3 thoughts on “Pakistan Army Chief Asks officers to read Army and Nation”

1. I have read excerpts of the book. but my follow up comments are as follows; Part of the civil military relationship was due to the stature of Indian leaders and the tremendous work various working groups within the Congress party did from late nineteen thirties right up to forming the Constituent assembly and adopting the constitution. If you look in contrast at the Muslim league, there was hardly any effort, the elite of the league came from United Provinces, actually I feel Jinnah and the league were basically bargaining for disproportionately high permanent political power parity within India but got Pakistan instead. So the new country got approximately 18% of economic resources but 33% of the military. So from day one a security paradigm was set. Add to it what it inherited in Punjab and Sindh, fat cat landlords who were the main source of funding for the league. Jinnah died early, Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated and there was a brief attempt by former bureaucrats to assume political mandate before Ayub Khan and the army stepped in to take over at the peak of cold war whereby the West found it convenient to look the other way. Bhutto did more to perpetuate army rule by commission or omission than most people realize, it was he who encouraged General Ayub to launch operation Gibralter in J&K, it was he who superseded seven senior Generals to appoint Zia ul Haq to appoint army chief and the rest as they say is history..

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   • I agree with most of what you said, and in fact say some of the same things in portions of the book that you may have not read yet. The League was not a strongly institutionalized party (even in 1943 it had basically no organization on the ground in Punjab!), and its leaders beginning with Jinnah had not thought about the problem of the army in any depth compared to the Congress leadership. They were more focused on securing Pakistan than thinking through what would follow. SW

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     • Did you quote the story about steel cabinet last drawer in your book Army and Nation?
       I haven’t read the book, yet.
       No Kindle version available.

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