Ringside view of Pakistani politics

In his extremely readable book, From a Minister’s Journal , F.S. Aijazuddin gives a graphic and hilarious account of his stint as Minister of Environment, Culture and Tourism in the Interim Punjab Cabinet of Pakistan under the Presidentship of Pervez Musharraf in 2007. As Aijazuddin describes the sequence of events, right from receiving the first call, through his weighing the pros and cons of taking on such an assignment — a qualified chartered accountant, he had worked in organisations such as the Investment Corporation of Pakistan, chief of finance at the National Fertiliser Corporation, and others — to his stint in a Cabinet whose inmates “were not involved in any significant decision making”, there is a feeling of déjà vu. If we can get similar levels of honesty in public accounts of our own ministers, things are not very different at home either.

The author says he must be the only person who was “invited to become a minister twice during General Pervez Musharraf’s government.” The first was immediately after the General took over following the coup of 1999, and the second, eight years later in 2007, when he “was forced to call for general elections”.

The 1999 coup

The book begins with an absorbing account of the coup that unseated Nawaz Sharif after the Kargil fiasco; Aijazuddin gives us interesting details of the meeting in Washington where the then US President Bill Clinton brokered the ceasefire agreement between Sharif and Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. At the meeting between Sharif and Clinton, the former hinted that “he was worried for his life now back in Pakistan”. A US official present at that meeting said Sharif had even brought his family with him to the US, fearing that if the summit failed he might not be able to return home. A “glum” Sharif, said the official, was not “looking forward to the trip home. The Prime Minister knew he had done the right thing for Pakistan, and the world, but he was not sure his army would see it that way”.

As events unfolded, Sharif’s “suicidal” attempt to remove Musharraf failed and the General took over the reins in Islamabad. Soon after, rumours began to circulate about the author being shortlisted for a Cabinet post, and the first indication was the ISI landing up at the Defence Housing Society in Lahore where he lived to check his background. Soon he got a call from the army headquarters; he was summoned to meet General Aziz, Musharraf’s confidante and “a co-architect of Kargil”, and quizzed by a group of army men on his credentials. The account of that interview is really funny; towards the end the General asked him: “Can we put the country right?” Aijazuddin cheekily responded that the question was being asked a month too late. Next, counter-quizzing General Aziz, the “candidate” asked, even more cheekily, “Why do you assume that a Pakistani in uniform is better qualified to improve the country than a Pakistani out of uniform?”

Interview for ministership

But instead of being deterred by such impudence, General Aziz cleared his name and he was offered the chairmanship of the Board of Investment with a rank equivalent to a minister of State. But “it did not require a degree in economics to realize that I would not be able to subsist in Islamabad on a minister’s salary. No minister ever did. That is not to imply that all of them were corrupt.” Most of them had private means to support themselves.

Thanks to either “misplaced arrogance” or “chagrin” that he was not considered good enough for a “full ministry” or apprehension “about the shelf life of a military government”, he turned down the post. And watched over the next eight years Musharraf’s metamorphosis from a “papier-mâché Chief Executive to an executive President, retaining at the same time his alter ego as the head of the Paksitan Army. He remained the fulcrum of all authority.”

But in 2007, he did accept a post in the interim Cabinet of Punjab, and in this part of the book the author regales us with absorbing stories of the little battles he had to fight to get a non-descript room (as all the best ones were taken by others), the functioning of government departments, the pseudo-Cabinet meetings held over lavish lunches in upmarket clubs or five-star hotels till the press got wind of it, and the like. But he’s happy that he was fortunate enough to be able to establish during his stint as minister the Heritage Museum in Lahore, to display the history of the genesis and growth over the millennium the city he loves so much.

By accepting the post he had become the second minister in the Fakir family — after a gap of 170 years, the previous one being Fakir Aijazuddin, who had served in the early 19th century the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh as his spokesman and chief negotiator.

Benazir assassination

The most traumatic point in his stint in the Interim Cabinet was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007. Over the next few days, he watched in utter disbelief — at first, the official version giving out blatant lies about the actual cause of her death, and then systematic destruction of vital evidence by the hosing down of the assassination area in front of the world media’s cameras.

More than giving readers a slice of Pakistan’s history during those eight tumultuous years of Musharraf’s reign, this book has to be read for the author’s fine prose, engaging style, sense of humour, and sharp observations, as also the searing honesty which doesn’t hold him back while stating some unpalatable truths about his country and its governance.

In the Interim Cabinet, the ministers were “like the proverbial lame ducks, who were permitted to quack but deterred from paddling”.

In the sprawling circuit house in Jhang where he spent a night as minister, his grand suite included a room with a huge bed “with an attached bathroom of cavernous proportions, designed obviously by someone inspired by the Khewra salt mines.” He had the choice of two large washbasins that reminded him of “Lutyen’s semi-hemispherical design for the fountains at Rashtrapati Bhavan in new Delhi”.

This book reiterates the importance of keeping a daily journal; add to this discipline the author’s eye for detail, a fine writing style and wry humour, and the journey through this slim volume is an enjoyable one.

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