Among the top-tier political leadership of India which was striving for independence from British rule, no leader was so reviled as Jinnah. The generality of those who did not want to see a divided India, whether they were Englishmen or Indians, hated Jinnah for working towards partition. The Englishmen disliked him additionally because Jinnah did not behave with the servility expected of a brown man when confronting his white master. And the brown man felt uncomfortable with him because Jinnah’s courtesy was strictly formal without any of the insincere unction with which eastern politeness came duly oiled.
And yet, even those who disliked him, almost without exception, reluctantly conceded his uprightness honesty and truthfulness. Lord Wavell’s diary entry of Sep 11, 1948 states that he was playing golf at St Andrews when news of Jinnah’s passing was reported to him; and adds, that though he did not much like Jinnah, but he had developed a grudging admiration for the man. Those aware of the understated english in vogue then, would be able see the value of the tribute paid by Wavell to Jinnah. Dewaan Chaman Lall, a Legislative Member of 30 years standing, said of Jinnah: “…whatever may be said to the contrary, he was unpurchasable”. Pothan Joseph: “…no one could buy him…”.Sarojini Naidu [even after he had become an advocate of partition], said that Jinnah was, “….the one incorruptible man in the whole of India”; and Sir Patrick Spens, the last Chief Justice of undivided India said of him: “there is no man or woman…who imputes anything against his honour or his honesty. He was the most upright person that I know….”
If, as is agreed by most historians, Jinnah was the main force behind the forging of an independent Pakistan, it would be logical to assume that within Jinnah, it was the combination of his integrity and commitment that formed his main internal resource which drove this project to its final success.
By the same token therefore, the opposite must also be true i.e that it was the steady subversion of truth and relative honesty by mendacity and theft, which first broke Pakistan in 1971, and is now threatening to undo what is left of the country.
Lies, in order of ascendance, come in the form of everyday lies, breathtaking lies, and stupendous lies. After Bajwa overthrew the Imran government, he mustered the gall to declare that well before this misfortune had befallen his unfortunate country, the army had become “neutral”. Every sonovabitch in Pakistan knew that the U.S had given the signal for the coup, Donald Lu had given a kick in the High Command behinds to hasten the effort, and members of Parliament had been openly bought and sold, and thus came about the overthrow. But Bajwa, nevertheless, insisted on lying and browbeating his way through, expecting us to believe his yarn. And as an act of ultimate charity to the people of Pakistan, he handed them over to internationally acclaimed thugs and thieves! So much for the High Command, the oaths of honour they took, and how they dishonoured them!
But one stupendous lie was not weighty enough to counterbalance the Quaid’s proverbial integrity which went into the creation of Pakistan. More falsehood was needed. This was readily furnished in good measure as preparations were set afoot to create a “level playing field” for “free and fair elections”. Nowhere in the world was the bastardization of the electoral process consummated in the full glare of publicity, as by the dread hand of a directing Gen Asim Munir, and no more avid and willing help came to him than by the soiled hands of Qazi Faez Isa, whose love of democracy is trumped only by his love of scripture, which he does not tire repeating.
He is so wedded to the idea of pristine democracy that he will not allow the word “President” to be affixed to Zia ul Haq’s name, because Zia was a “dictator”. But he has dealt blows to democracy so telling, that it is expected never to rise again. And for a job well done, the General is expected to get him an extension so that he can happily screw the country a few more years!
The General who is resolved to drive Pakistan into the sunset is a happy man. No one before him has been able to pull off a fraud as grand as his in broad daylight. While the whole world knows what he has done, all he needs doing is to pretend that nothing has happened. And if it happened, he was not there. But no matter how cast iron the pretense was, it could not hold. The fraud was so great that it demanded a formal denial. And this came when he gathered all his submissive bridesmaids around him, all twenty-seven of them, and then had the ISPR put out on their behalf, in the form of a press release, that: “the army had nothing to do with the electoral process. However the Forum [ a new name for the gang now screwing Pakistan] expressed dismay that some vested small segments of polity media especially social media have been maligning Armed Forces of Pakistan with unsubstantiated allegations of interference which is highly deplorable,”
This is a part of the ISPR press statement issued on March 5, 2024. Unfortunately for the High Command though, on March 7, TIME magazine came out with an article on Pakistan’s recent elections. Its headline says it all: ” Pakistan’s Generals Fail To Fix Elections.”
It is tragic for the High Command that TIME belongs to their masters and did not cut them the slack they must have expected.
Bajwa, Qazi Isa, and Asim Munir, the three most powerful men in the country in a shared bracket of time, have subjected Pakistan to a wave of mendacity, which is the stuff of legend. In doing so they more than counterbalanced the integrity of Jinnah, but forgot that a lie which cannot pass as truth, loses its purpose, and thus its value.
And yet their lies are the most invaluable gifts for those who would like to see Pakistan’s writhing to end in its sorry demolition.
