The Good that Musharraf Did
By Dr I. Kamal
CA
“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;”
-- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II
By the grace of God, former President Parvez Musharraf is alive and well, but his detractors have been carrying out a systematic and sustained campaign not only to bury the good that he did, but to defame and malign him by a malicious web of lies and innuendos.
Most vicious have been some talk show hosts in the electronic media, whose freedom was created by Musharraf himself: all previous political governments had resisted attempts to create a free TV industry for obvious reasons. This is one of the lasting benefits Musharraf has conferred on the nation. Unfortunately, in a country where the literacy rate is so low, and public opinion is often fickle and gullible, it has given the media the power to turn villains into heroes and heroes into villains. With some notable exceptions, this power has been misused. It has also created some media moguls whose wealth and “receipts” had started to come out as a side-issue during the famous Malik Riaz vs Arsalan Iftikhar case, before everything was quietened down in a big “hush-hush” to keep the skeletons buried in the cupboard. The freedom which he gave to the electronic media worked to Musharraf’s own detriment but, in the long run, it will be good for the country’s future generations. Musharraf had put Pakistan first.
On assuming office, Musharraf had declared that his first priority would be the economy, which was in shambles with only $400 million remaining in the state treasury. During the 2008 US presidential debate, Senator John McCain, whose forte is foreign affairs, in response to a comment from his opponent, had stated: "Senator Obama does not realize that Pakistan was a failed state before Musharraf!"
Since the mid-1980s, it has been the wont of Pakistan's politicians to bring the country to the point of bankruptcy, providing an excuse for military or civil intervention. The late President Farooq Leghari, a man of honor and principles, had given ten reasons for dismissing the government of his own party. In a speech he gave in Los Angeles a few years later he revealed at a function compered by Mr. Faiz Rehman, then editor of the Pakistan Link, that there was an eleventh reason, with which he could not go public at the time of dismissal: there were only $200 million remaining in the treasury!
What Musharraf achieved was an economic miracle, as acknowledged by a number of independent analysts. In a very well-researched and authenticated article, which Pakistan Link columnist and independent blogger Mr Riaz Haq (posted on October 11, 2010), says:
“On the 11th anniversary of General Musharraf's assumption of power, the dominant political rhetoric on the airwaves of Pakistan completely obscures his daring rescue of the nation's economy from total collapse in 1999. Instead, Musharraf's enemies are focusing entirely on his missteps. To set the record straight, let me quote from the current PPP government's letter it signed and sent to the IMF in 2008. Here is how it hails Musharraf's economic record without mentioning his name:
"Pakistan's economy witnessed a major economic transformation in the last decade. The country's real GDP increased from $60 billion to $170 billion, with per capita income rising from under $500 to over $1000 during 2000-07.....the volume of international trade increased from $20 billion to nearly $60 billion. The improved macroeconomic performance enabled Pakistan to re-enter the international capital markets in the mid-2000s. Large capital inflows financed the current account deficit and contributed to an increase in gross official reserves to $14.3 billion at end-June 2007. Buoyant output growth, low inflation, and the government's social policies contributed to a reduction in poverty and improvement in many social indicators". (see MEFP , November 20, 2008, Para 1).
Supporting his findings with a number of graphs and charts, Mr. Haq goes on to add:
“The IMF has acknowledged that Pakistan became one of the four fastest growing economies in the Asian region during 2000-07 with its growth averaging 7.0 per cent per year for most of this period. As a result of strong economic growth, Pakistan succeeded in reducing poverty by one-half, creating almost 13 million jobs, halving the country's debt burden , raising foreign exchange reserves to a comfortable position and propping the country's exchange rate, restoring investors' confidence and most importantly, taking Pakistan out of the IMF Program.
Poverty in Pakistan decreased from about 34% to 17% and hunger went down with it during Musharraf years from 2000 to 2008, as reported by World Bank and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).”
Musharraf’s third gift to the nation was the Nazim System, restoring power to the people for the first time in the history of Pakistan. No democracy is a true democracy until it is felt at the grassroots, and it can only be felt at the grassroots through local self-governments. This is how it works in true democracies such as the USA and Europe, where politicians rise through service at the county council and board of supervisor levels before aspiring for higher echelons of government. In Pakistan, the majority of politicians in power are born with silver spoons in their mouths.
