Generals in Politics

Since 1958 when the Pakistan Army staged a coup and took over the government of the country without constitutional backing or public support, the story of the Generals has been one of great betrayal. Air Marshal Asghar Khan, was witness to the Army’s rapid take-over and consolidation of power from 1958 to the present day. Considered too dangerous to be left at large, he has been under intermittent detention since 1968 and under continuous house arrest for the last three years. His account is laced with startling disclosures about the ruthless weeding out and victimization of those officers who refused to fall in with the generals; of the Punjabi elite’s perception of East Pakistan as an encumbrance; of the General's own restlessness and impatience with the Bengali’s heightened political awareness; and of their almost Machiavellian wooing and betrayal of Sh. Mujib-ur-Rahman. With a passion born of his unfaltering belief in democratic principles, and despair at seeing them systematically sub-verted by those now in power, the author vividly spells out the dangers inherent in a situation that allows the armed forces to infiltrate the political process. His account is an expose and a warning, both; of events under the Generals in Pakistan during the last quarter century, and of the nemesis that follows when a body Politic is thus vitiated.