The importance of being Musharraf

President Musharraf's memoirs have created quite a flutter worldwide. Understandable, considering his stature and the volatile situation of the country he heads. The lukewarm response that the book has recieved in India was also not way off the mark from what seers, literary pundits, foreign policy experts, leading lights of the publishing world, and others inclined to comment on everything from food to the overtly flimsy grounds of X's divorce had predicted. After all this man is the supreme commander of a country seen as everything from devil incarnate to enemy state to the harbinger of all evil in the world. The neighbour is seldom loved, in this case often reviled except when the overwhlming force of the game of cricket blankets everything down and raises a toast to subcontinental unity.

But that's beside the point. The assertions he makes in the book about the misadventure in Kargil too are not the most earth-shattering thing to happen to international politics in the past few months. One must agree and endorse that the Indian armed forces were done in by a massive intelligence failure. However, the deeds of the General cannot be condoned since he parlayed the hills with army colleagues disguised as mujahideen, all under the hawk eyes of erstwhile Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief, who has misled the world, and particularly India in claiming that he was unaware of the goings on at Kargil.

One must also agree that the man has taken an irrevocable risk in laying bare his soul on Pakistan-US relations. The fact that Richard Armitage, the former Under Secretary of State and senior Republican politico obviously threatened the Pakistan establishment with dire consequences bordering on death and pillage unless they hopped on to the War on Terror-Infinite Justice bandwagon has been highlighted by the President of Pakistan in the book. There are chances that he has brought upon himself the wrath of Bush and his cronies by naming them in a public document.

President Musharraf nevertheless has mitigated most of the danger by shaking hands with Bush, appearing on late night TV in the US, and embarking on a massive publicity drive which included the release of the book in New York. Or perhaps one would think so. What direction the storm in the teapot created by the revelations in the book will take, only time will tell.

Was the book mistimed in terms of the meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the joint statement? Experts feel so. And why not? Here is a man who is admitting his involvement and that of his army in a war ostensibly won by India where the Indian side is seen as a victim of terrorism and conspiracy. The strategic implications of what the General has said in his book are immense. But the Indian establishment has been strangely quiet on the issue and not raised a hue and cry about the contents of the book so as to hamper the ongoing peace process. Intelligent!

There are, therefore, obvious merits of reading In the Line of Fire even if one does not agree with what the President has to say. After all, no other book seems to be as relevant to the contemporary politics of South Asia. The Indo-Pak relationship, punctuated by two full and one half war, documented in the words of President Musharraf has enough historical significance for people to engage with. For a book of this nature is as much part of the composite dialogue as the secretary level meetings and other discussions.