With Malice Towards One And All: Pakistan and us-Khushwant Singh
I watched an interview given by General Pervez Musharraf to the BBC. I could not believe my ears when he said more than once that in Kargil the Pakistani army had achieved every one of its objectives and was totally successful.
When he repeated the statement he added Mujahideen (holy warriors) to the victors. It sounded very odd because for weeks after the operation began, spokesperson of the Pakistan government denied the involvement of their army personnel in the adventure and were reluctant to accept bodies of its soldiers killed in battle.
While we claim we drove them out of our territory to the last man, General Musharraf has the cheek to tell the world that Pakistan gained a great victory in Kargil.
Once in Bombay I was invited to a reception given by the Consul General of Pakistan. Talking to some guests, I discovered the reception was the anniversary of Pakistan?s victory over India in the 1965 war.
I was flabbergasted. In the few weeks the war has lasted India had occupied large parts of Pak territory and our army was close to the suburbs of Lahore when the agreement to ceasefire was signed.
In the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh, Pakistani media, official and non-official, kept regaling their audiences of the great victories the Pakistani army and Air Force were achieving over us. This went on till Dhaka fell and the abject surrender of the Pakistani army in what was East Pakistan.
I would not be too surprised if after some years Pakistanis claimed that as well as a glorious victory over India. We may well ask how much trust do the common people of Pakistan repose in the pronouncements of its civilian and military rulers?
The Pakistanis' attitudes to their rulers and changes of government are different from ours. I was in Pakistan for a few days during the rule of General Ayub Khan. I noticed no resentment against military dictatorship. Nor any great jubilation when his government fell.
I was again in Pakistan during the reign of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. I heard a lot of stories of his profligacy, womanising and discourtesy towards his ministers. No one did more than just gossip about them. I was also there when he was hanged. There was a demonstration in Rawalpindi led by women in burqahs.
On the Friday following his execution I was in Karachi, Bhutto's stamping ground. Cinemas were open, mosques were full for the Juma Namaaz - as if nothing outward had happened.
I visited Pakistan a couple of times during General Zia-ul Haq's regime. I found no signs of resentment against the dictator. When he was killed there was no breast-beating. So it should come as no surprise that no tears were shed on Nawaz Sharif's dethroning. Nor will there be any when Pervez Musharraf gets the order of the boot on his flabby buttocks.
We Indians are the same kind of people as the Pakistanis but our experiences of governance have been different. Save for two years of emergency rule we have never known dictatorship. Even in those years a large number of people including George Fernandes, Viren Shah and others carried on anti-government underground activity.
The Akalis organised satyagraha and sent thousands of passive resisters to jail. Despite the assassinations of two Prime Ministers, we were able to install successive governments peacefully. However tempting it may be to exult over Pakistan's immaturity and pat our backs for having attained adult status, we must guard against complacency. Our enemies are within us: religious intolerance, lack of respect for law, too much talk, too little action.
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