Our self-loathers!

Some people are quick with the pen; more so when they want to indulge in self-loathing. Talleyrand it was who said that “I find that nonsense, at times, is singularly refreshing.” That may be so. In fact, some of the stuff on Twitter would be refreshingly nonsensical if there weren’t a surfeit of it.

Recently, my observation in an article that Pakistan was pushed into the 1965 War by two civilians has got one blogger/twitterati to go up on his hind legs and pen a long spiel to inform the world of the ‘fiction’ pushed out by me. In his haste, he forgot two things: one, that I was not writing the history of the war – I have written much on it over the years and discussed the multiple follies repeatedly; two, in the same sentence, in parenthesis, I qualified by saying “even though Ayub Khan should have known better”.

It is not my intention here to inform the blogger-gent that I have studied that war quite closely, both from a politico-strategic perspective as well as from an operational angle but just to lay to rest his contention that the generals could not have been deceived by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Aziz Ahmed. I fully agree that they should not have been; I also consider it terrible that they were unable to appreciate the situation and chose instead to situate the appreciation. But what that war tells us about decision-making or a lack thereof is another debate. For now, here’s what former ambassador Zafar Hilaly wrote about his uncle Agha Shahi and the role played by ZAB, Aziz Ahmad and Nazir Ahmad in launching Operation Gibralter. (I am grateful to friend Ammar Qureshi for reminding me of this and Hilaly sahib for corroborating it.)

‘Where ZAB and Agha Shahi were in complete agreement was their scant regard for Ayub Khan, not as a person but as a leader. Both were hawks when it came to India, which Ayub Khan sensibly was not. ZAB wanted to wrest Kashmir from India by force and thought he had the perfect plan to do so. Agha Shahi felt the plan may work but that there was no chance that Ayub Khan would sign off on it. ZAB therefore took the lead in orchestrating his team to convince Ayub Khan that he need not fear a war with India because the fighting would remain confined to Kashmir. He told them that when Ayub Khan sought their advice individually, as he was wont to do, each of them should dismiss out of hand the possibility of an Indian riposte across the international border. Agha Shahi felt that war, if not inevitable, was a distinct possibility if Pakistan looked like winning in Kashmir. He was told in so many words by ZAB and Aziz Ahmed to shut up or face dire consequences.

‘When therefore Ayub Khan summoned Foreign Secretary Aziz Ahmed, Defence Secretary Nazir Ahmed and ZAB individually in the summer of 1965 to weigh the prospects of Operation Gibraltar triggering a full scale war with India, all three reassured him that no such possibility existed. Agha Shahi, however, finding himself alone with Ayub Khan without the intimidating presence of his three superiors, plucked up the courage to tell the President that in his opinion an Indian attack across the international border was very probable if the Indians found themselves squeezed in Kashmir. Later, when asked by the others what had transpired at the meeting, he lied and said that he had stuck to the script. Nazir Ahmed, with whom Agha Shahi was staying, had his doubts about whether Agha Shahi was telling the truth, hence on September 6 1965, when he awakened Agha Shahi, who was his house guest, at midnight thinking he would catch him off guard, he said, “Shahi, what did you tell the President about India attacking across the international boundary?” Quickly gathering his wits about him, a bleary eyed Agha Shahi said, “I told him what we had agreed, that India would not attack”. “Well,” said Nazir Ahmed, “they have attacked.” In the reshuffle of government that followed the war, all the others except Agha Shahi were sacked from their posts.’

The blogger-gent also points to the book by Maj-Gen Shaukat Riza (gets the spellings of his surname wrong) and says it was Gen Riza who trotted out this myth. Riza surely is not spelled Hilaly. For further confirmation he may talk to other senior diplomats since generals can’t be trusted on such matters. Incidentally, many years ago, when I read Gen Riza’s book, I was struck by his observation about Pakistan’s folly of going to war on the basis of flawed assumptions – “Somehow we had convinced ourselves that our strategic objectives were holier than India’s,” is how he put it.

I will leave out the operations part of it and how the 1st Armoured Division of both sides was mauled; or what operational and intelligence mistakes were committed by both sides. For the Indian ones, the blogger can read the Indian accounts.

Finally, before I sign off, let me set the record right for another twitter twit who wrote that my assertion that India lay prostrate during Mrs Indira Gandhi’s emergency was wrong. He should read Nirmala Lakshman’s anthology of Indian journalism and also accounts by veterans like Kuldip Nayar, one of those few who did not bend and was arrested, as were journalists KR Malkani, PK Roy, Shayam Khosla et al.

I am also happy to note that the Indian newspaper, The Indian Express, for which I write, took a bold stand. But over all, it is a matter of record that media community and trade organisations did not put up any organised resistance. In fact, the Communist Party of India and the Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) passed a resolution supporting the government’s press censorship order. There’s much else on the emergency that he might want to read; all of it is available in many books and articles penned by Indians. In fact, that two-year period offered India much self-reflection and that is extremely praiseworthy.

Self-correction is vital, in the life of a nation as much as in the life of an individual. But self-loathing is not; nor is self-pity. Correct the course we must and will, despite these urban coffee-shop revolutionaries.

The writer is Contributing Editor, The Friday Times.