. US President Eisenhower was making a short stop over in Karachi. The whole Government, Cabinet ministers, governors, senior bureaucrats, favorite politicians, service chiefs, all led by Ayub were to on hand to pay obeisance to the Caesar. Students decided to launch a massive protest against the visit. Government functionaries, with their survival at stake moved instantly and preempted the protest by arresting the leaders, trade union workers, left leaning journalists and politicians. Students were the special targets; even low ranking cadres were picked up. A student leader, Mahboob, who had been out of town at the time of the neo- Imperial visit, was arrested on arrival a few days later.
In spite of all the pre-emptive measures, there were widespread disturbances, and scuffles with the police who resorted to Lathi (baton) charges and used tear gas with abandon. Personnel of security agencies were largely recruited from the Punjab hinterland. They were unfamiliar with the byways and lanes of the city. Students on their own territory led them on a veritable merry go round. General public reacted with overt hostility too. I saw with my own eyes strapping lads of the police trapped in cul-de-sacs and being pelted, by angry housewives, with rotten vegetables and other filth. Some more adventurous ones even showered the hapless jawans with excreta. Police begged for mercy, in Punjabi of course, which pitiless maidens of Karachi only made fun of. One could pity them, they were as much victims, though unwitting, of the system as the rest of us. Police dare not, at the time, break into houses and assault women. This was to come later, during Bhutto’s democratically elected, nonetheless fascist government. Lest we forget, Hitler was initially elected democratically too.
Turmoil, hitherto under the surface was erupting with unsettling frequency. Ayub had been noticeably weakened. He was to make another grave tactical error. Whether out of jealousy of the universal popularity of the man, or in charitable view of the affair, because he wanted a strong man by his side in federal government, he recalled General Azam from East Pakistan and replaced him with an ill-famed East Pakistani politician of the old guard. Azam had kept a lid on the Eastern wing by virtue of his transparent honesty, palpable sincerity, gruff affability and easy accessibility. People gave him the benefit of the doubt. With his departure Bengal also started erupting. Several student and workers strikes were brutally suppressed. Intellectuals, writers, journalists, academics, teachers, workers, professionals, businessmen students, people of all classes, even government employees, who had hitherto covered themselves with the flag of chauvinistic nationalism started comparing Pakistan unfavorably with India. Immigrants are generally the most reactionary section of the citizenry. They have to rationalize and justify leaving their home of innumerable generations. Hitherto the most vocal and strident among the votaries of partition, they indulged in nostalgic despair.
We had another confrontation with Martial law in 1961 in which I was rather more involved. I have described it more detail elsewhere in the narrative.
Among the positive achievements of Ayub were the 1963 border and defense production-technology agreements with China. Ayub also made timid exhibitions of independence and planned to make tour of China, USSR and the USA. China and USSR part of the visits went through but the US president Johnson cancelled his visit to America.