Daily Times

When you have been gone for a decade, people being to miss you. A decade after Field MarshalAyub resigned, signs began to appear on trucks saying, “We began to miss you once you were gone.”

Is nostalgia a human trait? Musharraf stepped down on the 18th of August, 2008 and some people are missing him.

He had come to power through a coup after having masterminded the failed Kargil incursion into Indian Kashmir. That intrusion had been condemned globally. Even China, Pakistan’s all-weather friend, had not supported it.

His tenure had begun on the 12th of October, 1999 when he deposed Nawaz Sharif. He said he was forced to act because Nawaz had removed him from his position while he was abroad and denied his aircraft permission to land.

In his opening speech, the reluctant coup maker said that the armed forces had never let Pakistan down. His polite demeanor masked an authoritarian streak as a reporter found out when he asked the general about the army’s humiliating surrender in 1971. The response was brusque, “Why should we discuss things that happened such a long time ago.”

A few days after his takeover, he told a British reporter that it was “a good feeling to be in charge.” Unlike prior dictators who had given themselves the title of Chief Martial Law Administrator, he entitled himself a bit more modestly as the Chief Executive.

Sharif was packed off to Saudi Arabia. Musharraf took on the title of President in June 2001. In August 2002 he amended the constitution through the Legal Framework Order.

After Mukhtaran Mai was gang-raped in 2002, she was invited to an overseas tour by Amnesty International. Musharraf would have none of it. He put her name on the Exit Control List, a staple of Pakistani authoritarianism. The general, while traveling abroad, admitted that he did not want Mai traveling abroad and projecting “a bad image of Pakistan.”

Musharraf had himself pictured holding his pet dogs, exuding a modern image. But when US President Bill Clinton visited India for five days, he stopped in Pakistan for all of five hours. As noted by Shaukat Aziz in his memoir, Clinton did not want to have himself photographed with the dictator.

Musharraf’s fortunes turned around after the attacks of 9/11 on the US, just like they had turned around for another dictator, General Zia, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Musharraf immediately aligned himself with the US and was photographed with President Bush on the lawns of the White House. In 2004, Islamabad was shut down as Bush was in town for all of 24 hours. He was pictured trying his hand at cricket.

But despite Musharraf’s talk of “enlightened moderation, he failed to reign in the terrorists who were operating from Pakistani soil. In December 2001, the Indian parliament was attacked. War loomed on the horizon and at one million soldiers were deployed across the border.

Charged with treason, Musharraf lives in the Gulf, watches cricket, attends weddings and refuses to return. Is it a rational to yearn for a repeat of his tenure?

Despite his talk of enlightened moderation, he remained a supporter of the country’s ancient blasphemy law, even after he had left office. Early in his rule, Professor Muhammad Yunus had been imprisoned under that law and sentenced to death. Musharraf did little to release him from prison, despite all this commando swagger. A commentator acidly noted, a dictator is not a dictator when he is unable to get things done.

He visited the US in 2003 with Shaukat Aziz first as his special advisor. Aziz would later become his finance minister and then prime minister. Musharraf was relishing the publicity and named his autobiography after a Clint Eastwood film.

He sought to make peace with India but irritated his hosts at Agra by speaking to the press. He came home empty handed.

In 2004, he single-handedly put the blame for nuclear proliferation on Dr. A. Q. Khan, a national hero. Dr. Khan could not have done what he stood accused of doing without Musharraf’s knowledge. Shaming him publically ultimately rebounded on Musharraf.

In August 2006, the army killed Nawab Akbar Bugti in Baluchistan on his orders. TIME magazine noted, “Bugti was not just a local, or even a Baluch hero, but a nationally respected politician… In using force to take out the small problem of an avowedly secular and anti-Taliban insurgent group … the military-led government of President Pervez Musharraf may find that it has simply highlighted the larger issue of military rule on the day before Musharraf’s hand-picked Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz faces a vote of no-confidence in Parliament.

In July 2007, the army bungled the Lal Masjid operation. But he kept on wearing the uniform, saying it was his second skin. In November 2007, under US pressure, he took it off.

He also agreed to bring Benazir Bhutto back into the country. She was expected to win the elections and split power with him. Unfortunately, she was killed just a month later while campaigning in Rawalpindi. Musharraf stood accused of not having provided insufficient security to her.

Musharraf’s style at press conferences was unlike that of any prior dictator. A British newspaper observed: “He is personable and articulate, a master of the extended soliloquy that is a Musharraf press conference.”

When making big decisions, Musharraf would quote Napoleon and say that every decision is ultimately a leap in the dark. And so it was that he fired the Chief Justice not once but twice and then went on to declare a state of emergency. But he had lost all his credibility and was facing impeachment. That’s when he stepped down.

Musharraf’s ill deeds have been forgotten. All that is being remembered by some is his economic miracle. The miracle was a mirage. Economic growth fluctuated widely during his tenure. It reached a peak in 2005 and then declined in every succeeding year. In only two years did the annual growth rate exceed 7%. In most years it was less than 5%. In two years, it was less than 2%.

As president, Musharraf was a voluble speaker who had an opinion on just about every issue. He kept talking even after he had stepped down and notably opined on the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden. He kept himself in the limelight by going on a public speaking frenzy in the US and was happy to even speak even at obscure colleges as long as they gave him the proverbial hundred grand. Charged with treason, he lives in the Gulf, watches cricket, attends weddings and refuses to return.

Is it a rational to yearn for a repeat of his tenure?

The writer can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, January 27^th 2019.