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Sensational disclosures which the media enthusiastically retail on the publication of memoirs tend to overshadow their solid contents; their more meaningful disclosures for historians; the insights and, not least, revelations of the writer's mind set.
Muhammad Ayub Khan was an ambitious soldier. He was an Army Chief who became Defence Minister thanks to an autocratic Governor-General, Ghulam Mohammad. In 1958, he staged the first army coup in complicity with President Iskandar Mirza whom he ousted a few days later. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, M. Munir, was privy to the coup. The G.G. had prepared the path by sacking Prime Minister Nazimuddin in 1953 and dissolving the Constituent Assembly in 1954. Ayub Khan launched the Kashmir war of 1965. When India retaliated by marching on Lahore, the only way it could defend itself, Ayub Khan cried aggression.
He bitterly regretted his folly. It laid the seeds of secession of East Pakistan, destabilised the polity, set back the country's development and poisoned relations with India. The irony is that he was genuinely committed to peace and to a Kashmir settlement and was a foe of the bigoted mullah.
The memoirs reflect the split personality. They retail coarse comments of the kind that are happily rare, if not absent, now: "In order to understand the Hindu mentality you have to read a book called Arthashastra, written by the renowned Hindu political philosopher called Chanakya who was born in ancient times. Though his name was Chanakya, he was proud to call himself Kautilya, and so he is known up to this day. The meaning of Kautilya is `a deceitful trickster'. He laid down the following basic principles for foreign relations." There follows a distorted eight-point summary ending with this falsehood: "The modern world blames Machiavelli for political deviousness and devilry because they have not heard of Kautilya. I am told Pandit Nehru used to keep a copy of Arthashastra on his bedside table." This is bigotry plus ignorance. The man never read Nehru's writings. Worse, it was an invention.
He denounced a section of his own nation, Bengalis, in terms that verged on abuse. "The fact of the matter is that from the day Pakistan came into being, Bengali nationalism also took birth and Muslim nationalism began to be regarded as a deadly poison for it. The agitations like that on the language question and other issues were only a camouflage to cover this feeling and to show hostility to West Pakistan and non-Bengali Muslims on any pretext. So in reality they are not six points but only one-point. They had no intention of making a Muslim nation and living with West Pakistan."
This is not all. Read this : "When thinking of problems of East Pakistan one cannot help feeling that their urge to isolate themselves from West Pakistan and revert to Hindu language and culture is close to the fact that they have no culture and language of their own nor have they been able to assimilate the culture of the Muslims of the subcontinent by turning their back on Urdu." He lauds Rajputs, yet writes that "no Hindu can shake out of caste and class restrictions."
When East Pakistan rose in revolt, he wrote with a forked nib: now counselling use of the mailed fist, now conciliation. He had been ousted from power by Yahya Khan in March 1969. Realism was ever mixed with flights of fantasy. Sample this "the late Qasim Rizvi who was regarded a tiger and hero of Hyderabad Deccan, in his later life took to touting and taking bribes from people for putting in a word with magistrates, etc. I could not believe my ears. If true then the man must either have been very hard up or this was the other facet of his character. His power of leadership and organisational ability and personal courage is very much applauded in Hyderabad. But in reality he was responsible for the ruination of Muslims in Hyderabad Deccan. It was through his lack of realism, stubbornness and short-sightedness that rape of Hyderabad Deccan by the Indian army took place"e. minethroughout But Rizvi was a pawn. The Nizam and his P.M., Laik Ali, were responsible, most of all Mohammed Ali Jinnah who egged them on and foiled a Kashmir accord in the bargain. In that bargain, offered to him by Mountbatten on 1 November 1947 at Lahore Pakistan might well have got Kashmir and the related issues of Hyderabad and Junagadh would have been settled for good.
