Book: FALLOUT: POWER, INTRIGUE AND POLITICAL UPHEAVAL IN PAKISTAN

Author: Salman Masood

Published by: Ebury

Price: Rs 599

The lopsided relationship between the civilian and the military leaderships in Pakistan has been a perennial problem that has stood in the way of the country’s development and growth almost since its birth in August 1947. This imbalance is also seen as a key factor that has prevented Pakistan from emerging as a true, functioning democracy. The military that looms larger than life and enjoys an oversized influence over all other institutions is Pakistan’s sole arbiter and custodian. But all this could have changed when an army chief collaborated with a charismatic prime minister some years back and promised to turn a new leaf for Pakistan. Alas, as subsequent events proved, they were no better than their predecessors.

“Pakistan politics is a familiar tableau, where the script remains the same but the cast keep changing,” writes Salman Masood, The New York Times’ Pakistan correspondent and editor of the English daily, The Nation, in Fallout. The book is essentially about Imran Khan, his entry into politics as a firebrand Opposition leader in the wake of
the Panama Papers scandal that put the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, on the back foot, and how it paved the way for Khan’s election as prime minister after
Sharif was thrown out, jailed, and allowed to seek self-exile in London.

Despite his charisma as a cricketing icon, Khan’s electoral victory and his journey to the prime minister’s chair was smoothened by the Pakistani army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa. Bajwa became the army chief with the promise of changing the army’s traditional behaviour and recasting the relationship with the elected civilian leadership. “The army has no business trying to run the government. The army must remain within its constitutionally defined role,” Masood quoted Bajwa as saying in his first meeting after taking over as army chief. But subsequent events proved to be quite different.

The book talks about other leaders, especially Nawaz Sharif, the former army protégé, his falling out with the military, the deal that he struck with the generals to return home from exile and make an unsuccessful attempt to become the prime minister for the fourth time.

But it is Khan, a political messiah to the people who promised to build a more equitable and corruption-free Pakistan but ended up taking U-turns on all that he promised, who remains the focus of Masood’s book. “Khan’s politics has become a game of whack-a-mole: every time you think you have a handle on what he stands for, he pops up with a completely different position. Backtracking has become a defining feature of his leadership style, and it seems with each passing day, he manages to outdo himself in terms of inconsistencies and U-turns,” observes Masood.

The crisp and lucid writing notwithstanding, Fallout is merely a collection of Masood’s published columns in the media. It is an instance of lazy journalism on the author’s part as he opts for a collection of his own columns instead of a serious, political book on the contemporary history of Pakistan.