Any regrets, General? An Interview with Murtaza Razvi

Earlier this year, I reviewed Pakistani journalist Murtaza Razvi's lucid and informative biography of the former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf, Musharraf: The Years in Power. In this short interview, Razvi gives a glimpse of the man who ruled Pakistan for eight turbulent years.

In the introduction to your book, you write that Musharraf ruled Pakistan single-handedly. Do you think that dictators rule single-handedly or are there a set of people who help them rule that way?

Pakistani dictators, even elected leaders-turned-autocrats, are known to rule more single-handedly than their counterparts elsewhere. The army may have brought Musharraf to power (remember he was not even in Pakistan when the coup was staged), but once there, the process of consultation with his team of advisors, who were all of his own choosing, barely lasted a year or so. The army top brass, the corps commanders who had brought him to power, was shuffled. So whatever 'democracy' existed at the top military decision making level was also eroded. By teh end of Musharraf's tenure, he alone was the one calling the shots.   

You write that despite liberalising the Pakistani media, Musharraf started distrusting Pakistani journalists. Yet whenever he would come to India or go anywhere else, he'd pander to the media. Even the media (at least the Indian media) showers too much attention on him. Why these double standards?

The international media was certainly charmed by his frank, outspoken, behaviour. The media persons he chose to speak to back home were carefully screened and their questions taken well in advance so he comes out shining. Yes, he was all about applying double standards. At home he would censure you for speaking up on 'national security' issues and label you as 'unpatriotic'; abroad, he would divulge more damaging facts regarding extremism and terrorism than you could believe-- all in order to project what he called a 'soft' image of Pakistan instead of fixing the problems that gave the country a bad image; he also cosied up to foreign media to tell the world he was their best bet as the ruler of Pakistan.    

It would be a tad unfair to compare but did you observe any similarities/differences between Musharraf and Zia-u-Haq both as leaders and as persons?

Ziaul Haq was a hypocrite in the classical sense of the word, both as a person and a leader. Musharraf had unresolved contradictions in his charcter bordering on megalomania; he could do no wrong, and he was the ultimate self-styled messiah that he believed Pakistan needed.  

 One striking feature of the book is that you haven't interviewed Musharraf himself. Why? And was this a deliberate decision?

I tried to get through to him, through his family and friends. While the family never responded to my requests, certain friends told me on condition of anonymity that he was very crossed with Pakistani journalists at the time and would not wish to meet anyone. He felt betrayed, like a benevolent king, who had 'liberated' the media, only to find them awfully ungrateful and perhaps equally unpatriotic, as in acting on some foreign agenda. A sense of paranoia combined with arrogance informed this attitude on the part of the general. This is my frank assessment which I did not put down in so many words in the book for obvious reasons. The book was an objective quest at assessing Gen Musharraf's years in power and as such left me with little room for personal comments. I have not been wronged by him in any way, nor consider myself a biased journalist with malice against any leader.    

Do you think the Agra Summit was a hastily convened one considering Musharraf's tenure was only two years old at that time?

I think the time was right, but the Indian leadership failed once again to take advantage of the opportunity to settle issues with Pakistan. I say this because Musharraf was still popular with the Pakistani public at the time; there was no opposition from a parliament in Pakistan for Islamabad to have reneged on what he could have agreed to with Mr Vajpayee. But the BJP leadership got cold feet, and perhaps was more annoyed at his flambouyant overtures to the Indian media than it was worried about its mandate to hold a decisive dialogue with a one-man Government of Pakistan under Musharraf, which had the full political and military backing at the time to settle all outstanding issues with India. No elected government in Pakistan could have offered so much as Musharraf did to Delhi at the time.     

While you interview a cross-section of Pakistanis about Musharraf you haven't interviewed key players - namely people from the US and the UK, Indian officials and Saudi officials - about what they thought of Pervez Musharraf. Why so?

Time was of the essence. I had to complete the book within some odd three months after Musharraf's resignation. No one in his erstwhile administration wished to talk to me. Foreign key players also wanted to keep mum over the 'deal' that saw him step down. We delayed the book because I wanted to incorporate Indian leaders' interviews. I was denied the Indian visa when I finally approached the Indian high commission in Singapore in teh first week of February 2009 (I was on a fellowship in Singapore from Feb 1 to Apr 30); they just sat on my visa application forever.   

Do you think that during his eight year tenure, Musharraf had the chance to free his country from constant American interference but failed to do?

Musharraf could have done much more for Pakistan and for peace in South Asia but for his megalomania, starting with bravado, and the sense he had of his own indispensibility to the world without having earned it.    

Lastly, if you were to meet the former President for a one-on-one conversation, what would you like to talk to him about?

Any regrets, General?

My review of Razvi's book can be read here