The most famous, and the most romantic, of the Crusades was the five-year duel between the Islamic coalition of Saladin (it was a coalition: Some of Saladin’s troops came from as far away as India) and the Christian alliance under Richard II of England (England; Britain did not exist in the 11th century). Some of the romance about that contest is true. During Richard’s last, and most desperate battle, when he was outnumbered, surrounded and surprised by Muslim forces and fought back like a lionheart, Saladin was watching the ebb and flow of the day from a mound.
At its fiercest moment, Richard was unhorsed and therefore at the mercy of the Muslims. Saladin told his brother Malek, who was beside him, to take the two best Arab horses he had and give them to Richard immediately. A king as brave as Richard, said Saladin, should not fight without a horse. That gesture saved the Lionheart’s life.
Richard always wanted talks with Saladin, and even insisted on them. But Saladin assigned all negotiations with the Christian king to his brother Malek. His reason was splendid: After kings meet, he said, they should never again have a reason for war.
Moral of the story? No matter what US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and about three thousand other dignitaries who have visited India and Pakistan ever since the two threatened to blow each other up say, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf should not meet until they have decided that they will not attempt war under their watch. We cannot expect more. We should not expect less.
President Musharraf has created the conditions for another dialogue with a remarkable speech that will enter the history books of Pakistan. And remain there, at least until some successor tries to erase it, just as General-President Zia-ul Haq tried to erase Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech at the opening session of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The pairing is not accidental. The two speeches, both made without a text, both offered from the heart and mind, sought to set a course for their country that was sane, that was rational, that was modern and that could have prevented so much of the tragedy that has overtaken a country that the two men were privileged to lead. Ever since Pakistan was born, it has been searching for a destiny through the muddled confusion of some criminally exploitative leaders, with the uncertain help of an ideology that eluded concrete definition. Jinnah was so specific that he stunned some of those who sat there listening to him. If Pakistan’s leaders worked for the masses instead of themselves, he said, and if they treated all citizens, whether Hindus or Muslims, as equals, then, said Jinnah, there would come a day when Muslims would cease to be Muslims and Hindus cease to be Hindus in the political sense, and Pakistan would have unity as well as prosperity. Jinnah’s vision died with his death. Gen. Zia’s censors sent out word to newspapers not to mention this speech in any of the traditional articles that would be written on Jinnah’s birthday. Their idea of Pakistan was darker; they wanted an exclusive zone that would become a haven for various kinds of jihad. The Kalashnikov was the sword of their permanent war; and there was no space for the pen, except as a regressive weapon for fundamentalist indoctrination.
In his first remarks after becoming Chief Executive of his country, literally out of the blue, President Musharraf made it a point to mention the Turkish patriot who had saved his nation from dismemberment by the victors of World War I, and then dragged it (sometimes with excessive force) into a modern political culture.
When Jinnah was in self-imposed exile in London in the first half of the 1930s, he too discovered Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, through a biography titled Gray Wolf: An Intimate Study of a Dictator by H.C. Armstrong. According to Stanley Wolpert’s biography of the founder of Pakistan, Jinnah told his sister Fatima that if he ever got as much power as Ataturk, he would westernize Indian Muslims. Westernize is not an accurate description of what Jinnah was talking about; he meant "modernize." The two do not have to be synonymous, and so much confusion arises because they are misinterpreted to mean the same thing. As President Musharraf hinted without expanding, the Islamic world was not westernized when for 600 years it transferred technology to Europe. His next sentence was sardonic and went something like, "Abhi jo haal hai, aap jaante hain."
The speech was important not as course correction for relations between India and Pakistan, but as course correction for the president’s own country. The first can follow from the second. But in both its dimensions, it was a speech that perhaps could only have been made by a man secure not only in his convictions but also in his authority. In other words, in the context of Pakistan, a leader of the armed forces. The Pakistan Army, like any other institution, lives partly on self-comforting history. Its formative memory of India is denial.
The British Indian Army was some 2.5 million strong at the height of World War II, and 400,000 after demobilization. Pakistan got 140,000 troops; India the rest. The security of Pakistan has been its elemental, and justified rationale. But it also, from the very beginning, confused that legitimate with a touch of illegitimate bravado that confused defense with offense, and justified protection to cross-border maneuvers, whether in 1947, 1965 or through the 1990s. There was an implicit signal in president (or should we call him general here?) Musharraf’s speech that that phase was also over. The Pakistan armed forces would defend their borders to the last inch, as they are oath-bound to do, and no more. The rest, including the dispute over Kashmir, will be left to governments, rather than the armed forces. This again is a significant difference and will be a hinge factor in Indo-Pak relations once India is convinced of its bona fides. Evidence will come with time. Not too much time, but not too little either. The positioning and repositioning on critical issues is not over yet. The India-Pakistan equation is both too murky and too emotional to be washed clean by one speech, however sincere it might be.
There is also a paradox that needs to be flagged. President Musharraf combines in his person the roles of head of government and de facto (not de jure) Chief of the Army. The differing lines of policy between the government and the armed forces on a matter as sensitive as Kashmir can be merged into one as long as the current dispensation lasts. But is this dispensation now going to be permanent feature of Pakistan’s polity? How does this square with the need for democracy, which every leader of a coup pays lip service to? Or is the Ataturk model going to be followed rigidly, where modernization will be controlled and implemented by military officers who are beyond the reach of public opinion?
Popularity is a fragile fact, and therefore accountability is critical to long-term stability. If President Musharraf is true to his dream for his country, then he must also appreciate that this dream can be best protected by the goodwill of the people, and such goodwill can only be sustained through the democratic process. Pakistan cannot become a model, modern Muslim country without democracy, can it? This means that either President Musharraf will have to participate in that process to get the sanction of the people or cede power. The difficulties of both options do not need reiteration.
President Musharraf has made an important and symbolic decision about the future of Pakistan’s democracy by reversing separate electorates in which only Muslims could vote for Muslims and Hindus and Christians for their own community candidates. The Jinnah of Pakistan would have approved, even if the Jinnah of India based his whole battle on the separation of electorates.
