Democracy without democrats?

Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, a former head of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, was in the news recently as co-author of a set of conversations with a former head of India’s external intelligence agency — RAW. The novelty of this, a serious but cordial conversation between RAW and the ISI, gave that book a wide readership and for many, in both India and Pakistan, a certain notoriety. His new book Pakistan Adrift will certainly be of value to those interested in knowing how the army as an institution works, its interface with the rest of Pakistan and of its various pathologies and paranoias — vis-à-vis India, Afghanistan, the US and so on.

The book covers the broad sweep of Pakistan history post 1989, but it is an insider's account of the inner workings of the army for the three-and-a-half years from 1989 to 1992 that Mr Durrani was head of Military Intelligence and then the ISI. That period is, of course, a rich cross-section of Pakistan and sub-continental history. It coincides with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the end of the Cold War, the beginning of insurgency in Kashmir plus serious tensions with India and almost continuous civil-military friction in Pakistan. For the cognoscenti, therefore, the sections of the book that delve into this period are of value since the author was at the heart of both the devising of policy and its implementation.

Mr Durrani's revelations in themselves are, however, few and many of his reflections have been in the public domain for some years. Some remain of value, although their authenticity may well be disputed by others. In Afghanistan, Mr Durrani's recollections bring out how Najibullah's administration crumpled under the onslaught of an ISI-cemented concert of major Mujahideen groups. The resistance that the Afghan government put up was, however, considerable and much more than Pakistan had possibly expected. What is also interesting is how much Afghanistan itself was the stage for a power play between the Pakistan government and its Army headquarters. A setback in Jalalabad in 1989 for the Mujahideen alliance led to its ISI Director General Hamid Gul's removal by Benazir Bhutto. In Mr Durrani’s account “the failure at Jalalabad was just the right opportunity to remove him…”.

The year 1989 and early 1990 saw also the quietude of Kashmir broken and the beginning of a long-drawn insurgency in the Valley. In Mr Durrani's account, the uprising in January 1990 “took us by surprise” and the “broad consensus was that the turbulence would soon fizzle out”. This point has been made by others too but Mr Durrani goes further and would have us believe that the ISI stepped in “primarily to ensure that the turmoil did not spin out of control and ignite a war with unpredictable consequences”. This is disingenuous at the very least.

More interesting is Mr Durrani’s account of how the ISI’s Afghanistan experience of cementing a coalition amongst the Mujahideen groups to topple Najibullah was also used in creating the Hurriyat in Jammu & Kashmir. For Mr Durrani, both instruments were blunter than were needed for the task at hand. In part, this may well be the professional soldier's distaste at having to operate through a ragtag bunch of religiously charged militants. Evidently, in the three decades since, the distaste has faded and militants are now at the centre of the ISI's standard operating procedure.

Outside of the period 1988-1992, details in the book are not those of an insider but rather of an informed non-participant observer. If there is a central theme, it is of an assessment of politicians that is at once dismissive and often deeply contemptuous. It is not as if Mr Durrani is not critical of the army and its major errors of judgment and implementation. However, it is Pakistan’s political class that for Mr Durrani, constitutes the real problem. His descriptions of the premature end of Benazir Bhutto’s first term show the central role the army played in her dethronement. At the same time, he appears on occasions genuinely puzzled as to the judgments made then and later on this role.

The book is part reflection, part memoir, part analysis and in part real introspection. Mr Durrani writes with wit and flair and has an understated, often dry sense of humour. His introspection also brings the almost reflexive attitude of many military officers in Pakistan to get involved in non-military issues. Mr Durrani would no doubt protest this takeaway, for he is often at pains to underline how the army gets sucked in unwillingly rather than march in triumphantly. But the problem lies in the selfbelief that nobody except those in uniform either fully understands or will fully safeguard Pakistan’s interests. In any event, Mr Durrani’s book certainly brings out that while the Pakistan army may like the abstract idea of democracy, it does not like democrats. Perhaps Pakistan itself is close to Weimar Germany — a democracy without democrats.

PAKISTAN ADRIFT

Navigating Troubled Waters Asad Durrani Context 273 pages; ~699