Major Gasbag

Gohar Ayub Khan had the entire Indian media on rewind mode this past week trying to unearth the one brigadier with access to the Directorate...

Gohar Ayub Khan had the entire Indian media on rewind mode this past week trying to unearth the one brigadier with access to the Directorate of Military Operations four decades ago. This brigadier, Khan said, had passed on the 1965 war plans to Pakistan and had it not been for an unruly tank that spoilt the party in the Chhamb-Jauriyan sector, history would have been different.

These revelations are an outcome of his research into his father Ayub Khan8217;s diaries, he claims. His book Glimpsesthrough the Corridors of Power will be out in December and Gohar says it will contain the date of commission and the regiment of this officer. His explosive remarks have set the stage for a much anticipated book release.

The last time Gohar enjoyed such media attention, particularly in India, was when Pakistan carried out its nuclear tests on May 28, 2003, a fortnight after India had tested its devices. He almost may not have been there given that he had expressed a desire to resign as foreign minister from the Nawaz Sharif cabinet in early May saying he wanted to concentrate on his constituency.

Speculations were rife that he may do what Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did to his father. Bhutto had resigned as foreign minister and then floated the Pakistan8217;s People Party. The dilly-dallying over his resignation, the Pokhran tests and a new stage was set, which saw Gohar at his best using expansive gestures and jingoistic remarks across global television networks to make his point. After the tests, he became Pakistan8217;s face to the world.

He was finally eased out, paving the way for a quiet Sartaj Aziz but that was much after the theatrics had ended. This was also around the time when his brother-in-law Lt Gen retd Ali Quli Khan was the frontrunner for the Army Chief8217;s post after Jehangir Karamat. Sharif, however, opted in favour of a certain Pervez Musharraf, a Mohajir in a Punjabi-dominated Army.

What happened thereafter is history now, but certainly the powerscape in Islamabad looks a lot different from the time Gohar and his brother-in-law and the Ayub Khan family seemed poised to take charge. But this was just an intermission in a family drama that started with a coup in 1958.

Gohar couldn8217;t contest the last elections because he did not hold a graduation degree, a minimum qualification set by Musharraf. Yet, he managed to get his son Omar Ayub Khan and his wife Begum Zeb Gohar Ayub Khan to be elected to Pakistan8217;s National Assembly. His son, in fact, is the Minister of State for Finance in the current government.

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It is not that Gohar did not study. Born in 1937 in Rehana, Abottabad, he was brought up in customary military style by father Ayub Khan and sent to Burn Hall College and then St Mary8217;s Rawalpindi before moving on to Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Those days a Sandhurst pass-out wasn8217;t automatically a graduate, a fact that hurt Gohar much later in the recent elections.

He was also his father8217;s ADC for a while, but left the Army in 1962 as captain when his father was the dictator president of Pakistan. He took to business and politics, and was elected half-a-dozen times to the Pakistan National Assembly from Abbotabad on a Muslim League ticket. Besides the eventful year 1997-98 as foreign minister, he was also Speaker of the National Assembly from 1990 to 1993.

His experiments with business, however, produced less favourable results. A wool and blanket factory he set up had to be auctioned by the court to square up some payments. But then as son of Ayub Khan, you can always make a comeback. By returning to his father8217;s diaries, Gohar may have done just that.