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Ikram-ul-Majeed Sehgal

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Air Marshal (Retd)
Mohammad Asghar Khan

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Brig (Retd)TH Siddiqi
Lt Gen (Retd) Imtiaz Waraich

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Ardeshir Cowasjee
Arif Nizami
Ms Maleeha Lodhi
Ms Nasim Zehra
Hameed Haroon
Humayun Gauhar
Ambassador (Retd) Afzal Mahmood
Brig (Retd) Saeed Ismat, SJ

Panel of Contributing Editors
Air Marshal (Retd) Ayaz A. Khan
Vice Adm (Retd) IF Quadir
Dr Shireen Mazari
Farhan Bokhari

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Col (Retd) EAS Bokhari
Col (Retd) Abdul Qayyum
Dr. Matiur Rahman
Ms Amina Jilani
Capt (Retd) A.A. Jilani

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Ms Ambreen Jahangir

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Syed Tauseef  Muhammad Ali

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Dear Readers,

Hometruths are hard to ignore. One of them is that weak governments can never negotiate anything from a position of strength and even if they do manage an agreement, it will be never accepted by the Opposition in their own country. On the other hand, BJP represents a fairly strong coalition of Centre - Right parties in India and is capable of carrying the populace in any compromise it comes to with Pakistan over Kashmir, similarly in Pakistan only a military regime can come to any acceptable solution with respect to the simmering dispute. Pakistan is to be commended for immediately offering aid for the Gujarat earthquake tragedy, India is to be commended for accepting it. That's a start anyway! Afghanistan is again the subject of attention, sanctions have been imposed by UN fiat from Jan 19 over the issue of Osama Bin Laden. While one does not agree with the Taliban over this continuing terrorist issue or their attitude towards women in general but we find it counter-productive that they should be so isolated. The net result may well be more extremism. Instead we should resort to constructive engagement by keeping a dialogue going in order to bring the Taliban in from the cold and into the 21st century. As support of our contention, we are privileged to have an exclusive FIRST, a landmark interview of the Afghan Foreign Minister conducted by Ms Nasim Zehra, a member of DJ's Board of Editorial Advisors. Ms Nasim Zehra was quite pointed and searching in her questions, in return Mullah Muttawakil was very candid and forthcoming. Nasim followed it up by one of the finest expositions of Pakistan's Afghan Policy in recent times. We are using both as our COVER STORY. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report has been attracting a lot of attention. I am taking the liberty of reproducing an article for THE NATION entitled "GIVE THE ARMY A BREAK" that I wrote recently.

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission (HRC) Report has been used for three decades to blackmail the Pakistan Army, the eventual publication of this Sword of Damocles was an anti-climax, confirming what we already knew, no startling revelations. Read minutely it completed the denouement of the leadership of Pakistan in 1971, both political and military. A natural self-cleansing process has ensured not one among the present military hierarchy is a veteran of Indian captivity, in any case the then junior leadership, rank and file, came out alright. The HRC Report was meant to give the Army a killing blow, dutifully exploited by those with vested interest, politicians in Pakistan and in India the Establishment, an unlikely alliance with widely differing aims and objectives. Let’s not be selective about reading between the lines, no one came off looking good, in Pakistan and in Bangladesh, or for that matter, in India.

Soldiers straying into civilian life while in uniform delude themselves they are masters of the political game, forgetting Col Otto von Skorzeny’s maxim, “Politics is the soldier’s curse”. Soldiers imposing martial law start by pulling the strings but end up as puppets on a string themselves. The 1970 Elections exposed the polarization between the two wings of Pakistan, the Awami League (AL) bidding for greater autonomy in the East with its “Six Points” and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) encouraging the mass psyche in West Pakistan to aspire for “Roti, Kapra aur Makan” (Food, Clothing and Shelter). The Quaid’s Muslim League, a Party that he would have hardly recognized, had remained afloat on the diminishing returns of its lost glory, slipped virtually into oblivion. According to Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan, once the 1970 elections, considered the most fair in Pakistan’s history, were over, power should have been transferred to the majority party but wasn’t. A minority that for nearly a quarter of a century had usurped the powers of the majority was in no mood to behave like a minority. Across thousand miles of hostile territory and in a population alienated by misrule till in 1971 East Pakistan, March 25 dissolved into the brutality of civil war making the entire Bengali population bitterly hostile. The Army’s mission in 1971 was a lost cause before it even began to fight. After March 25 and the forcible separation of its Bengali units by the actions of those with myopic vision, the Army ceased to be national in its 1947 Pakistani character and became (and behaved) in word and deed as an occupation force.