I visited Pakistan in December , 2007, and the signs of progress and the sense of freedom prevailing in the country was like a breath of fresh air in comparison to my previous visits. Karachi had been transformed by parks, roads and bridge- construction, for which the Nazim received international recognition and awards.
As expected, one of the first steps of the government which succeeded Musharraf’s was to undo the Nazim System, returning back to politics as a business of “staking and making money”, so aptly described by Imran Khan a few years back. In this system, development funds are handed over to the sitting MPAs and MNAs to do what they like with them, rather than to remote local levels where the funds are needed. With this system, loyalties are bought and sold to keep governments in power.
Musharraf saved Pakistan from destruction two times: the first one was after 9/11. It is easy for people sitting comfortably in their clubs and gymkhanas to blame him for supporting America’s war in Afghanistan. If Musharraf had not made the decision which he did, there could be no gymkhanas and no clubs. What was the alternative? India was eager and willing, and soliciting, to take up that role. To say the least, there would have been a tremendous amount of “collateral damage” in Pakistan, its loans (incurred thanks to previous political governments) called up, and other punitive actions. Besides, the Taliban way of life, where the answer to every difference of opinion is the bullet, where every sect except their own is a ‘kafir’, where innocent passing-out Pakistani cadets are shot dead without any reason, where a little school girl is shot at only for espousing the cause of women’s education, is foreign to Islam and to the Pakistani way of life. The Taliban had taken a stranglehold in Afghanistan, and their tentacles were spreading out towards Pakistan. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had threatened to march on Islamabad with a “lashkar “ (armed force) of 100,000 people. This was before 9/11.
Any other government would have taken the same step as Musharraf. The proof is very simple: the succeeding government has had 5 years to reverse course, but it hasn’t, and one could easily challenge the next government to do so if it really feels so strongly against Musharraf’s decision.
The second time Musharraf saved Pakistan was in mid-2002, when India had amassed a force of one million soldiers on the Kashmir border, threatening war and destruction. It was Musharraf’s ‘lalkaar’ (clarion call) to take the war to mainland India and to use all deterrents that forced India to back off under simultaneous pressure from other super-powers.
One could go on and on, but one question people are asking is: “Why did Musharraf come back to Pakistan, leaving his life of ease, comfort and respect?” The answer is simple: he came back because he loves Pakistan and, like every other overseas Pakistani, his heart must have been bleeding at the sad state of affairs in the motherland. He is a soldier: so many times he has put his life on the line, always leading from the front, be it the intense fighting for the Khemkaran sector, or the Lahore and Sialkot war zones, or Kashmir itself, always sticking to his post under shellfire. For his courage, he recently received praise even from an Indian general who had fought against him, for coming deep into Indian territory in Kargil in 1999. Former Indian Army Chief General V. K. Singh, said : “As a military commander, I would commend General Musharraf for coming 11 km (inside Indian territory) to stay with his troops for a night. It is the courage of a military commander that he came so far knowing that there was danger.”
Opportunistic leaders in the past have always fled the country when the wind was blowing against them. Musharraf came back, endangering his life again, because he felt that things need to be righted:
‘Mushkil hain agar haalaat wahaan, dil baich aayein jaan dey aayein,
Dil waalo, koocha-e-jaanaan mein kya aisey bhee haalaat naheen”
(If conditions are difficult over there, let us go and give our lives, our souls; O lovers, will the conditions in the precincts of the beloved not allow us to do even that much?)
Musharraf had said that he is going back because he expects justice from the courts. Under the present conditions of justice and fairplay in Pakistan, one can only say “Best of luck” to him. Hats off to the Chief Justice Peshawar High Court (PHC) Dost Muhammad Khan who, while dismissing a petition filed against Musharraf, has stated that it was necessary to challenge the 17th Amendment in the Constitution before challenging all the illegal steps of General (R) Pervez Musharraf. He said the Supreme Court and the Parliament had already approved all the actions of Musharraf.
Musharraf’s enemies, particularly the right wing fundamentalists, who were proven to have carried out Benazir Bhutto’s murder, are out to get him. If they succeed (which God forbid), we will have a situation where
“Ek gul ney baaGhbaan key lahoo sey rangey hain haath
Mumkin hai is chaman mein na aayey bahaar bhee”
(A flower has tainted its hands with the blood of a gardener;
It’s possible that Spring may never come to this garden again.)
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