Dragon Fire

Parliament Building, Islamabad, Pakistan

Hamid Khan’s newly appointed ministers, a mixture of technocrats, Islamists and military officers, took the seats of the former Pakistani cabinet in the Parliament chamber. The elected members were allowed to keep their seats, although many who supported the old regime boycotted the special session. It was highly unusual for an emergency session of Parliament to be called on a Friday morning, and be addressed by a general in full military uniform. But Khan wanted to emphasize the character of his government and make his statement before the imams spoke during prayers in the mosques.

‘Pakistan was created under the concept of Hezira,’ he began. ‘It is the concept that Muslims must not live under tyranny or oppression from other people’s faith. Since the partition in 1947, the threat against Pakistan has increased many-fold. India has transformed itself from being a secular state under the Congress Party to becoming a Hindu and nuclear-armed state under Hindu nationalism.’

Khan had planned to mention Pakistan’s founders, men like Chaudhury Rahmat Ali and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, but he had accepted China’s advice to stick only to policy and avoid the use of personalities and heroes.

‘Under Hezira, Muslims remake their lives elsewhere and move from Dar-ul-Harb to Dar-ul-Islam. It is a concept which dates back to ad 622, when the Prophet travelled from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. With partition, we had hoped that there would be peace between the two countries. But that has not happened. The reasons are plentiful. Human weakness and rampant moral and economic corruption in both countries have kept Pakistani and Indian societies poor and close to war.

‘India with its much-heralded democracy has failed to provide any better life for its people than Pakistan with its rotten ruling elite, whether military or civilian. The people of Pakistan, the Cold War ally of the United States, are as pathetically poor as the people of India who proudly chose to be non-aligned. I have heard numerous wretched excuses for the state we are in. We have blamed the British for allowing partition; the Americans for betraying our alliance; the Indians for threatening our existence; the multinationals for exploiting our workforce. The new government of Pakistan has heard all the excuses, but it will no longer use them or listen to them. The hard truth is that Pakistan has been incapable of governing itself.

‘Why have Taiwan and South Korea managed their relationships with the superpowers and created decent places for their people to live in? How come Slovenia and Hungary have steered their way out of Communism and into the global village to stability and success? How can other Islamic countries like Malaysia and Jordan balance obligations towards their cultures and religions against the forces of Western influence? The answer is because the governments there think, plan and implement. From today, this is what Pakistan will do as well.’

Khan paused and noticed seats in the chamber filling up. The door at the back constantly swung open and closed as those members who were keeping an ear on the speakers in the lobby decided to come in and see for themselves.

‘I will now briefly outline the policies of the new government and then turn to the latest conflict with India.’ He rearranged his papers, allowing time for people to sit down. ‘Pakistan is now a military dictatorship and it will remain so until our economy is close to First World standards. We will follow the models of Taiwan and South Korea, whose dictatorships were far more ruthless than ours will be. We will not be euphemistic about what we are. Democracy has failed Pakistan. Our foreign policy has not protected us. Our economic policies have not made the people rich. I suggest, therefore, that you give the new government a chance.

‘We will introduce strict laws against corruption, based on the Independent Commission against Corruption set up in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Efforts will be made to pay our civil servants enough money so they don’t have to take bribes. We will encourage foreign investment, trade and research to create our own manufacturing base. We will work towards opening our border with India to trade, resuming direct shipping routes, increasing air routes and introducing an exchangeable currency. Technocrats, not politicians, will work out the details.

‘Those with vested interests will oppose, some violently, and they will be handled forcefully and without hesitation. And to those of you in this chamber who are already plotting to overthrow me, I ask you to consider one thing, and one thing only: count not your personal loss from the new system, count only the country’s gain. Think of your children and your grandchildren and the day that they will be able to hold their heads high as citizens of Pakistan without making excuses for the poverty and suffering of our people.’