Was March 25, 1971 avoidable? Absolutely not, on a collision course because of a series of mistakes made by almost everyone concerned and virtually besieged in Dhaka Cantonment (and other cantonments in Comilla, Chittagong, Jessore and Rangpur) from  March 2 onwards, the Army had no way to re-establish authority except by blasting their way through the AL barricades. In the pure military sense the action was correct but had a strong element of overkill. Politically it was a catastrophe as it signalled the beginning of the end of Pakistan as an entity, only the ringing down of the final curtain being delayed till December 16, 1971. All civil wars are bloody and brutal, 1971 was no exception. The Army will always carry the burden of its surrender in East Pakistan as well as the horrific slaughter of thousands and thousands of innocent Bengali non-combatants. A lot of very bad things happened, some have been documented in the Report, the shame of it will tarnish the Army’s history.  On the other hand thousands of non-combatant non-Bengalis, mostly old men, women and children, were also mercilessly butchered by raging mobs led by AL cadres throughout East Pakistan, this blood-stained episode cannot be swept under the rug and anyone claiming otherwise is a hypocrite of the worst kind. The greater culpability still lies with the Pakistan Army, a disciplined force as opposed to the unrestrained fury of marauding mobs. Nobody in his right mind can justify the horror visited on civilians (Bengali and non-Bengali) in East Pakistan, it is time to set their ghosts to rest instead of resurrecting them to haunt the sub-continent again and again. India must take full responsibility for stoking the fires of 1971, the strategic aim of dismembering Pakistan was accomplished by foul means rather than fair, with very direct involvement in the affairs of East Pakistan, first through the Border Security Force (BSF) and then the Indian Army, in control and in support of guerilla operations (March 1971 to November 1971). Getting bogged down in counter guerilla-operations, the Pakistan Army unfortunately created conditions ripe for the Indians to first launch an undeclared conventional war with overwhelming force on November 21, 1971 with limited use of air power, then convert it into a set-piece concentric offensive over a broad front on declaration of war by Pakistan on December 3, 1971. Before the entire Eastern Command surrendered on December 16, 1971, how many units and/or sub-units and/or even individual soldiers of the Pakistan army were earlier captured by the Indians? The Pakistan Army fought and fought well, as has been repeatedly stated by many unbiased Indian military commentators but defeat was inevitable, only a question of time. Locked into an atrocious strategic campaign (the defence of the East lies in the West) and out-manoeuvred tactically by shunning the concept of interior lines of defence and trying to defend “every inch” of territory, Commander Eastern Command was mentally and militarily incapable of switching to a systematic defence to follow the conduct of a brutal civil war and was bluffed into captivity when it could have honourably kept on fighting for a few more weeks. Labelled morally bankrupt, how many officers have been named in the Report indulging in loot and plunder, pillage and rape? One cannot condemn the whole Army because a few scum of this Earth went beyond the pale of military discipline and civil morals.

Thank God the Report has finally been seen in the light of day, it is time to get it over and done with. We cannot ever forget 1971, one should never forget 1971 but it is time to forgive and get on with our lives. India gained tactical advantage by decapitating Pakistan, but history may still record it could turn out to be a strategic blunder of consequence, setting a gory precedent for India’s own disintegration. From the ashes of 1971 rose two strong Muslim nations, not susceptible to blackmail as separate wings of one nation. Are the people of Bangladesh pro-Indian or pro-Pakistani? As a straw poll, will someone please come and see a cricket or hockey match between India and Pakistan with me in the same Dhaka stadium that Indira Gandhi took salute from the victorious Indian Army in January 1972? India set a precedent by annunciating the concept of freedom of the people according to their will, should the concept of 1971 be emulated in Kashmir and Punjab, in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, in Gorkhaland, Bodoland and Assam, etc to name only a few States, where bloody insurrections are taking place? Will the Indian media pressurize the Indian Government for a number of HRC-type Commissions to make independent, verifiable reports with respect to atrocities committed by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces in many States, some out of bounds to foreigners for over 50 years? Will the Indian Army be honest about the many murders, arson, rape, abduction, pillage and loot committed by its personnel in bloodily suppressing the various insurrections, the majority going unpunished and even un-reported? And forget the targeting of Muslims only, Nagas, Manipuris, Mizos are Christians, Gorkhas and Bodos are mainly Buddhist, many other minorities have been victimized — and what about low caste Hindus and Sikhs? The Indian media cocoons the Indian Army by a conspiracy of silence while being self-righteous about the Pakistan Army, a selective accountability with a case of severe memory lapse, coupled with blind-siding by those whose only aim is to malign the Pakistan Army.

The Pakistan Army should expect no quarter, it is not likely to get any as the sole remaining obstacle to Indian hegemony in the region. The intelligentsia in Pakistan must wake up to this reality and stop exorcising ghosts that damage the national fabric, especially at a time of deep political and economic crises. Maturity and responsibility must dictate the national conscience in being not only fair but protective about the one institution which is always ready for the supreme sacrifice for the nation. The HRC Report is nothing to be proud of, rather a matter of living shame, but the Army of 2001 is not the same as the Army of 1971 and why indulge in self-flagellation just for the sake of self-denouement? Self-portraits are always ugly to behold but this has to be put behind us, time now to get on with our lives for the future of our children. The future is there, only possible if we stand together in protecting the fair name of this Army. Give the Army a break!