There is no doubt that the prime instigator of the 1965 commando adventure in Pakistan in August followed by a regular army attack the next month was Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto aided by his alter ego Foreign Secretary Aziz Ahmed. But Ayub's alter ego, Altaf Gauhar's biography Ayub Khan reveals in detail that he was privy to the plans and approved of them. The march towards Jaurian was Ayub khan's bright idea. Yet, in 1973 he records : "Aziz Ahmad is thinking of writing a book on the 1965 war and asked if I could provide some material, especially on how the war started. I very nearly told him that it was his persistence as foreign secretary that was the main cause. However, I told him to get GHQ [General Headquarters] permission before he started on such as project." In 1966 Ayub "told the principal secretary to constitute a committee to determine the sequence of events leading to fighting in Kashmir. Kashmir and Indian attack against Pakistan."
Pakistan's armour entered Jammu on 1 September 1965; India's march towards Lahore began on 6 September. Amazingly, 6 September is still celebrated as Defence Day in Pakistan. This is of a piece with the Indian view that the Bangladesh war began with with Pakistan's attack on 3 December 1971. The world at large puts the starting point at 21 November 1971 when India's armour entered the then East Pakistan. Ayub Khan knew he had gambled and lost. India was not "crippled". Pakistan lost a lot. "We had enhausted our reserves while fighting over a front of over 1200 miles. Critical ammunition was running short. India had accepted ceasefire on 15th September and world powers pressure on us was suffocating. Under such circumstances, what alternative did we have other than accepting a ceasefire and getting our army back to re-equip and retrain? We did not get Kashmir but we saved Pakistan and crippled India economically and militarily for its folly. What more was expected from us?"
There are interesting tit-bits about peace mission of Gen. K. M. Cariappa and C. C. Desai, ICS, of Kulsum Sayani of Bombay and Rajmohan Gandhi's visit in December 1968. "A grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who is also the grandson of Rajagopalachari, and runs an MRA institution in Panchgani near Poona, came to see me to discuss Indo-Pak relations. He started off by saying that in our (... ) relations India was the main culprit. Her intolerant, bigoted attitude and her going back on solemn promises was the root cause of the Kashmir debacle and bad relations. There were a lot among the educated classes against Pakistan. People like him were doing their best to change this mentality and had made some dent but the odds against them were great."
The most important disclosures for the historian are the detailed account of the Soviet-Pakistan rapproachement (since April 1965) culminating in the Soviet Union's decision to give arms to Pakistan in 1968 overriding India's objections. Prime Minister Kosygin respected Ayub Khan and was sorry when he lost power. He even took up on Pakistan's behalf the Ganga waters question with Indira Gandhi in April 1968. "Though not giving up India, he expressed his government's policy to give military hardware to Pakistan of a limited nature. Hundred tanks, sixty 130 mm guns, eighteen SU-7 fighter aircraft and some AN-12 transport aircraft with ammunition etc. were promised. I told him what our requirements were. He promised these would be considered by his colleagues."
The U.S. had mixed feelings about Ayub Khan because he had established an entente cordiale with China. "I remember during the last presidential elections in 1965, the American ambassador told me plainly that they will not operate against me but they will not work for me either. The meaning of that was plain" that they had created the organisation and ability to do either. A frightening thought. Some people are of the view that the Americans have been instrumental in fanning the present discontent in the country. It is believed that they supported Bhutto to expose the leftists on the pattern of Indonesia so that the rightists could deal with them. Then they switched over support to Asghar as it suited their requirement... Previously, the communists and especially the Russians used to be blamed for such activities but it seems now the Americans have surpassed them in this technique and skill." They are still at it.
Ayub Khan's lasting achievement in the Family Laws Ordinance which gives Muslim women in Pakistan greater rights than they enjoy in India. In this he was a liberal. "Dr. Fazlur Rahman, director of the Islamic Research Institute, came under countrywide adverse criticism fanned by the ignorant and politically motivated mullahs. The allegations, which were totally false, were made against some remarks made in his book, Islam, which he wrote some years ago and which was later published by the Oxford University Press. This book is a highly scholarly work written for an European audience and an attempt to remove some false impressions about Islam. When the criticism gained momentum he held two press conferences refuting all the allegations. These clarifications would have satisfied any honest critic, but the mullah, who regards any original and objective thinking on Islam as his deadly enemy, was not going to be pacified. This sort of argument is just the grist he wants for his mill.
