Magnificent Delusions (6 page)

When the creation of Pakistan appeared inevitable, Ghaffar Khan demanded that the Pashtun areas be allowed independence as “Pashtunistan,” a demand that the British did not accept. A referendum was subsequently held in NWFP, which Ghaffar Khan and his supporters boycotted, leading to the region's inclusion in Pakistan.

But soon after Pakistan's independence Afghanistan voted against Pakistan's admission to the United Nations, arguing that Afghanistan's treaties with British India relating to Afghan borders were no longer valid because a new country was being created where none existed at the time when these treaties were signed.

Further, Afghanistan continued to demand the creation of Pashtunistan because it would link the Pashtun tribes living in Afghanistan with those in the NWFP and Balochistan. There were also ambiguous demands for a Baloch state “linking Baloch areas in Pakistan and Iran with a small strip of adjacent Baloch territory in Afghanistan.”

From Pakistan's perspective, these calls for separate states amounted to splinter groups demanding the greater part of Pakistan's territory and was clearly unacceptable. But the Afghan demand
failed to generate international backing, and Afghanistan did not have the military means to force Pakistan's hand. At the time Afghanistan had a population of twelve million and a small military, which could not constitute a threat to Pakistan. It did not press its claim at the United Nations and instead established diplomatic relations with Pakistan.

The overall feeling of insecurity Pakistan's leadership felt about the future of their fledgling state nevertheless accentuated the possible threat from Afghanistan. The demand for Pashtunistan became part of the combination of perceived security threats that required Pakistan's military buildup, which would need to be backed by great power alliances.

Although India publicly did not support the Afghan claim, Pakistan's early leaders could not separate the Afghan questioning of Pakistani borders from their own perception of an Indian grand design against Pakistan. But Indian leaders, especially Nehru, sought to allay Pakistani fears with public comments affirming India's acceptance of Pakistan. In a speech in March 1948 the Indian prime minister explained that “there is no going back in history” and that India had no desire to “strangle and crush Pakistan and to force it into a reunion with India.”

Nehru asked, “If we had wanted to break up Pakistan, why did we agree to partition? It was easier to prevent it then, than to try to do so now after all that has happened.” In his view it would be “to India's advantage that Pakistan should be a secure and prosperous State with which we can develop close and friendly relations.” He went on to declare that if he were offered the chance to reunite India and Pakistan, he would decline because “I do not want to carry the burden of Pakistan's great problems; I have enough of my own.”
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India's secretary general for external affairs, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, told the US State Department that “India had no desire to eliminate Pakistan as an independent state or to reincorporate into an Indian union the territories now held by Pakistan.”
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Recognizing that political reunion was “most unlikely in the foreseeable future,” the Indians expressed the hope for an understanding on joint
defense of the Indian subcontinent and possibly a customs union. This reflected Nehru's vision of a “closer association” coming out “of a normal process and in a friendly way which does not end Pakistan as a state but which makes it an equal part of a larger union in which several countries might be associated.”
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But none of this changed minds in Pakistan. The country's elite had started defining its national interest solely in ideological terms, with its primary goal to secure itself against India. Ensuring Kashmir's inclusion in Pakistan and resolving the Pashtun question were declared as crucial to completing the process of Pakistan's creation. In this way, settling the unfinished business of partition took priority over everything else.

But Pakistan was already short of resources. It needed even more funds to finance the large army it had inherited; an army that was now needed to remain battle ready for the permanent conflict with India. Within a few months of independence the army was on the road to becoming the most powerful political actor in the country; its institutional requirements took priority over all other national needs. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan proudly told troops of the 144 Brigade in Lahore on April 8, 1948, that their government had allocated 75 percent of its budget for national defense.
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Moreover, international skepticism about Pakistan's viability and the paucity of resources did not deter its leaders from seeking Western support for the new country, for both its army and its claim over Kashmir. A few months before Pakistan's creation, Jinnah had told General Hastings Ismay, chief of staff to the last viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, that “Pakistan could not stand alone” once the British left. Jinnah felt the need for a superpower ally, even before any shots had been exchanged between the Pakistani and Indian armies in Kashmir. Ismay reported his conversation with Jinnah to Mountbatten: “Russia had no appeal for them. France was weak and divided; there remained only England and America, and of these the former was the natural friend.” According to Ismay, Jinnah had joked that “Apart from anything else, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.”
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This acknowledgement of the need for Western support for Pakistan differed significantly from Jinnah's earlier stance while discussing Pakistan's defense with the British and Congress leaders. The US ambassador in London, John G. Winant, reported to the US secretary of state in February 1946 that Jinnah had been reluctant to commit to joint defense plans for the subcontinent. When Gandhi had apparently raised the question of Pakistan's integration in a common defense plan, according to Winant, “Jinnah had replied that ‘his people' looked to linking up with the Arab states.”
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As independence drew closer, the Muslim League leaders realistically reevaluated their desire for close association with the Arab world. Perceived ideological affinity notwithstanding, there could be no expectation of effective military cooperation from Arab countries. None of them had an armaments industry nor were they known for maintaining high-quality military training establishments. At the time the Arab states also did not have foreign currency reserves that Pakistan could tap for imports.

Jinnah and most of his lieutenants knew Britain well, but Britain's capacity to get the new country on its feet was limited. The British empire was exhausted from the recent world war, which had left the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers. Most of Jinnah's lieutenants had never traveled to the United States and knew little about American politics or history. Recognizing this need prior to the partition, Jinnah had urged a Cambridge-educated scion of a prominent merchant family, Mirza Abol Hasan Ispahani, to tour the United States in the mid-1940s to drum up support for an independent Muslim state in South Asia. In a November 1946 letter to Jinnah, Ispahani explained what he knew of the American psyche. “I have learnt that sweet words and first impressions count a lot with Americans,” he wrote. “They are inclined to quickly like or dislike an individual or organization.”
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Ispahani later became Pakistan's first ambassador to the United States.

