Having listened to his cricket commentary as a school boy, I find it equally exciting as an old man to read Cover Point, Jamsheed Marker’s third book with its rather restricted scope, confined to the author’s assessment of Pakistani leaders he worked with for over an unbelievably long and illustrious career, 30 years of which were devoted to diplomacy (If memory is not playing tricks, Marker was there on the public service commission board that conducted my viva voce for the CSS.)

The book is a record of his impressions of the icons among Pakistani leaders he worked with and gives us a grandstand view of some of the most nerve-racking negotiations he has been privy to in his eventful diplomatic career. His assessment of characters shows the insight of a seasoned diplomat and an intellectual steeped in history and literature, with most chapters preceded by a quote from one of the many languages Marker knows, including French, German and Russian.

He minces no words, and even where he is respectful, as in Ayub Khan’s case, he doesn’t fail to mention his faults and foibles. With a diplomatic career that spanned three decades, Marker interacted with more heads of government and state than the 11 leaders who are the subject of this book. Beginning with Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister to be murdered, to the last of the four military dictators, with some pygmies thrown in between, Marker lends insight into their character, their failures and successes, their strengths and weaknesses and often their bewildering combination, as in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Ziaul Haq.

Jamsheed Marker narrates his memories of 30 years of interaction with Pakistan’s most powerful leaders

In the process, the reader gets some lively quotable quotes: “military rulers [...] have a shelf life: politicians, on the other hand, are a recyclable material”; Nawaz Sharif is “Ziaul Haq’s political grandson”, who has a short “span of attention” and displays “lack of manners” as shown by his utter indifference to the presence of a French diplomat while talking ceaselessly about Punjab politics.

While Ayub Khan gets the recognition he deserves as a benign ruler and builder, Marker pays perhaps the most handsome tributes to Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir, crediting her, among other things, with courage. A political appointee, Marker resigned — as tradition requires — whenever there was a change of government, but the next man or woman in power reposed full confidence in him and included him among their closest advisers on foreign policy. The places he was ambassador to would be a diplomat’s envy — Washington, Paris, Moscow and the UN — besides being the world’s longest serving envoy and ambassador to more countries than any other diplomat.

Worth reading in these times of gloom and pessimism is his description of what Pakistan and Karachi were during the initial decade after Partition and what supreme efforts Pakistanis made to make a success of their newly created state. The people were engaged in the process of nation building “at the widest possible scale”. The existing institutions, such as schools, colleges and hospitals, were “energised and expanded, and new ones built. Roads and dwellings were constructed and businesses, both commercial and industrial, were established. Factories that were coming into production helped in creating jobs and absorbing and integrating the immense refugee population”. Karachi was one of the “world’s most agreeable capitals”, and it appeared as if the city was “a lodestar around which the rest of Pakistan revolved”. Those were “heroic days” when the entire nation “was filled with hope, courage, and determination”. Judges then truly deserved to be called “their lordships” and upheld the conduct expected of them.

The chapter on Liaquat Ali Khan deserves to be noted, for Pakistan’s first prime minister has not been given the recognition he deserves. Marker is overwhelmed by his simplicity, honesty and dedication to Pakistan, and calls him Jinnah’s “indomitable lieutenant”, quoting Jinnah that even though a nawabzada, Khan “was a thorough proletarian”. He decided against having a military secretary and an aide-de-camp and was angry when someone suggested he should get some compensation in Pakistan for his ancestral property left in India.

“Ayub Khan’s assumption to power as president of Pakistan in 1958, though not entirely unexpected at the time, was the second thunderbolt after Iskander Mirza’s martial law declaration. A bewildered and somewhat nervous nation sat glued to the radio awaiting announcements and news of developments. These came in a series of stern edicts classified by Martial Law Numbers, many of them specifying death by hanging or infringement. I remember my brothers Khursheed, Minoo, and myself seated on my lawn, listening to Ayub’s speech on the radio with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. When Ayub came to the bit where he said, ‘the honest businessman has nothing to fear’, my brother Khursheed’s sardonic murmur was ‘too true — he went out of business years ago’. And when Ayub concluded his speech … my brother Minoo, ever the historian, murmured, ‘This is the end of “Merrie Pakistan”, now we have Cromwell’. — Excerpt from the chapter, ‘Years of Liberty and Public Cheer: 1951-1958’

Bhutto gets both lavish praise and harsh indictment. He recognises that his “dynamic charisma evoked enthusiasm” and “galvanised a dramatic recovery” after the 1971 disaster, and credits him with three achievements: the Simla Agreement, a diplomatic triumph for his “diplomatic skill”; the “energetic organisation” of the Islamic Summit; and the passing of the constitution by “near consensus”. Marker encapsulates the Bhutto phenomenon thus: “Like a comet it had suddenly emerged on the political constellation of Pakistan, emblazoned it for a while, and just as dramatically disappeared, consumed in the brilliant flames that it had itself created”.

Zia gets both bouquets and brickbats. With the exception of Jinnah, no Pakistani leader had his hands “as firmly on the levers of power” as Zia. He was “cool and composed”, was a quick learner, never taking offence; was polite and his body language was totally “devoid of swagger” which seemed “to suggest an innate modesty”. Yet religion to him “was a political tool” he manipulated “with some cynicism and much successes”. The disgrace was public flogging in his time which became “a national shame” and remained “unsurpassed in the history of the twentieth century”.

Astonishing as it sounds, the nuclear issue doesn’t figure in the chapter on Bhutto, with him getting only a passing reference in the chapter on Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the bureaucrat-turned-politician without whose “capable handling” of the nuclear issue, Marker says, Pakistan would never have had the bomb — an achievement he said the nation did not recognise. The author remained in “awe and admiration” of Ishaq Khan’s “skills and determination”, though his training in the British colonial administration made him a firm believer in “rigidity and controls” which retarded the country’s progress.

The chapter on Gen Yahya Khan highlights the general’s “idiosyncrasies”, his apt dealing with the Soviets, his drinking bouts, and the bluntness with which he reacted when President Nixon asked him about America’s China policy: “All bloody wrong. How can you ignore such a large nation with so many people? We have differences in religion and culture and yet have the best relations with them”.

Of Musharraf he says had a tendency “to strike first and think afterwards”, yet he had a “messianic zeal which seemed to characterise his attitude toward life in general and towards Pakistan in particular”. Surprisingly, 9/11 and Musharraf’s decision to ally Pakistan with America do not form part of the four pages on the general. About Iskander Mirza he comments that Mirza “operated like the political agents of bygone colonial days, rewarding one malik, punishing another”.

As for Mohammad Khan Junejo, he was “honest, incorruptible”, lacked political skill, comprehension and initiative.

Some corrections need to be made in the next edition, if there is one. UNCTAD stands for UN Conference on Trade and Development and not what it appears as on page 173; Junejo was dismissed by Zia on May 29 and not May 19. The Junejo story doesn’t tell us about the Ojhri camp disaster. His decision to reopen the issue was one of the major factors in Zia’s decision to sack him.

The writer is Dawn’s Readers’ Editor

Cover Point: Impressions of Leadership in Pakistan
(MEMOIRS)
By Jamsheed Marker
Oxford University Press, Karachi
ISBN: 978-0199402892
218pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 10th, 2016