Meanwhile, the administrators at the centre and the provinces got cold feet. Some of them persuaded the doctor to resign. He must have also got frightened. After all, it is not easy to stand up to criticism based on ignorance and prejudice. So I had to accept his resignation with great reluctance in the belief that he will be freer to attack the citadel of ignorance and fanaticism from outside the governmental sphere. Meanwhile, it is quite clear that any form of research on Islam which inevitably leads to new interpretations has no chance of acceptance in this priest ridden and ignorant society. These people will not allow Islam to become a vehicle of progress. What will be the future of such an Islam in the age of reason and science is not difficult to predict." That was 40 years ago Dr. Rahman moved to Chicago University and won undying international fame for his scholarship.
Another passage bears quotation in extenso because it is relevant to the debate in the entire Muslim world. "There is a natural and understandable demand for introduction of Islamic laws, fiqh, in the country. So far so good, but the trouble arises in the choice of acceptance of fiqh as every sect has its own. If Hanfia, the fiqh of the majority, is enforced the others would refuse to accept and rebel. Some people have suggested that the answer lies in discarding all the existing fiqhs which in any case are based on Sunnah and Shariah that at times contradict the Quran and were compiled about 250 years after the death of the Holy Prophet based on hearsay and perhaps fabrications and a new fiqh be drawn up by mutual consultation based on the Quran and in the light of present day circumstances. This is easier said than done. If it were possible for Muslims to be prepared to accept such a solution bitter feuds that arose over the last 14 centuries would have been avoided and unity of the millat maintained.
"The truth is that if no one fiqh is universally acceptable an agreed new fiqh cannot be evolved. We shall be left with no alternative but to rely on secular public laws for now despite lip service to the contrary. Sectarianism, in which powerful elements have vested interests, has been and will continue to remain the bane of Muslim history. People quote the example of Saudi Arabia for the imposition of Shariah, little realising that they are practically all Wahabis, in other words one sect subject to and willing to accept the same code. I suppose this problem would never be solved and therefore the controversy will never end in Pakistan and our politics would continue to be bedevilled by it. So instead of unifying it will be a disintergrating factor like so many other aberrations, such as regionalism, provincialism, linguistic problems, tribalism and individualism and class hatred that have gripped the people's minds."
Was this the real Ayuh? But read this: "The 1st Beesakh, I gather, was celebrated in the old days by both Hindus and Muslims. It has now assumed a new political colour under the influence of the movement for Bengali culture. Some aspects of the 1st Beesakh celebrations do indeed show Hindu influence. Cultural diversity is a fact of life in Pakistan. Various regions in Pakistan have distinct cultural features, not all of them deriving from purely Islamic traditions. We have to accept these cultural diversities because they form part of a larger and broader entity, the overall cultural unity of Pakistan."
He who enacted repressive press laws, drafted by Altaf Gauhar who reinverted himself as an intellectual after retirement, wrote in April 1970: "One would like to see much more frankness and critical appraisal of our weak and strong points like the way Nirad Chaudhuri has done about Hindu society in his book, Land of Circe [LoC]. This is refreshing and instructive to read. Most of Muslim history is the work of commissioned or paid people therefore either an eulogy or a cover up is effected. Even when written by scholars it is either defensive or an apologia. Critical inquiry and statement of unpleasant truths is absent. Even Ibn Khaldun when writing about controversial religious matters hedges and leaves by stating different points of view without giving his own judgement."
This is a give away. He had clearly not read Ibn Khaldun, who never concealed his opinions, yet Ayuh holds forth on him. That sums up Ayub Khan - opinionated, well meaning, now statesman like, now foolish.
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