The feeling is strange. And it refuses to go. Never before did an incident have such a painful and traumatising impact as the Faizabad Dharna and the abject surrender before the clerics by the civil government brokered by its army as an institution that was sworn to lay down its life to protect the internal and external sovereignty of the state. A group of frustrated Pakistanis wanted to know from me if there ever was as humiliating a development as one witnessed at Faizabad Chowk Dharna blocking the Federal Capital and holding its nearly two million inhabitants hostage for nearly three weeks? I paused for a little while and then gathered my courage to blurt it out that perhaps the surrender brokered with two thousand mullas by the major general of Rangers was a bigger event and unparalleled tragedy then the fall of Dhaka in 1971. And what was more hurting was to see that major general disbursing money among the rabble rousers responsible for the blockade, killing of innocent citizens, torching of public property and paralysing life besides causing loss of millions in business. Although apologists for surrender in 1971 in Dhaka had not much of a case except the deliberate misadventure by the drunkard generals, their mad obduracy not to hand over power to the elected representatives of the people and their preference to lay down arms before superior fighting force with overwhelming logistical advantage for Indian army than to surrender to the verdict of ballot. Indeed, Pakistan army — not a mean fighting force by any international standard — was pitched against its own people by the ambitious military leadership. There is some wisdom in the saying of French statesman Clemenceau that war is much too serious a thing to be left in the hands of generals. Surely the generals at the helms of affair had no clue what they were to achieve or it was all by design to create a political and law and order situation to end in the fall of Dhaka. And — if at all — it was saving grace for them to surrender their arms in a war front made to order by generals ideal for Indian victory enabling Bengali Muslims to establish separate independent country. In the hind sight one wishes that it would have been better if President Ayub Khan had his way as discussed by him with his Law Minister Justice Muhammad Munir as early as 1962 that Bengali cabinet ministers be convinced to seek East Pakistan’s secession since there was no cultural or lingual compatibility between the two wings. What looked intriguing in the Faizabad episode was the reluctance and helplessness shown by both civil and military authorities — to establish the writ of the state by effectively using means available to them to disperse few hundred religious rabble rousers whose demands were becoming more oppressive by the hour I agree with the view that regretfully the Faizabad Dharna and surrender brokered by a major general of Pakistan army, would go down in Pakistan’s history as more ignominious an event then the surrender at Dhaka. At that time Pakistan army — one of the finest fighting forces in the world — had been out numbered by Indian manpower backed by Mukti Bahini and the desertions by the Bengali troops from the Pakistan army, no disruption in supplies besides additional assistance in the shape of huge Russian helicopters for transporting of Indian soldiers to East Pakistan borders and arms and ammunition. I think I wrote three articles on the Faizabad siege in this newspaper much before any serious notice was given to it. I termed the Dharna as ‘Assault on Jinnah’s Pakistan’. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Interior Minister, Information Ministry and the rest were neither here nor there. Either they were feigning clueless about the powers that be pulling the strings from behind the curtain or they were involved in the controversial amendment in the electoral laws. What looked intriguing in the Faizabad episode was the reluctance and helplessness shown by both the civil and military authorities — to establish the writ of the state by effectively using means available to them to disperse few hundred religious rabble rousers whose demands were becoming more oppressive by the hour. It seemed that the strikers were assured that if they continued for some more days, all their demands would be accepted to convert Pakistan’s democratic moorings into a theocratic state. More so — as the later public disbursement of money by a major general to the rabble rousers — clearly established the new rule of the game that hence forth people staging dharnas would get paid too. Notwithstanding what the apologists of the dharna and disbursement of money to the protestors say, there is a valid point raised by Nawaz supporters who suspect that the dharna was organised by the powers that be to subvert PML-N government although the fact that cannot be denied is that the present government would be remembered as the weakest that we ever had. The most horrendous aspect of the Faizabad siege was the fact that both the constitutionally assigned defenders of the writ of state, slept in different beds but had the same dream. They did not want to create a situation that would look like a defeat for the religious rabble rousers. As such they were allowed to lay off their siege by letting them have victory. Obviously, more of such dharnas would unfold in the country run up to the election. It not only gives the rabble rouser sense of victory but they get paid as well. The Faizabad Dharna and its fall out affects should be treated as a defining moment for the country’s future. Both the civil government and the miltablishment should be questioned by the Parliament as to why they have surrendered Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan to religious miscreants. It is rightly said that if both the civil and military authorities wanted, they could have dispersed the crowd with least use of force. They did not do it deliberately. PMLN government had deeper links with them and were conscious of their electoral power with just months to go for election in 2018. On the other hand, despite most obtrusive pressure and increasing drone attacks by the Americans, miltablishment is not willing to let go its so-called strategic assets such as Hafiz Saeed’s LeT, his Milli Muslim League now getting ready for elections and Labaik Party. At the end of the day loser will be Quaid’s secular and liberal Pakistan. The writer is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist Published in Daily Times, December 6th 2017.