Khan had been mostly reading from notes, his manner not theatrical, but humble, his voice soft, diffident and at odds with the forthright speech he was making. But now he looked up, moving his eyes around the chamber, accomplishing the personal contact needed to bring the assembly onto his side.

‘There is, though, one terrible obstacle to this plan, and that is India, whose policy is to threaten our very existence. India is the only threat we face, and the only real issue of contention is Kashmir. Underlying Kashmir, however, is the unwritten perception that India does not accept Pakistan’s right to exist. We live with the flawed inheritance of partition.

‘Yesterday, Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistani airspace and attacked our territory. It is not the first time. Perhaps it is not the last. Civilians died and our sovereignty was violated. It is an apt time, therefore, to end the issue of Kashmir once and for all. We will let this one airstrike go unpunished. In return, I am going to take an initiative which may well cost me my life, but could settle once and for all the cancer which the Kashmir dispute has inflicted upon our development.

‘I believe that Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC would prefer independence to rule either by Pakistan or by India. In the past, we have claimed the whole region and would perhaps let the southern Jammu area and eastern Ladakh, which has a Buddhist majority, stay with India. But that would mean further partition, and I am not convinced that partition has worked either for either of our countries. Therefore, I am proposing a referendum to be held among all Kashmiris, under the auspices of the United Nations and checked by international monitors. If the vote is for independence, it will be a blow to the psyches of both India and Pakistan. There will be grumbling within the armed forces about wasted lives. But Kashmir will remain a predominantly Islamic society. The war will be won by waging peace. Kashmir will look to us for support in creating the world’s newest state, and we will give it unequivocally in our quest for peace. India will play its role. It will also realize that severing Kashmir from both our sovereignties will not lead to the break-up of India. It will mark the beginning of peace, prosperity and development.’

Khan paused, allowing the significance of what he had said to sink in.

‘This offer from Pakistan is not negotiable,’ he continued quietly. ‘If India attacks us again or rejects the referendum, we will punish her so severely that she will end up as a rump of her former self. My government’s policy is unequivocal. We will make safe our territory and modernize. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stand in our way to provide the life that our people deserve.’

Hamid Khan collated his papers, which he had ignored for the last five minutes of his speech. He walked slowly down the aisle of the chamber, as if inspecting a guard of honour on a parade ground, his hands clasped behind his back, the papers rolled awkwardly, holding them more like a swagger stick than the notes from a politician’s speech. Just before he reached the door, the first cheer broke out, timid at first and far away. But within seconds it spread with clapping, then the shuffle of feet as member after member in the chamber rose to give the military ruler a standing ovation. Khan stopped, looking around, clearly surprised at the reaction. He turned to Masood more for refuge than anything else. Masood had the door open. The bodyguards stepped back to let the general through.

Khan turned back towards the chamber and held up his hand to speak again. The applause quietened. ‘Threats of sanctions from the West have only just begun. For a while, Pakistan will be branded as a pariah state. The members of my government will be demonized as monsters. Pakistani money now in Western banks may be frozen. We will be denied visas. Those of you who manage to travel abroad will be followed and spied upon. Every tool of the Western powers will be used to intimidate us. But ride through it, ignore the arrogance of the developed world, and we will find that the sanctions will fade away.

‘No society has developed from poverty to wealth as a democracy. The repression of Victorian Britain was an appalling spectrum of suffering and human rights abuses. The apartheid and racism of twentieth-century America is a blight upon that country’s history. Democracy has pulled Africa and South Asia into debt, humiliation and beggary. Autocracy in East Asia has created wealth and self-confidence. We may have democracy, but not in our lifetime, although today the unashamed dictatorship of Pakistan has laid the first seeds towards creating a fairer, juster and freer society than this country has ever had before.’

The members were still standing, but they had fallen quiet. Khan left the chamber in silence.

Back in the Prime Minister’s office, Hamid Khan picked up the green hotline telephone on his desk. ‘This is Hamid Khan in Islamabad,’ he said softly. ‘I would like to speak to the Indian Prime Minister, please.’