The Leaders Who’ve Led Pakistan

By Wali Bugti


It is difficult for Indians to see the qualities of Pakistan’s leaders because of emotion from years of hostility. Of current president Zardari Indians know very little, though some remember him as Mr 10 per cent. But Zardari never says fierce things, and that marks him out. For outsiders, who are not as concerned with his behaviour on the judges’ issue, which will prove to be irrelevant to Pakistan in the long run, he has been a good leader and might even turn out to be a great one. But he is in the middle of his reign and should be judged after he is through.

The leader that Indians know best of course is former president Musharraf. Many in the middle class admire him for his personality. By this we mean his strongman image and his earnest manner of speaking, though mostly the former. Journalists are drawn in by him, since they think he shines on television compared to the Indian politician, who is required to be cautious by his politics, and therefore boring.

Musharraf brought the Kashmir jihad to a halt in 2002, but India does not thank him for that. He cannot publicly claim that either because of the sentiment in Pakistan, but his rule will be seen as the period when Pakistan clawed back. Mushrraf began the process of cleaning up the army in Pakistan, but that isn’t recognised within Pakistan much. Kayani is in charge today because Mushrraf picked him, after having got rid of Mohd Aziz Khan, Muzaffar Hussain Usmani and Mahmood Ahmed, all close friends of his a decade ago, but all dangerous for Pakistan after 9/11.

Benazir could have been loved in India, but for circumstance. She led Pakistan from the beginning of the Kashmir uprising and through the years of jihad. She was young and was required to be aggressive by the army and the people, though aggression was not her instinct. I remember watching a television clip of hers referring to Jagmohan, who was then governor of Jammu and Kashmir. “Tumhara jag-jag-moh-moh-han-han kar denge (We will smash your world and your illusions),” she said to cheers, but she was not convincing in telegraphing hatred.

Benazir won power at the worst possible time for her. Though it had just lost its beloved leader, Pakistan’s army was in its period of confidence, having laid the Soviets low. With Hamid Gul in charge of the ISI, there was no question that Benazir, who was only in her mid-30s, would run policy. When Kashmir erupted, she had to deal with Narasimha Rao, in his 70s and wont to letting problems run their course and resolve themselves rather than trying to untie them.

Rao was an interesting man. On two identity issues, Kashmir and Ayodhya, he let passion unwind, choosing to do nothing while Muslims rampaged in the first instance and Hindus in the second. But on the issue of the economy, where he needed have taken no risk and would have remained in office even had he done nothing, he bribed and bullied MPs into letting him do reform. He did this by unleashing Manmohan Singh and defending him year after year in a hostile parliament. Very little credit is given to Rao for where India is in 2009, but it is likely that he will be seen in a different way 20 years from now.

To return to Benazir, she would have had exceptional relations with Manmohan Singh had she not passed away, because she was mature beyond her years and a superb leader. Her death came in the violent manner of our dynasts from Bhutto to Indira to Rajiv.

Nawaz Sharif’s best years are possibly ahead of him and he is poised to rule Pakistan in three years, when the army will have less of a say on policy. His instinct as a trader rather than a warrior will stand Pakistan in good stead and he has been mature in the way he has been in opposition. He is a different leader from the Nawaz Sharif who wrote an appalling essay in memory of Zia, his mentor, but that was over 20 years ago. Zia is gone and so is Abbaji and Nawaz has become his own man.

Ziaul Haq defined Pakistan more clearly than any leader who came before him, or after. His legacy is stamped on Pakistan’s constitution, on its laws, and even, many would say, in the minds of Pakistanis, while other leaders have come and gone. He respected the Objectives Resolution, though to the constitution itself he did not show much love. He took the vague words of Liaquat (”…as enunciated by Islam”) and gave them meaning and power.

Zia was loved by Bollywood because he was such an exceptional host. At a Farida Khanum concert in Bombay a couple of years ago, Shatrughan Singh spoke so long and so lovingly of Zia that he had to be clapped off stage. Zia could also show softness, and often took his daughter, who was mentally unwell, to public functions. Zia was humble in his behaviour, always bowing with his hand on his chest in the manner of Afghans, and was able to sell that image of himself as merely a servant. No dictator is humble in reality, and he was quite ruthless in dispatching Bhutto.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was Pakistan’s most charismatic leader. No reading of him can exclude the man’s handsome presence and the feeling he inspired in a group of people who were intelligent but whose intelligence was clouded by their loyalty. Khalid Hasan loved Bhutto, and loved him for his charisma and his toughness on Kashmir. Bhutto saw himself as majestic. He designed gaudy costumes, part military band, part head-waiter, with epaulets and braids that he wore to public functions, and forced people like Rafi Raza and Hafeez Pirzada to wear (though theirs had fewer baubles). How such loopy behaviour escaped people like Mubashir Hasan it is hard to say.

Like Akbar and his Deen-e-Ilahi, Bhutto established a cult around him, which went the way of cults. Bhutto was mean-spirited and arrogant, but where he had to compromise, such as with Akbar Bugti, he could swallow his pride and accept the other man’s clownish behaviour, as Sherbaz Mazari sketched in his book. Those who have read the biographies of his contemporaries will be struck by how unhinged Bhutto was. His treatment of JA Rahim, by every account a man of refinement, set the tone. Bhutto started the system of discarding protocol and running government more personally. He would rush off himself to greet heads of state at the airport, and was overly emotional, weeping one day next to Mubashir Hasan when they saw some men breaking stones with their hands.

Like Benazir and Nawaz Sharif after him, Bhutto was a solid political figure in his 30s, which shows how brilliant he must have been. He would have risen even without Ayub Khan’s patronage. Ayub was leonine, and in the photographs of his visits to the White House he is a striking figure. The opening pages of Ayub’s autobiography, Friends Not Masters, make the reader cringe for their bombast and naivete, but it gets more interesting as he tries to learn governance. His book was published in 1967, two years after Bhutto’s disastrous war, but in it Ayub is still quite sunny and he would have been taken aback by how quickly he fell.

Yahya Khan will be remembered for his colourful life, his brokering Kissinger’s visit to China and for presiding over Pakistan’s partition, though he took charge when the process was already in motion. Jinnah was a great man and a cool hand. He was a South Bombay Gujarati, and his instinct was European. Neither he nor Gandhi was particularly well-read, though Jinnah spoke excellent English. He was a private person and in his correspondence with Liaquat he reveals little of himself and very little emotion. In 17 volumes of his collected papers, most of the material is to him rather than by him.

Jinnah’s daughter shows us what sort of upbringing he would have given her, and she is reserved and very upper-class, as is her son (her grandsons are a different story).

Liaquat was an interesting man, because unlike Jinnah he was deeply immersed in the tradition and language of North Indian Muslims, which Jinnah would have realised. Liaquat knew instinctively what was to be done with the Objectives Resolution, and it is no surprise that the committee vote on it split Pakistan’s Muslim and Hindu Assembly members down the middle. That vote, much more than Jinnah’s August 11 speech, was the defining moment of the state. That is why it has held all these years in letter and spirit though it goes against the grain of Jinnah’s great speech.