Sharif, live from Jeddah

Nawaz Sharif seems to have tied it all up in his mind: Benazir Bhutto will sweep the polls in Sind and he, in Punjab — the NWFP giving ...

Nawaz Sharif seems to have tied it all up in his mind: Benazir Bhutto will sweep the polls in Sind and he, in Punjab — the NWFP giving 60 per cent to Benazir and Baluchistan 60 per cent to him. He may not put in his claim to the prime minister’s chair initially and instead let Benazir occupy it first. Both are in touch with each other on the phone regularly. For a person who has been in the wilderness for more than three years, Sharif sounded resolute and determined. There was not a note of despondency during the conversation I had with him in Jeddah for five hours spread over two days last week.

The deposed prime minister had no doubt that the military rule in Pakistan had run its course — once and for all, no matter what people say. He, for one, was convinced of this. He seemed willing to wait for as long as it took, but he would never come to power on the shoulders of the military. Sharif resides in an old palace. He looks not only corpulent but opulent. But then he has always been known for his regal style. He keeps a lavish table. Ornate furniture, carpeted floors and glittering chandeliers — you just name it and it was there. Two guards opened the front gate — one of them is a Saudi Arabian policeman and the other is one from an army of domestic help who accompanied him in the jumbo jet which flew him out from Islamabad to Jeddah when he sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. He would have visited other countries but his passport has not been renewed for the past one year. Several reminders to Islamabad have not evoked even an acknowledgement.

Sharif feels let down by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s initiative on Pakistan. The former Pakistan prime minister is all for rapprochement —but not when the real power is in the hands of the armed forces. Any agreement with the military would have a question mark against it. A co-architect of the Lahore accord, Sharif feels personally hurt because Vajpayee was supportive of him and had reportedly said, after he was overthrown, that Sharif was ousted because of his efforts to make up with India. Sharif, however, feels that the Indian prime minister has let General Pervez Musharraf off the hook when he was under tremendous pressure from within Pakistan and from world powers. Even otherwise, it did not behove a democratic India to talk to those who had usurped power through a coup. That seems to be Sharif’s thinking.

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I believe that a leading editor from Lahore met him some time ago with a message from Pervez Musharraf for a compromise. Even at Islamabad, his Muslim League (Nawaz) Party has been approached by the military. There have been persistent efforts to wean away from him his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who is at present in the US. But Nawaz Sharif does not want to have anything to do with the military.

While in detention, Sharif was treated worse than a criminal. For months, he was kept in solitary confinement. When flown from Islamabad to Karachi for the trial, he was handcuffed to his seat. His son, who is running a steel plant which Sharif has established near Jeddah, was also put behind bars. His story was no different.

Sharif seemed particularly bitter about the way in which the army kept him in the dark on Kargil. He was not aware that the Pakistani troops were fighting till Vajpayee rang him up to complain. He had been told by the army that the mujahideen were up in arms. Sharif sounded categorical when he said he was not on board, the allegation which Musharraf had made after the failure at Kargil.

Musharraf’s repeated requests to Sharif to ring up President Clinton to intervene was to get Pakistan out of the situation in which it had got embroiled. But before going to Washington, Sharif tried to send his foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, to New Delhi. Vajpayee was so angry that he refused to meet him. Clinton brought about the ceasefire by requesting Vajpayee on the phone to allow the Pakistani troops to withdraw. Sharif must have felt utterly humiliated.

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The abortive Kargil action, which took place without his knowledge, angered Sharif. He seemed to have made up his mind to punish those who were responsible for it. Musharraf was on top of the list, followed by Lt Gen Mehmood Ahmad and Lt Gen Mohammed Aziz Khan. The three got an inkling of this and began preparing for the coup.

It was only after the defence secretary was sent with Musharraf’s dismissal order, signed by the prime minister and endorsed by the president, did the army top brass swing into action to remove Sharif. The navy and air force chiefs did not know anything about the coup till they were informed about it by the army later.

Musharraf was at that time on that famous flight from Colombo to Karachi. Islamabad instructed the pilot to delay the landing of the plane or not to land at Karachi airport, which had been taken over by the army by then. The pilot expressed his inability because he was short of fuel. Whether he landed at Karachi because he was short of fuel or whether Musharraf’s service revolver forced him to land would never be known. Musharraf had apparently come to know of his dismissal—and the coup—on the plane itself. Sharif was sure of one thing: he had miffed on the timing. The rest is history.

Sharif and Musharraf had simultaneously decided to oust each other. Musharraf struck first. But in the process he knocked out an elected prime minister. I do not know why, in the midst of our conversation, Sharif abruptly brought in the former prime minister, Narasimha Rao, and inquired whether the cases of ‘‘corruption’’ against him had got over. I told him I did not remember. Probably one was still pending. Was Sharif thinking of the cases of corruption against him in the Pakistan courts, I wondered.

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But the unkindest cut came at the end of our conversation. ‘‘Are you from the BJP?’’ he asked me.