‘We will introduce strict laws against corruption, based on the Independent Commission against Corruption set up in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Efforts will be made to pay our civil servants enough money so they don’t have to take bribes. We will encourage foreign investment, trade and research to create our own manufacturing base. We will work towards opening our border with India to trade, resuming direct shipping routes, increasing air routes and introducing an exchangeable currency. Technocrats, not politicians, will work out the details.
‘Those with vested interests will oppose, some violently, and they will be handled forcefully and without hesitation. And to those of you in this chamber who are already plotting to overthrow me, I ask you to consider one thing, and one thing only: count not your personal loss from the new system, count only the country’s gain. Think of your children and your grandchildren and the day that they will be able to hold their heads high as citizens of Pakistan without making excuses for the poverty and suffering of our people.’
Khan had been mostly reading from notes, his manner not theatrical, but humble, his voice soft, diffident and at odds with the forthright speech he was making. But now he looked up, moving his eyes around the chamber, accomplishing the personal contact needed to bring the assembly onto his side.
‘There is, though, one terrible obstacle to this plan, and that is India, whose policy is to threaten our very existence. India is the only threat we face, and the only real issue of contention is Kashmir. Underlying Kashmir, however, is the unwritten perception that India does not accept Pakistan’s right to exist. We live with the flawed inheritance of partition.
‘Yesterday, Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistani airspace and attacked our territory. It is not the first time. Perhaps it is not the last. Civilians died and our sovereignty was violated. It is an apt time, therefore, to end the issue of Kashmir once and for all. We will let this one airstrike go unpunished. In return, I am going to take an initiative which may well cost me my life, but could settle once and for all the cancer which the Kashmir dispute has inflicted upon our development.
‘I believe that Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC would prefer independence to rule either by Pakistan or by India. In the past, we have claimed the whole region and would perhaps let the southern Jammu area and eastern Ladakh, which has a Buddhist majority, stay with India. But that would mean further partition, and I am not convinced that partition has worked either for either of our countries. Therefore, I am proposing a referendum to be held among all Kashmiris, under the auspices of the United Nations and checked by international monitors. If the vote is for independence, it will be a blow to the psyches of both India and Pakistan. There will be grumbling within the armed forces about wasted lives. But Kashmir will remain a predominantly Islamic society. The war will be won by waging peace. Kashmir will look to us for support in creating the world’s newest state, and we will give it unequivocally in our quest for peace. India will play its role. It will also realize that severing Kashmir from both our sovereignties will not lead to the break-up of India. It will mark the beginning of peace, prosperity and development.’
Khan paused, allowing the significance of what he had said to sink in.
‘This offer from Pakistan is not negotiable,’ he continued quietly. ‘If India attacks us again or rejects the referendum, we will punish her so severely that she will end up as a rump of her former self. My government’s policy is unequivocal. We will make safe our territory and modernize. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stand in our way to provide the life that our people deserve.’
Hamid Khan collated his papers, which he had ignored for the last five minutes of his speech. He walked slowly down the aisle of the chamber, as if inspecting a guard of honour on a parade ground, his hands clasped behind his back, the papers rolled awkwardly, holding them more like a swagger stick than the notes from a politician’s speech. Just before he reached the door, the first cheer broke out, timid at first and far away. But within seconds it spread with clapping, then the shuffle of feet as member after member in the chamber rose to give the military ruler a standing ovation. Khan stopped, looking around, clearly surprised at the reaction. He turned to Masood more for refuge than anything else. Masood had the door open. The bodyguards stepped back to let the general through.
Khan turned back towards the chamber and held up his hand to speak again. The applause quietened. ‘Threats of sanctions from the West have only just begun. For a while, Pakistan will be branded as a pariah state. The members of my government will be demonized as monsters. Pakistani money now in Western banks may be frozen. We will be denied visas. Those of you who manage to travel abroad will be followed and spied upon. Every tool of the Western powers will be used to intimidate us. But ride through it, ignore the arrogance of the developed world, and we will find that the sanctions will fade away.
‘No society has developed from poverty to wealth as a democracy. The repression of Victorian Britain was an appalling spectrum of suffering and human rights abuses. The apartheid and racism of twentieth-century America is a blight upon that country’s history. Democracy has pulled Africa and South Asia into debt, humiliation and beggary. Autocracy in East Asia has created wealth and self-confidence. We may have democracy, but not in our lifetime, although today the unashamed dictatorship of Pakistan has laid the first seeds towards creating a fairer, juster and freer society than this country has ever had before.’
The members were still standing, but they had fallen quiet. Khan left the chamber in silence.
Back in the Prime Minister’s office, Hamid Khan picked up the green hotline telephone on his desk. ‘This is Hamid Khan in Islamabad,’ he said softly. ‘I would like to speak to the Indian Prime Minister, please.’
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
‘We haven’t spoken directly before,’ said Khan to Hari Dixit.
Chandra Reddy happened to be with Dixit when the hotline call came through, and as the Prime Minister spoke he slipped transcriptions of Khan’s speech onto the desk, highlighting the final section about the airstrikes and referendum. The tape recorders were on.
‘Only a solution to Kashmir can lead to permanent peace in South Asia, and this is the way to do it,’ Khan said. ‘I can only remind you that the original idea for a referendum came not from us but from India in 1947.’
‘The UN resolution of 13 August 1948 specified that Pakistan withdraw from Jammu and Kashmir, which you haven’t,’ replied Dixit. ‘The second resolution of 5 January 1949 stated that people should be consulted about their future only after the withdrawal and after normalcy had returned. That hasn’t yet happened.’
‘The resolutions were overtaken by the Simla Agreement of 1972,’ Khan said. ‘But in any case, all this is long ago. Let’s press ahead without dragging up history.’
Dixit interrupted. ‘The resolutions still stand.’
‘We must focus on the future and not the past.’
‘You have been organizing an insurgency in Kashmir for the past twenty years,’ Dixit continued, calling in every political and diplomatic instinct to prevent himself from slamming down the phone. ‘Two days ago the Northern Army Commander and the Home Minister were murdered by the shooting down of their helicopter with a Stinger missile.’
Khan paused, then said: ‘I have only just taken power. Some things have gone further than I would have allowed.’
‘Did you order the Stinger attack?’