The evil that he did was to turn the tables on Nawaz Sharif, before he could declare himself Amirul Momeneen and an absolute monarch whom it would be not only a crime but also a sin to disobey. Another was to try to push Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry out. The last and the worst was to declare emergency, gag offending TV channels such as Aaj and, the more powerful, Geo.
Out of sheer vendetta those who feel he had wronged them wish to tear him apart. The recent editorial on “Accountability” in The News was a classic example of the sudden awakening for justice, wrought by Musharraf’s misdeeds among some of our noble, honest and pure countrymen. But, its effect was lost on those who could see behind the outburst an attempt to settle scores against the former president for his ‘mistreatment’ of Geo TV which is this newspaper’s sister organization.
The wanton exhibition of his detractor’s feigned sense of justice in asking for Musharaf’s trial for treason under Article 6 of the constitution, betrays their utterly blatant bias. None of these champions of justice, therefore, clamors against the NRO. Nor do the ‘choice and master spirits of this age,’ -Qazi. H. Ahmad, Imran Khan, Mahmood Achakzai, et al agitate for its repeal.
Forgotten is the dismal state of the economy under the, would be, Ameerul Momeneen, and his Chartered Accountant, Ishaq Dar, while people were delude with the slogan of ‘breaking the kashkol.’
Not remembered, either, is the fact that under President Musharraf the legislatures, for the first time in Pakistan’s sixty-year history, completed their full five-year term; that he held the first free and fair election after 1970, -a feat that even the elected governments could not accomplish.
Ignored, likewise, is that he decided to resign despite contrary advice from legal experts and his close aides.
Hyped instead, are his faults. Often they are exaggerated beyond all proportions. For example, Shaheen Sehbai, group editor of The News, ex-US correspondent of Dawn and an eminent journalist in his own right made this sweeping remark in an article (How to clean up this bloody mess) in The News on Monday September 2: “During this period (Gen. Musharraf’s nine years’ rule) political parties and leaders were hounded, persecuted, terrorized, exiled, abused and deprived of their genuine rights.” Unbeatable for sheer irresponsibility and rank bias, but there it is.
Picture a scenario with President Musharraf dissolving the legislatures and declaring Emergency, to forestall the move to impeach him. The common perception is that such action would have precipitated a mass upheaval. People would go on rampage, looting and burning public and private property at will, including banks, railway stations and trains in a more intensive action replay of 1977. The army would have stayed neutral as the police failed to control the situation and the president would feel compelled to quit.
In fact, to make sure that the army stayed out of the conflict, the entire anti-Musharraf lobby, -media, columnists, intellectuals and politicians literally groveled before Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. They deluged him with praise for keeping aloof in their ongoing war with the president. The hosannas contained a subtle entreaty to him to decline support to the president, should he decide to use his power under Article 58 (2)(B).
But, they also knew that if the country went into flames, the army could not remain just a spectator to the fireworks. Besides, if the situation went out of control, the president, as supreme commander, might ask the COAS to take charge, which the latter could not disobey.
The only alternative could be for the COAS to keep the army physically out of politics, yet suppress the violence and restore order by following the Bangladesh model.
That was why the anti-Musharraf elements were desperate to make him resign. They alternately tried to bully and persuade him. Saleh Zaafir gloated in The News on 29 May that a plane from a friendly country had arrived at Chaklala to take the president away and packing was hurriedly going on in a VIP house in ‘Pindi (read Army House where Musharraf lived) while Geo TV followed with an announcement that some spectacular development (read Musharraf going into exile) in ‘48 hours.’
Simultaneously, with this psychological pressure, some of his most bloodthirsty enemies in the media and among the writers invoked his love for Pakistan and appealed to him to resign.
True to his slogan of “sub se pehlay Pakistan” (First of all Pakistan) Musharraf resigned instead of plunging the country into chaos to satisfy his ego. He resigned to allow the lawmakers to continue enjoying their official perks and unofficial loaves and fishes, which they would have lost in case he had dissolved the legislatures.
Musharraf also compares very well with Ayub, Yahya and Zia. For example, all the others when they took over, declared martial law; Musharraf didn’t. All gagged the press; he, for the first time introduced press freedom –the emergency was a temporary aberration. Yahya even killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, exposed the Pakistan army to a most ignominious defeat and caused the dismemberment of the country. Zia, when his foe was in his grip, sent him to the gallows. Musharraf, instead, let go of Nawaz Sharif when the latter was serving his sentence.
Moreover, the universal admission that the 2008 elections were the fairest since 1970, - which means the first time in the “New” Pakistan, means that Musharraf did what even the elected governments before him could not.
So, the question arises, why none of his predecessors were subjected to even a fraction of the vitriol that is being ritually discharged at Musharraf? What is the special factor that distinguishes him from Ayub, Yahya and Zia? The answer is plain but sheer hypocrisy would not allow it to be uttered.
However, it is the “qaum” that must say “Thank you, Musharraf,” for he has spared it the violence, chaos and disruption of daily life that his refusal to step aside would have ignited. Instead, he granted them a boon in the person of Asif Ali Zardari; something that would be beyond its wildest imagination.
No less grateful should be the president-hopeful, Asif Zardari, personally. He called Musharraf ‘a relic of the past.’ And the latter politely agreed to justify the label. It was he, who opened the road to the President’s House for the PPP co-chairman. So, for Zardari it must be, “Thank you, Musharraf.”
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