The British realized that their own influence in their former colony would depend on American interest in the region. During a private luncheon with US Ambassador to India, Henry F. Grady, on
July 2, 1947, British Viceroy Mountbatten suggested that the United States should announce its intention of establishing diplomatic relations with Pakistan at an early date. While reporting the suggestion to Washington, Grady added his conclusion that Mountbatten saw an early American commitment of diplomatic representation in Karachi “as an aid to him in his negotiations with Jinnah.”
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The Americans deferred to the British and hastened the process of establishing ties with Pakistan. The US embassy was the first to open in Karachi, then Pakistan's capital, and US diplomats found access to senior Pakistani leaders relatively easy. After his arrival Paul Ailing, the first US ambassador, realized that undoing partition was unrealistic. In a discussion between American ambassadors to India, Pakistan, and Burma, Alling agreed with Ambassador to India Grady that “it is unlikely that the two nations could get together” as they were before partition. He advised that US policy should focus on “good neighborliness rather than unity.”
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Even a cursory glance at official records of exchanges between Pakistanis and Americans from these early years reveals Pakistan's almost exclusive focus on US military and economic aid. The unconstrained seeking of aid intensified when, after Ambassador Grady's luncheon with Viceroy Mountbatten, formal talks began regarding a US diplomatic presence in Pakistan. Grady reported that Jinnah had been “most cordial, expressed great admiration for the U.S. and said he was hopeful [the] U.S. would aid Pakistan in its many problems.”
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A few months later Grady was also the first US diplomat to realize that the United States had to be careful when navigating the treacherous waters of India-Pakistan relations. “Indians are very jealous of everything we do for Pakistan,” he told his State Department colleagues. “I am constantly questioned on this point in India. If we made a loan to Pakistan, India would resent it unless we gave the same to India. This applies to all matters right down the line.”
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The United States did not want to choose between a partnership with India or one with Pakistan. Washington was preoccupied with postwar European and Japanese reconstruction as well as the evolving strategy of containing Soviet communist expansion. But this did not stop Pakistanis from demanding attention as the world's largest
independent Muslim country. The most frequent visitor from Karachi to Washington was the Pakistani finance minister, Ghulam Muhammad, who came “seeking aid for the new state.”
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The elite in Pakistan's capital at the time, Karachi, were relatively few and often interconnected. The landed gentry from Pakistan's various provinces had bought or taken over large mansions Hindu businessmen had left behind when they migrated to India. Many of these Pakistani elite represented their districts in the Constituent Assembly that doubled as Parliament. Muslim civil servants and military officers, largely from India, had taken over positions of responsibility in makeshift offices. A few businessmen, often migrants from India, were also prominent.

And American diplomats mingled among these influential people and often found them making identical arguments about Pakistan's future and the ways in which the United States could help the new country. Joseph S. Sparks, who as vice-consul in Karachi, was hardly a policy maker, reported his conversation with local Muslim League leader Yusuf Haroon, a prominent businessman and part owner of
Dawn
, the quasi-official English newspaper. Pakistan was keen on having a foreign policy that was independent and different from India's, and it counted on American help and assistance, Haroon had told Sparks.
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Then, less than a month after independence, on September 7, 1947, Jinnah declared at a cabinet meeting: “Pakistan [is] a democracy and communism [does] not flourish in the soil of Islam. It [is] clear that our interests [lie] more with the two great democracies, namely the UK and the USA rather than with Russia.”
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His words were immediately conveyed to American diplomats in Karachi, who duly reported them to Washington. Four days later, on September 11, Jinnah announced in another cabinet meeting that it was important for the United States and the West to ally with Pakistan against the Soviet Union.

“The safety of the North West Frontier [is] of world concern and not merely an internal matter for Pakistan alone,” Jinnah said, hinting that the Soviet Union was already hostile to Pakistan. According to him it was “significant to note that Russia alone of all the great
countries has not sent a congratulatory message on the birth of Pakistan.” But the argument he cited as evidence of Soviet hostility could equally have demonstrated Soviet indifference. After all, at this point there were no relations between Pakistan and the Soviet Union, and there had been no diplomatic or media reports of Soviet ill feeling toward Pakistan. Thus, Jinnah's comment that Soviets had failed to send a congratulatory message was directed at the United States.

Consequently, having taken a position in America's favor, Pakistanis expected the United States to understand their economic and military needs and to offer generous financial support. Also in early September Finance Minister Ghulam Muhammad met with Charge d'Affaires Charles Lewis to discuss the dollars and cents aspect of potential US assistance.
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These early requests for aid took the the United States aback somewhat, particularly as Washington did not share Karachi's view of Pakistan's centrality to US strategy. Although Pakistanis thought their offers of cooperation with the United States merited immediate attention and return benefits, US officials saw no urgency to embrace Pakistan. Pakistani officials' expectations were clearly disproportionate to US diplomats' assessments of Pakistan's value.

But Pakistani expectations were not limited to American financing of their new state. Landlords in Karachi wanted American diplomats to rent their properties and pay in dollars. A job with the US embassy, as driver, clerk, or translator, was much sought after, and store owners pursued Americans as preferred customers. During a quiet picnic with US Ambassador Paul Alling, Jinnah and his sister Fatima suggested that the ambassador buy their property, the magnificent Flagstaff House, for his embassy. Alling politely informed the governor-general that the embassy had already obtained another property. The ambassador then sent Jinnah a gift of four ceiling fans after he complained about Karachi's sweltering heat.
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