Remembering ABS Jafri Part - II

ABS Jafri’s first book that I read was ‘Here lies India’, containing his columns about the India-Pakistan War of 1965. During and after the war he wrote columns seven days a week blending grave news with humour. One can’t imagine how in that inflammable atmosphere he could harness his muse and achieve the remarkable feat of producing a column a day, nearly always with something laughable.

Reading these columns, I wondered how a steadfast journalist like ABS Jafri could overnight turn into a patriot and wholeheartedly support all war efforts without presenting or questioning the background to the war. The answer Jafri gives in his apology at the beginning of the book: “War is a serious business: the act of the aggressor, diabolical; as the struggle of the defender, angelic. Particularly so, when the aggressor is several times the more powerful. And that is always the case. So it was on the morning of September 6, 1965… Of course, you can’t laugh in times of war unless you see something funny about the enemy. In our case, the enemy’s lies were so surpassingly amusing. And so, reader, all I can say about the pages that follow is that ‘here lies India’. Just that.”

In his first column ‘India Attacks’ on September 6, this is how ABS outlines the day’s journey: “The treacherous, desperate, three-pronged Indian invasion on Pakistan has been repulsed and the indiscriminate enemy air attack has been beaten back with 22 Indian fighter-bombers in ashes at a cost of two Pakistani F-86 (Sabre) fighters. The Indians launched their unprovoked, undeclared, unannounced attack on Pakistan in the vicinity of Lahore, the country’s second largest city, under the cover of pre-dawn darkness. Their aircraft strafed undefended land targets, finding nothing better than two stationary railway trains for a strike.”

Perhaps his best book is ‘Behind the killing fields of Karachi: A city refuses to surrender’. Though the book is mostly about the Karachi of the 1990s, it offers much more than just the killing fields of Karachi. For instance, just read the following extract: “…look at this incredible spectacle: Dr Khan Saheb, the traitor and Indian agent of 1947, rising to be the chief minister of One Unit, that is, the whole of what is now Pakistan.

“H S Suhrawardy, the traitor of 1947-49, rising to be the fifth prime minister of Pakistan in 1956; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Indian citizen and Indian agent and traitor of 1967-69, rising to be the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1971; the terror chief of AZO {Al-Zulfikar Organization} an Indian agent, Benazir Bhutto of early 1980s, becoming prime minister in 1988; then once again becoming an AZO chief and Indian agent…until elected a second time Prime Minister in 1993…”

This is the sad story of calling political leaders ‘traitors’ and when need be co-opting them to serve as cogs in the state machinery and then declaring them Indian agents to malign their credentials and again whitewashing them for the benefit of the state. The story is succinctly presented with examples by ABS Jafri in the above excerpt. ‘Behind the killing fields of Karachi’ offers not only views but a well-reasoned theory too about the character of the ‘Karachi crisis’ that dominated the journalistic and political parlance of the 1990s.

The book begins with a brief and crisp introduction to the Karachi phenomenon by refreshing the memory of the reader with pertinent developments and events which had a decisive bearing on Karachi. Then it gives chronologies of events spanning nearly 50 pages and covering the 1990-94 half decade. The first chronology, ‘Waltzing with criminals’, refers to editorials and news stories published in major English and Urdu newspapers discussing criminal activities during the early 1990s.

The second chronology, ‘Criminals in the administration/ politics’, outlines the criminal activities of public officials both in and out of uniform. The third chronology is ‘Army operation: all adrift’, which charts the journey of the army operation that began in January 1990 and the repeated and prolonged curfews that Karachi had to endure for years.

We get to know that prime minister Benazir Bhutto opposed extraordinary powers for the army deployed in Sindh but by July president Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) and army chief Gen Aslam Beg somehow managed to arm-twist or persuade the PM to grant such powers to the army. The stage was being set to topple the PPP government in August 1990 after just 20 months in power.

The fourth chronology, ‘Living in their own paradise’, caricatures personalities such as General Asif Nawaz, president GIK, chief ministers Jam Sadiq and Muzaffar Ali Shah, prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and Chaudhry Shujaat Ali. The last chronology, ‘Some significant landmarks’, narrates the story of nearly all major events taking place during the early 1990s in Karachi or related to its management or lack thereof. These chronologies are very well-researched and make this book an invaluable source for researchers and students of the history and politics of Karachi as both the federal and provincial governments tried to control -- or rather mismanage -- the city.

Then in the chapter, ‘The true story’, the book moves back to the Karachi of the pre-partition days when “…Karachi was a non-Muslim majority city. It was almost totally owned and almost exclusively run as a non-Muslim city by non-Muslims for non-Muslims. A majority of these [were] Hindus. Then there were Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and other smaller non-Muslim minorities. It was a flourishing seaport, a big financial, industrial and banking centre. Karachi was then rated as the cleanest city in the subcontinent. And indeed it was not only clean, but also orderly, quiet, even leisurely. The other most remarkable aspect of [] Karachi’s character was that it was without any notable presence of Muslims in any significant sense.”

The book concludes with more than 50 pages of an appendix containing details and photos of governors-general of Pakistan, presidents, chief ministers, and important documents and speeches by prominent leaders from G M Syed to Altaf Hussain, and the MQM’s Charter of Demands. Finally, the postscript adds some more details about the developments taking place in 1995 just before the book went to the press. This book is a treasure trove of information and analysis about the Karachi of the early 1990s. I wonder how many college libraries have the privilege of having this book in their collection.

‘Snapshots of Shame: 1996’ published in 1997 is a sort of sequel to the previous book about Karachi. The book recounts events in 1996 involving the government, the nation, and the state in a less than flattering light. It was an eventful year as it saw the dismissal of the second Benazir government by its old guard Farooq Leghari who was president of Pakistan. Then the caretaker administration by Malik Meraj Khalid took over. Before that in the 1990s, the country had witnessed three caretaker governments. The first was sworn in under the prime ministership of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, the second under Balkh Sher Mazari (April 18-May 26, 1993), and the third under Moeen Qureshi (July 8-October 19, 1993).

‘Snapshots…’ is a collection of columns ABS Jafri wrote from January to December 1996 commenting on nearly all major developments of the year. In the first column of the year in January 1996, Jafri writes: “The killing fields of Karachi began the new year 1996 with what looks very much like a record. That, too, with a difference: two army officers among 18 killed on January 1. This is to greet Interior Minister Gen Babar, if you please. He says he has made a conquest of Karachi and its terrorists. So much then for Emperor Babar’s triumphs over terror.”

‘Jinnah Betrayed’ carries the journey forward to the late 1990s as most of the columns included in this collection ABS Jafri wrote in 1999. Just to give you some flavour of his writings: “This country is now among the most corrupt, most cruel, most crime-ridden, poverty-stricken, frustrated, and benighted in the world. Nature has so lavishly endowed it that this Pakistan could be rich, beautiful, and secure. It was not meant to be so wretched. But that is just what it is. Every aspect of life in Pakistan mocks [] its inimitable founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah…”

The last book by Jafri, ‘Diary of a wicked war’, chronicles the three months from March to May 2003 when the US and its allies invaded and conquered Iraq and removed Saddam Hussain from power on the pretext that he was developing ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

In short, the books by ABS Jafri – not all discussed here -- remain highly useful in understanding political developments in Karachi, Pakistan, and the region.

Concluded

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts @NaazirMahmood and can be reached at: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk