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A
Note on The Rogue Army/ISI/Musharraf/J&K/Democracy in Pakistan The
Army of Pakistan always,
and often that State also, lied as Musharraf lies for the past 8
years. Jinnah and the Pakistan Army in 1947 said they
had no raiders/marauders in J&K; they said
India was the aggressor in 1965 yet Pakistan won the war; they said
they fought heroically
(although 90,000 of theirs became our POWs, and Bhutto begged of Mrs India Gandhi,
our PM then, for their release) in 1971 but
Bhutto let them down, and East Pakistan was created as Bangladesh;
the Pakistan Army said in early 1999 that
none of their men or officers were in Kargil.
All lies, and more lies, which create very serious hurdles in good
neighbourly relations we must have with Pakistan. In
the event, in mid-1999, when Musharraf so blatantly and diabolically lied about
Kargil, I decided, as an involved citizen of India not ever belonging to any
political party, to launch an international advertisement campaign to get
branded the Army of Pakistan a Rogue Army A threat to peace and security in
Asia;
my hope was that if I succeeded, as a consequence of that expose (the ad for the
Rogue Army tag), there would be strong international pressure on Pakistan
to promptly pull-out and avoid a larger conflict. I discussed
this idea in some detail with Prime Minister Vajpayee and got his
approval, but he asked me to keep the Government out of this as much as
possible, and that to run the campaign with RVP's own resources for obvious
reasons; but, yes go ahead. (Atalji, a friend for 35 years, had an exaggerated
estimate of my finances). But I agreed. I told him I would involve only
Sudheen Kulkarni, my friend and his aide
then, and nobody else would know of the campaign till the ad was ready.
(When it was ready, it was shown only to L. K. Advani, Jaswant Singh and
Brajesh Mishra in the government; the Raksha Mantri was away from New Delhi). So
I conceived, and wrote the ad. The Prime Minister was pleased with the copy and
the graphics, and it appeared as a full page right-hand-side-page-mostly-ad in
The New York Times,
The Washington Post, USA Today, The Times, London and a couple of
other papers in early July 1999; broadsheet-size printouts of the ad were sent
by post to thousands in many capitals where the ad could not be published,
as also to all those then attending the G-7 Meeting in Bonn, by special couriers.
The impact was immediate. (The ads were paid for directly to the newspapers
concerned by four patriotic Indians, self footing the bills for the extras
only). The
content of the ad was totally factual but deliberately, provocative to
Pakistanis, explosive. I am reproducing the ad below as also giving a web link
to it for clearer viewing: |
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The
ad covered the 1947 Pakistani marauding and rape in Kashmir, and the
lies Pakistan told and compared the falsehoods with the truth
the documented statements of Jinnah, UNO officials, and Pakistan's
then Foreign Minister Sir Zafrulla admitting Pakistan's involvement. The
second item in the ad that was similarly treated was the 1965 War, then the 1971
War and finally the Kargil War. But the thrust of the advertisement campaign
was:
A State within a State a modern
Rogue
Army
with a finger
on the Nuclear button! The
advertisement's bottomline was: A
terrorist challenge to the Republic of India. A constant threat to peace and
stability in Asia. Armed
with a bagful of books and authenticated, published documents of those
days, I spent days (mostly on international telephone calls from
New Delhi) persuading individually the editors and lawyers of the
famous newspapers targeted for the ad to be accepted for
publishing, telling them how it was in their own respective countries
interest also that the truth about that Army and that State be
widely publicised, and the Rogue Army brought to book; that the Pakistan
Army was dangerous for they always harboured political and big
business ambitions (note
the big ? in the last paragraph of the advertisement). Most
editors knew the true situation and the American editors were easily
convinced they
checked the copy only for facts against their own records. The
Times in London was difficult, I visited them; I knew
them for I had worked for Rupert Murdoch who owned The
Times, and who had been the Chairman of a publishing company
in the 70s where I was the MD, Publisher and Editor of several of his
magazines. But the International
Herald Tribune and the
Financial Times did not accept the ad for publishing despite
deploying my many international publishing connections, in
the refusal pleading that their correspondents in Islamabad would be killed
if they published this advertisement. However
the ad appeared in the papers named above, and on the internet site, www.roguearmyout.com which
drew millions of NRI and NRP visitors to the said site in July/August 1999 (it
was wiped off after a year); the publication of the ad in
The Washington Post became front page news and editorial/columnist
comment in Pakistan on July 10, 1999 and for many weeks thereafter (by
a sheer coincident, the same day the paper carried an editorial against Pakistan
adventurism, and an opinion piece by Ms Benazir Bhutto). Many retired
Pakistani generals and some retired Foreign Office hawks were livid
and wrote angry columns in their press, harping on the Rogue
Army and the Irresponsible State theme of the ad, calling it incendiary. In
London, some Pakistanis organised protests against The
Times for publishing the ad; a Jaguar of a friend at the
India League, London, whose address I had used (a genuine, verifiable
address of a sponsor for such ads is mandatory) was attacked and badly
damaged (I paid through H S Puri, our Deputy High Commissioner in London
then, a huge bill St Pounds 9000 to repair the car, that
heavily it was damaged while, fortunately, it was parked, and had no
occupant). The HC of Pakistan lodged a complaint against The
Times with the Advertising Ethics Council of the UK. Lalit Mansingh
was the HC and he and Puri were very supportive and protective. Our Embassy
in Washington was thrilled. The impact of the eye-catching full page ad on
the White House, UN, Congress and the Senate, State Dept., the Washington Think
Tanks, the 10 Downing Street, and above all, among Columnists and Editors
(also some generals and ex-generals) in Pakistan itself was
immense. Even till this day the Pakistani critics of their Army, and
particularly Musharraf, cite this Rogue
Army/State within a State
tag as something the Army (read Musharraf) single-handedly
contributed to defaming Pakistan. Such is the power of sound ad
campaigns. "...But
what made our military and political leadership place our men in this no win
situation to start with? What possible gain did they hope to achieve? As it is,
the world now sees us as an
irresponsible rogue state
that launches military adventures
without regard to its responsibility as a nuclear power.
India, on the other hand, is seen as a mature, responsible nation that showed
restrain under grave provocation...."
Irfan Husain, the distinguished Pakistani Columnist, in the article The
Cost of Kargil,
in DAWN,
Pakistan, 14 August 1999. In
an editorial 'Playing with fire, The
Guardian wrote: "...military
government, is a state both failed and rogue that is over-ripe for a regime
change." "...Being
painted as a rogue
state,
perennially indebted, and
not to be trusted with its nuclear weapons.
This is the image we have managed to create for ourselves. ..... " -
Ayaz Amir, the weekly Columnist, himself a military analyst, and an ex-army
officer in the DAWN, Pakistan,
October 8, 1999. There are hundreds of other editorials and Columns/Letters in the Pakistani press and journals/reports and reports elsewhere which testify to the effectiveness of the Rogue Army advertisement campaign. There is not much new in the ad. Our people in New Delhi knew all these facts. It is the conversion of these archival facts into a living, attractive full-page ad that caught the attention of the targeted, and scored the desired impact. From
the 10th of July 1999 itself, the Pakistanis (read ISI) started making
enquiries as to who was behind this ad, and who sponsored it they knew
somehow, it was not the GOI. Except at
The Washington Post where some payment was traced to me,
and they learnt of my name, the Pakistanis could not find who paid for the ads
from other papers, because of the precautions I had taken, and which,
unfortunately, failed at The
Washington Post. They tried very hard at other newspapers; but
they will never find I have always prayed who paid for the ads and from
where. Also, the records at the newspapers are so old and irrelevant that
they may not exist. But I knew right from the beginning that there would be some consequences for me in terms of personal safety once the ad was published. Yet, some things, at times, are more important than personal safety. And soon, I began to get threats, mainly for information on the sponsors. Brajesh Mishra spoke to IB, and a Deputy Director of IB, Mr Datta Padsalgikar, and the Mumbai Police, began to watch over my son, Vasant's, and my security. One
day, the Commissioner (Mr Mendonsa) and Mr Padsalgikar called me to say I,
R V Pandit, had just then received a call at my Mumbai flat from the
Karachi telephone number of Dawood Ibrahim. The message was obscene, for money,
and I had banged to phone. That did destabilise me briefly. I was already getting
some crazy calls, some two/three line notes of threats at addresses I was
connected with, and at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi where I was frequently
staying because I was spending most of my time in Delhi from 1991 for the
following 10 years, involved only in furthering economic reforms. I stopped
appearing anywhere in public as a safety precaution till the matter was
forgotten, and began living under an assumed name at the Taj Palace, with
the total cooperation of the hotel; I rarely went out to unprotected offices or
homes of friends. I stopped going to restaurants at the Taj Palace where I
stayed and normally ate. Yet, my Nice home (I was a NRI
for long periods) was broken into, and blood sprayed there. Fortunately,
I was in India at the time but the people who were looking after the place
made a written report to the Nice Police and the police made some
investigations, but I was not interested to pursue the matter. Soon after that
Karachi call, I asked the Commissioner and Mr Datta to withdraw the security for
my son and for me because it was becoming obstructive, and drawing too much
attention, and annoying the neighbours in the two separate buildings
where my son and I lived when in Mumbai. By mid-2001, all was quiet, till Wednesday, 27 September, 2006 when I received a threat. For the past 6/7 years, I have discussed with Mr Datta my conviction that ISI has some Indian agents in Mumbai, Lucknow, Delhi, Aurangabad, Coimbatore, Bangalore, etc., especially among fanatical Moslems. My harassment was, and now is, by one of these who knew my background, finances, etc., to an amazing level. Today
what has happened is that Musharraf has referred to this rogue army tagging
in the chapter The Kargil Conflict,
in In Line of Fire,
A Memoir (I
think the book is an obituary for the general; he will NOT SURVIVE the
indiscretions, lies and bluster the book is loaded with). While boasting on
page 95 of the book about the alleged victories scored by his army in
Kargil, he complains, Some
people even called the Pakistan Army, `a rogue army. On
page 137, he credits the Rogue Army full page ad as driving
a wedge between the Army and the Government. I think some flunky in the ISI or their agent/s here must have remembered or was/were reminded upon reading this reference in the book that they still have not discovered who the sponsors of that Rogue Army ad were, and probably wondered where and how the author of that ad will respond to the Musharraf bluffs on Kargil. (Gen. Gul Durrani, now retired but a former ISI chief, is the one who wanted then to have me fixed, probably, after they had found who else were the financial sponsors of the expensive ad campaign. They would have wanted the names for blackmail/extortion/threats for money in India for ISI activities in J&K. That is my studied opinion). In the 70s and 80s, ISI was in league with Indian smugglers of gold and traffickers in narcotics, and were often blackmailed by ISI into paying their agents here and in Kashmir. I have visited Pakistan 4 times, the last visit just before Kargil, with Ram Jethmalani and some others for NGO talks with Mr Naik the former Foreign Secretary and others. On the sidelines, I had met General Beg for a private chat, at his phoned-at-the-hotel request, after I had spoken passionately about peace and economic ties with Pakistan at the two-day meeting in Islamabad; I had agreed to meet the General mostly to obtain the military pass to visit Khyber Pass, beyond Peshawar, but he told me that the passcould be given only if I went to Peshawar. Ram and I went to Peshawar, the chaps there kept us waiting for 24 hours and then said no. The General, at the time of the parting handshake had told me, ...but you are very dangerous for us. In Imprint I had advocated openly the bombing of Kahuta, and it was obvious the general knew that. This incident has not been related by me to anyone until now, not even to Ram with whom I was travelling, so as not to cause him anxiety about what the General had told me). That is all there is to the new development, and the background, in personal terms. Yet, it is worth making a note of this in Delhi for the ISI is active here, their Army and the State very much the same as described by me in the heading to the Rogue Army advertisement seven years ago. And for what I have to put before you, and to others through you, who have the responsibility of ensuring national security. Musharraf
and the Army of Pakistan will now (after his US/UK visit, the cheap,
irresponsible interviews, and the fire at home in Pakistan against the
book) come under increasing pressure and abuse domestically. Because
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair swallowed publicly this September the
Musharraf bluff and bluster, Musharraf & Co. will sponsor in the near
future some headlines-grabbing acts of terrorism in Kashmir, the
Havana promise notwithstanding (witness the demonstrations against the SC
judgement on the Attack on the Parliament Case, the plans are there always for
every such development) and at some other sensitive spots in India for
Musharraf and the ISI to survive the growing unease in Pakistan about
him, the ISI and the Army. The man, and his circle, will be very desperate now. India has no choice but to live in peace with Pakistan. But for that to happen, we must try hard to mould the world public opinion especially in the West and in the Moslem world to press and press for civilian rule and democracy in Pakistan. There lies our security. The most effective method of doing this is by flooding the Urdu, Bengali, Arabic and the mainstream US, UK, EC, Russian, Chinese and Japanese press/TV/radio/Internet with paid advertisements, asking Questions, putting across Facts, raising Questions: How can there be freedom for Indian Kashmiris under Pakistani influence when there is no freedom in the so-called Azad Kashmir? Where is Freedom in Pakistan? Which peoples of Pakistan elected Musharraf? Why is the Army at the helm in Pakistan for so long, so often? Were those the choices of the people of Pakistan? Is there freedom and democracy in Pakistan that they should be so demonstratively beating their chests/shouting about freedom in J&K? Is the Pakistani concern for our Kashmiris genuine? How? Is Gen. Musharraf, the President of Pakistan for seven long years, elected by the people of Pakistan? Is he a democrat? Why do the successive Pakistani military coup leaders Ayub Khan, Yahya, Zia, Musharraf always have to reinvent the jackboot versions of democracy when democracy primarily means national adult franchisement? What is the military's credibility over the past 50 years to be reinventing democracy? Ask
Questions, put across facts, ask more questions. Each of these, and more such
questions, can be elaborated with facts and shaped into powerful Rogue Army type
of advertisements. Mount a long, sustained campaign on the above lines to embarrass and silence the Army of Pakistan, and help usher civilian rule there. It is very much possible. If our campaign is powerful and sustained, the US, the UK, the EU, even possibly China and some Moslem countries will be induced to endorse our goal of defaming the military regime; at least they will then view the military in Pakistan as plain hypocritical and dangerous more openly and confidently. Such a campaign can paint the army as the perpetual grabbers of power, igniters of conflicts, denying freedom in Pakistan itself, and encourage the important countries of the world, despite different compulsions, to side more openly and freely with India. Through such a campaign in J&K particularly and in the Moslem states, the Moslem world's suspicions about the true nature of the Pakistan Army will be exposed, and confirmed, and, hopefully, that Army will be pushed back to the barracks where they belong, under civilian control; at least, such a campaign can put them in the doghouse for long. Importantly, such a campaign will receive a free ride in the media of Pakistan and among the NRPs an important element. This will encourage the Pakistanis themselves to fight more forcefully for civilian rule, for democracy. There
are intelligence, security, diplomatic and advertising professionals in
India who can frame many more questions for the campaign than I have framed
above, and devise a powerful campaign for influencing public opinion for
our goal of civilian rule and democracy in Pakistan, in the countries that
matter, for the sake of India's (and Pakistan's) security. In the current international situation relating to the West and Pakistan, the Americans know there can be no democracy in the Middle East until they actively shun Musharraf and the Army in Pakistan, and actively help bring in democracy in Pakistan. But this will not happen till the White House and the 10 Downing Street are subjected to much more embarrassment on the question of democracy and freedom. There are going to be unimagined horrors in Afghanistan and Iraq in the following months the writing is on the wall. Then, both Washington and London will want to save face, escape more humiliations, which are inevitable as of now, in the war on terror. In the circumstances, a powerful and sustained media campaign by India for civilian rule, for democracy in Pakistan, (and through this subtly, " Islamabad: Hands Off Kashmir", first give your own people freedom and democracy) will not be unwelcome to the US and UK. But we have to try everything, anything possible. We cannot go on as now and before in Kashmir. There is mounting international opinion against militarily held situations, no matter where and under what circumstances. Keeping more than half a million of our jawans in J&K for any more decades will be demoralising for our fine army. For India to win our place as the 2nd or the third largest economy within two decades is a distinct possibility if we are free of the curse of terrorism We have to do all this also for the flowering of democracy in Pakistan, where the Army, the Intelligence Bureaus and their Nuclear assets must be put under full civilian control. Without that India faces a grave danger to its security and safety and the security and safety of our people.
(In 1999, I got 4 patriotic Indians one through a friend in
less than two days to spend nearly a million US dollars on the Rogue Army
advertisement on the strength of a printout of the then proposed ad, and by
explaining the Pakistani aggression. Today, we have some of the best advertising
agencies in the world: today, we face more danger than in 1999. Today, many
Indians are richer, increasingly concerned about our country's security from
terrorism, from Pakistan. If we need to, we can raise through CII, FICCI, or
some such outfit more than a hundred million dollars for a worldwide, sustained
campaign to embarrass the Army in Pakistan into returning to the barracks, and
ushering civilian rule and democracy in that unfortunate country). Such a campaign has to be awarded to several, select, well-established Advertising Agencies in India and to professional advertising agencies in several other countries. Our Finance Ministry has shown a good knack for selecting fine agencies for Tax related campaigns. Obviously, the Government cannot and must not do this, except organise and inspire 25/30 sponsors. But a group of Indian businessmen can sponsor such a campaign for to them such a venture is perfectly legitimate. Will the media outside India accept for publication such a campaign? Not a cakewalk, but media everywhere needs advertising; the newspapers in the West are dying because of the Internet. But print is still powerful print feeds TV, Radio and the Internet. Arab media did not entirely ban ads for Pepsi, Coke, and MacDonald during the Arab boycott of Jews-related products. Let
us not wait for another ISI act of terror on our people, on our country, for us
to be doing something "out of the box". Thank you. Regards
4 October 2006. R V Pandit |