Musharraf, work in progress

Now we know how good these television-trained US policymakers are with one-liners. But this was at World Economic Forum 2004 where Musharraf was the star of the show, putting in shade competition as formidable as Bill Clinton, Shimon Peres, Khatami, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and an array of celebrity CEOs and heads of state. Sessions where he spoke were jam-packed, meals where he addressed smaller audiences were booked days in advance, his private dinner for prospective investors included four of the biggest Indian corporate czars, top anchors and journalists from around the world queued up to interview him Nik Gowing of the BBC, Christiane Amanpour of the CNN, Lally Weymouth of Newsweek and so on.

What is more significant, however, is that almost everybody, from session chairs to interviewers and from the world8217;s topmost church leaders to the incorrigibly sceptical columnists, treated him not merely kindly, but even with a degree of awe and awe. One leader of the Christian clergy thanked him profusely for standing by the Christian community in Pakistan. And none else than WEF founder Claus Schwabe asked him what he was going to do to strengthen democracy. Never short for words, Musharraf drew immediate and indulgent applause when he told Schwabe he was surprised 8220;you expect a man in uniform to strengthen democracy.8221; Then he nevertheless went on to list the various things he was doing to achieve precisely that and to reassure us that 8220;sustainable8221; democracy had a great future in Pakistan. Under his leadership, of course.

It is a sign of our times, and a tribute to the west8217;s desperate need for Islamic leaders who speak 8212; and hopefully think 8212; like them, that Musharraf was allowed to get away on his promises of restoring democracy. That too precisely on the day his scientists were exposed to have supplied nuclear secrets to semi-rogue states. It was, finally, left to this Indian journalist to remind him that he had actually done the exact opposite. If your nation has such a fundamentally democratic instinct, I asked him at one of the plenaries, how do you justify the coup you staged to remove a government elected with two-thirds majority? And how do you explain the fact that Pakistan has a history of military coups that were all successful and not one that failed? And what are you doing now to set up institutions so future coups would fail? But in that sea of benign indulgence for a 8220;friendly dictator8221; it was easy for Musharraf to dismiss it with something like: 8220;I never staged a coup. I was in mid-air when some of my supporters took over and when I landed, installed me. And I salute my supporters.8221; That didn8217;t draw much applause. But you did not see many sniggers either.

We tend often to dismiss westerners as naive, easy to fool, lacking in understanding of complexities of eastern cultures, societies, politics, even minds. What else would you say if the entire western world continues to lionise and promote Musharraf as a champion of freedom and liberalism, a stalwart ally when just the other day Clinton was wagging his finger at him in public in his own capital? But it is lazy of us to think like that. The West, particularly America, did not become such a dominant power in the world because they were moralistic or sentimental. They are, instead, practical, pragmatic and very cynical, as big powers must be when it comes to self-interest. They do not see the need to measure Musharraf on any Jeffersonian scale. But when they compare him with the leaders of almost the entire Islamic world, he doesn8217;t look that bad at all. They believe he is the best you can have in that difficult and dangerous land. They want us to accept that 8220;reality8221; as well.

We do not have to accept such wisdom entirely. If there is one flaw American policy makers have consistently displayed, it is their tendency to rely on an individual rather than a system. When the individual disappears the Shah of Iran, for example they are left to rescuing their embassy staffers. But we must not dismiss it out of hand just because we dislike and distrust an individual or lay so little store by his intellect or lasting power. Just as the Americans may over-personalise their policy by loading it entirely on the love of an individual, we often over-personalise our instinct by basing it entirely on our dislike of an individual. This is precisely what happened after Musharraf8217;s infamous breakfast in Agra. Just 36 hours after he had been hailed as a 8220;distinguished son of Delhi8221; by the President of India at a state banquet, he was being demonised by so many of our responsible leaders who by now were so incensed they did not even see the need to use the normal honorifics, general, president, mister, nothing. Just Musharraf this, Musharraf that, and how can you trust a man like that and to hell with him, and worse. This was not wise. After all, this year began with Vajpayee shaking hands with him again and each calling the other a man of peace.

The danger in such over-personalisation is the same for us as for the Americans. It closes our policy options, blunts our instinct and clouds our judgement. If you go over the tapes of that Agra breakfast, you would underline things Musharraf said that no Pakistani leader had said until then. At least I hadn8217;t heard any say this on record and, God knows, I8217;ve spent serious time with Pakistani leaders in my reporting years. They always said one thing off the record but, on the record, refused to change a comma in the old, holy national line of nothing less than plebiscite. And what has Musharraf been saying?

At that Agra breakfast, he said there could be 8220;many solutions8221; to Kashmir and that each party could drop solutions not acceptable to its popular consensus. Late last year he effectively turned his back on the plebiscite by saying Pakistan may not insist on the UN resolutions, a remark he has not denied yet and did not deny at yet another breakfast 8212; this time with the media leaders at Davos 8212; even when specifically asked. He is the first Pakistani leader now to start talking in terms of 8220;flexibility8221;, 8220;give-and-take8221;, a 8220;solution where you give but don8217;t give8221; and things like that. There is no guarantee yet that he has accepted every bit of the reality on the ground. There is no guarantee that he will keep his commitments. Given the kind of neighbourhood he lives in there is certainly no guarantee that he will be around long enough to carry the whole thing through even if his intentions were entirely noble. But let us also de-personalise our policy prism. Don8217;t go out on a limb, for sure, but don8217;t dismiss him with the contempt that comes to us so easily when dealing with a Pakistani military ruler. Look at him closely, or at least as my slightly tipsy interlocutor described him on that shivering Davos night: still a work in progress. And an interesting one without doubt.

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