Where were you when Musharraf signed out?
Jyoti Malhotra -
Monday, August 18, 2008 11:05 PM
Where were you when the lights went out on Pervez Musharraf? (It’s the kind of question that begs several clichés : end of an era, crossroads of history, change of guard, etc)
If you were in the Foreign Office establishment, you would get several answers. External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was on his way back from Jangipur, his constituency in West Bengal. Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon, along with the PM’s special envoy Shyam Saran were putting together a presentation on India’s impeccable nuclear record that they hope will persuade the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, at its plenary session in Berlin on August 21, to allow India special entry into the exclusive club of nuclear weapon powers. (Since India is not even a member of the NSG, such a presentation to the plenary is more than unusual.) The joint secretary in charge of Pakistan was on an extended Independence Day weekend.
No wonder Foreign Office spokesman Navtej Sarna refused comment on one of the most anticipated days in South Asia’s history. Considering the Foreign Office has over the last few days angrily spat at Pakistan for commenting on the separatist uprising in Kashmir, it must have thought better than to publicly remark on Pakistan’s own political transition.
South Block was so still on Monday afternoon, it seemed it had gone to sleep in the somnolent humidity of a robust monsoon. But perhaps that was also part of a complicated media game-plan.
By Pakistan standards, the Musharraf baton handover has been pretty smooth. General Ashfaq Kiyani’s all-powerful army stayed neutral, although it seemed as if a deal had been struck with the revenging Nawaz Sharif. Certainly, the army didn’t want a former chief to be impeached, for that would have given the impression it had lost control of Pakistan. Even if Kiyani believes he heads a “professional” army and unlike Musharraf, doesn’t have personal ambitions, he is hardly going to go too far from General Zia ul-Haq’s maxim of “most countries have armies, in Pakistan, the army has a country.”
So, in exchange for an honourable exit, protection for himself and his family and a quiet life in a farmhouse outside Islamabad in a village called Chak Shehzad, it is said, Musharraf agreed to go. His threat to invoke the infamous Article 58 2(B) in the Pakistani constitution which allows the President to dissolve an elected Parliament, remained just that.
The histrionics of October 12,1999, when Nawaz Sharif had moved against Musharraf as he was flying back from a trip to Colombo and Musharraf responded with a counter-coup, were a sliver of memory from the much-maligned past. In this version of a sacking, the former commando started his 75-minute speech with considerable bravado at 12.45 pm IST, reeling off his achievements in the manner of a municipal commissioner (hundreds of kms of roads had been built, hundreds of watts of electricity had been produced, so many new dams had been commissioned, even a new national gallery in Islamabad had been opened… ending his speech with how much he loved Pakistan, mujhe Pakistan se ishq hai, he said). But as he droned on and on, he began to visibly wilt. Even after he’d said “khuda hafiz” and saluted his Army twice, he didn’t seem to know how to let go. Perhaps a sense of doomsday was setting in as he realized that this was it. Time’s up. Day’s done. The page had turned. History hadn’t even spared Musharraf.
The Americans, it seems, had also agreed Musharraf was yesterday's news when Pakistan PM Yousuf Raza Gilani went to Washington a couple of weeks ago. Only, and perhaps for old time’s sake, Bush had asked Gilani to “make it humane” when his party finally wielded the knife. The end, it was said, was brokered by a former British high commissioner to Islamabad, Mark Lyall Grant -- perhaps one part of the American yin-yang whole -- who was posted in Islamabad a couple of years ago.