New Delhi, India March 2018
I was born an Indian—there was no Pakistan then. Rawalpindi, my birthplace and now the headquarters of the Pakistan Army in which I served for over three decades, is where I live after retirement. When British India was divided, I was a schoolgoing kid in Sheikhupura, a city that fell on the Pakistani side. I was spared the horrors of the Great Divide, except for a brief glimpse when we visited our relatives in Delhi during summer vacation in 1947. The riots forced us to return post-haste, but strangely I have no memories of the journey back home. It must have been one of the lucky trains that got away. One change I recall from soon after Partition was the absence of a matka. The shop halfway to school where we often stopped to sip water had a new owner. Unlike his Hindu predecessor, he had no use for the pitcher that contained the elixir of life. The next episode to remind me that the worst was not yet over was when we moved from Matka to Mucca. I can’t remember what caused tension between the recently dissected twins some time in 1950, but I do remember that our prime minister responded by raising a fist—which became known as ‘Liaqat’s Mucca’. Throughout those years, though the Kashmir issue was simmering somewhere in the background, the study of history in our schools was mostly about the glory of the Muslim rule in India. Little surprise that it led to some fascination with the seat of power, both political and spiritual: broadly the region bounded by Delhi, Agra and Ajmer. Any link with our eastern neighbour thus continued to be followed with great interest. I grew up watching Indian movies; even knew all the great names from show business based in ‘Bombay’, a name that still sounds more familiar than Mumbai. Indeed, it took some time before someone explained to me why Muslim actors like Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari had to take non-Muslim names. Episodes that dealt with the Mughal period were generally watched with nostalgia. But my
memories of those earlier years were more influenced by the sporting scene. Cricket duels were keenly listened to, as radio commentary was the only way to follow them. But unlike present times, these were not a matter of life and death. In a test match in Montgomery—now Sahiwal—where we had a world-class stadium, an Indian batsman, Sanjay Manjrekar, was the crowd’s favourite. In the same city, when it hosted the National Games, the Indian Punjab was also represented. After the event some Sikhs dropped in to see my father, who at that time was in charge of Central Jail. They came to get a few durrees (cotton woven carpets)—the place was famous for this product—and pleaded for immediate delivery so that these could be taken as personal baggage—let’s say ‘duty free’. Over time the legacies of the past had to be shed because the realpolitik overrode. I may have joined the army in 1959 because Ayub Khan had putsched only a year earlier, or because the girls in Government College Lahore, where I was studying, clearly fancied those who showed off in uniform. But after I did, it turned out that I had to appear more often in combat than in my former alma mater. While training for war, we were taught that though we had to fight better than our larger adversary, but must also keep in mind that our enemy too was doing his duty for his country. And when we saw that both in the 1965 and 1971 wars, the Indian and the Pakistani armies deliberately spared non-combatants—fighting gentlemanly wars, in other words—mutual respect amongst the two militaries was reinforced—but so did the belief that our countries were not likely to become friends anytime soon. Post-’71, even within the uniformed clans—despite professional correctness—the assessment of the antagonist became hard-nosed, and the attitude harder. In due course, I went for training and visits abroad, and met our eastern neighbours on neutral ground. That helped me make the best of a bad relationship. Once on a course in the north German town of Hamburg, I bumped into a south Indian professor. The next day he walked into our apartment with his wife to invite us to his home. When returning the courtesy, I asked him if he had any dietary restrictions. He said that as a Brahmin he was forbidden to eat even eggs. His German spouse, however, assured us that she could make him devour whatever we served. When I returned to Germany as an attaché a few years later, my Indian counterparts walked up to me at the first opportunity to introduce themselves. Though irritated by our host’s special favours since Pakistan was the frontline ally in Afghanistan, they did not let our domestic battles affect our personal relationship. It was during that period that the first Indian officer was to come for the German General Staff Course, and from amongst the alumni I was the first person to be contacted for advice. Operation Blue Star took place soon after I left.
Otherwise I would have tickled one of them that the days of one Singh or the other representing the Indian Army in Germany were over, and I am sure he would have taken it sportingly. Ever since, there has never been ‘any quiet on our eastern front’. The Siachen violation; Indira Gandhi’s assassination; Brasstacks—if it was an exercise or an operation depended upon its design; the Sikh insurgency and the Kashmir uprising; the nuclear tests; the Kargil ingress; and indeed all the post-9/11 turmoil ensured that our relationship was alive and (literally) kicking. Indeed, the period was dotted, even if sparsely, by peace efforts like the Composite Dialogue, Vajpayee’s bus yatra, ‘they met at Agra’, and the Kashmir bus service. The toxic, or the intoxicating, mix helped people like me, who had been in and out of hot seats, join post-retirement the ever-expanding club fatuously called ‘the strategic community’. No surprise, therefore, that some of us are bursting with wisdom that can hardly wait to be shared. One of the more useful means to do so would indeed be an exchange amongst key players on the opposite sides—provided of course we were prepared to concede our faults and provide a different narrative, even alternative facts. How far my ‘comrade in arms’—as he describes our equation—Amarjit Singh Dulat, and I have succeeded in this mission is obviously for the reader to judge. Asad Durrani Rawalpindi, Pakistan March 2018
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