Tragedy by design

We may not have achieved anything substantive in our lives, but there is one quality that no one can deny us. We have an array of people who have marshalled the art of speaking half the truth at a time, with the second part spoken only to camouflage what they had said as the first half.

In his parting public address, General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa claimed that the crisis of the (former) East Pakistan was a political failure. Obviously, he said so to exonerate the leadership in command of the military at that critical time of any responsibility for the loss of the Eastern wing of the country, now Bangladesh. Notwithstanding the pain that it causes, I have often ventured into writing on the subject, trying to bring forth the real factors that have been kept under wraps, thus blocking the initiation of a pragmatic discourse to rationalise what precipitated the crisis barely 24 years after the creation of Pakistan.

In these times, I have also realised that whatever little has been written on the subject has been mostly by people who were recruited to do the hatchet job. This has perpetuated the fallacious appraisal of a tragedy that forced away the majority part of the country from the other half. We did not as much as mourn the loss and, instead, handed over the reins of power to a person who, along with others, had been grossly guilty of playing an evil role in the sinister drama of Pakistan’s break up.

Some people call it a hybrid failure, others call it a political debacle, while yet others call it the consequence of foreign intervention. We may have a bit of each of these segments in the drama that finally unfolded on December 16 more than 50 years ago, but none of these were the exclusive reasons of the mammoth tragedy that shook the very foundations of the new-born state. The report of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission, which had been constituted to discover the underlying factors that resulted in the surrender at Dhaka, only piled on dust and was never made public. More than half of the country was lost as a consequence of meaningless discussions in the palatial drawing arenas of the political elite, and on perfecting the strategy-charts spread across in war rooms. Yet, we kept shielding unrepentant criminals responsible for a tragedy of absolute gruesome proportions – unrepentant criminals whose disciples were brought back to administer still more harrowing inflictions upon the country.

Let’s start with a few facts first. Who was the president of an undivided Pakistan through the months and years preceding the tragedy, thus fully in charge of taking political decisions that he would consider best in the interest of the state? Who was the commander-in-chief of the army and the chief martial law administrator of the country during the same period, thus fully empowered to take military decisions that he thought would contribute to safeguarding Pakistan? The person who wore all these crowns was none other than General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan. Was there a challenge to his presidency from any quarter, or to his being the chief martial law administrator of the country? None. He was in full command in the days leading up to the launch of the military action, dictating decisions which, understandably, were the outcome of consultations with his colleagues in the political and military domains.

One such person was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was his vice president and foreign minister. In his latter capacity, he was the one who tore up the Polish resolution in the Security Council, thus eliminating the last vestige of hope of saving a united Pakistan. It was not a random act. It was part of a Machiavellian strategy to dismember the country, to pave the way for him to take over as the prime minister of whatever remained of it because he would never have had the numbers to head an undivided Pakistan. He had concluded earlier that the dismemberment of the country was a prerequisite for him to become the prime minister.

This is a game that he had started playing much in advance of the launch of the military operation, in fact, immediately after the results of the elections were declared. He is the one who refused to acknowledge Sheikh Mujibur Rehman as the prime minister of an undivided Pakistan. He raised the slogan of two prime ministers in the country – Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan and Bhutto in West Pakistan. He is the one who pleaded for aborting the convening of the National Assembly session in Dhaka on March 3 that sent the former East Pakistan up in an inferno. Upon the launch of the military operation later that month, he is the one who said: “Pakistan has been saved”. Bhutto was, no doubt, an inveterate criminal, but a complicit criminal.

The arch criminal and the one who would be held responsible for Pakistan’s dismemberment was none other than General Yahya Khan who, at that moment in history, had the military and the political command vested in his person without a challenge from any quarter. If he thought there should be a political settlement of the crisis, why did he not hold the session of the parliament as had been scheduled after the elections? If he thought that it would be unwise to plunge a vastly outnumbered and out-manoeuvred army into the conflict zone, more than 1,000 miles away from the base camp with a hostile enemy territory in between, why did he not take steps to avert it? The battle was fought and lost. Pakistan was dismembered as a consequence of signing a document of military surrender in Dhaka.

It was Yahya who gave in to the villainy of Bhutto against the sane and sagacious advice of so many others who kept pleading for holding the parliament session as originally planned. Bhutto was allowed to run riot, but, in the ultimate analysis, the blame would only rest with the person who held the twin command in the political and the military domains. It is him alone who would be dubbed as the breaker of a united Pakistan. Yet, he was left unscathed while his principal co-conspirator was given the charge of the country. The rest is history.

The pain refuses to go away. It grows intense with the advent of every December, more now that the country is effectively under the siege of a bunch of convicts, criminals and absconders. The comparisons of the surrender at Dhaka with the current times are ominous.

The writer is a political and security strategist and the founder of the Regional Peace Institute