By Anil Bhat
`Through Orphaned Eyes` by Ajay Singh, Pentagon Press, Pp 278 in hard cover. Price: Rs. 545/-
It is the story of two brothers orphaned during the bloody violence that erupted at India`™s partition and the creation of Pakistan in August 1947. The elder of the two is adopted by a school teacher in India, while the younger, born on 14 August 1947, the very day of Pakistan`™s painful `birth`™, is discovered lying just born next to his slain mother by Lt Col Shahryar Khan of Probyn`™s Horse, which, in the process of partitioning of the till then undivided Indian Army, was allotted to Pakistan minus its Hindu troops. Khan decides to take the child home to his wife, who employs a lactating cleaning woman to feed him and looks after him. Realising that this child has filled a void in their lives, they decide against handing him over to a refugee camp or an orphanage, have him baptized as a Muslim and adopt him.
From there the story aptly titled Through Orphaned Eyes rides piggy-back on actual events related to both countries and the narrative interspersed with facts and fiction, which includes accounts in first person by the nameless elder brother, who joins the Indian Army as a sapper. In the 1965 Indo-Pak war the elder brother`™s engineer regiment is involved in Indian Army`™s plan to bog down Pakistan`™s armoured division, commanded by now Maj Gen Shahryar Khan, near Asal Utar by breaching a canal bank and inundating the area.
Then comes the 1971 Indo-Pak war in which Pakistan was not only defeated over thirteen days, but also over 93,000 of its troops in erstwhile East Pakistan surrender to the Indian Army. That is when the two brothers actually meet – in a prisoners of war (PsOW) camp in India where the younger brother serving as a Captain in Pak army is a POW and the elder brother a non commissioned officer (NCO) of the engineer regiment running the camp. As the NCO in charge of the POW Camp`™s officers`™ lines, the interaction between two develops into a bit of friendliness, with the NCO sometimes favouring the Capt with extra rations. It is also the time when the elder brother hears from his family about the birth of his first child, a son, whose photograph he shows to the Capt along with the gift of a whisky bottle. The Capt`™s good wishes to the son turn out later to be most fatefully ironic.
Thereafter the story proceeds to record post 1971 developments in both countries. The 93,000 Pakistan armed forces POWs are repatriated after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`™s wily negotiation with former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was assertive in declaring war on Pakistan, but failed to extract any substantial advantage at the 1972 Shimla Conference in exchange of the return of the POWs and land captured by Indian Army in the Western theatre.
During the peak of Mrs. Gandhi`™s political career, when she decides on India`™s first nuclear test in 1974, the story places the elder brother`™s engineer regiment responsible for the ground preparation at Pokharan and describes how scientists dressed in army uniforms went about their work there.
Then there is a chapter on the emergency declared by Mrs. Gandhi, when the elder brother`™s adoptive father, the Masterji, is picked up by the police when addressing a group of students and how he loses the use of one hand owing to lathi blows in the same spot as when years earlier during the Quit India movement, he had been similarly bashed by the police.
Next comes Operation Blue Star around the Golden Temple, Amritsar, where the elder brother`™s regiment is deployed in a supportive role and the narrative dwells on the tense situations during that period.
Further interesting twists in the tale are how the elder brother`™s one son joins the Army, the other an MNC and his daughter becomes a nationally reputed classical danseuse. On the other side of the border Shahnawaz`™s wife has become famous as Pakistan`™s nightingale ghazal singer and they are the parents of twin sons. While the elder brother retires from the Army and gets a good job as an administration and security officer, Shahnawaz steadily rises to the rank of Lt Gen and is appointed as the head of Pakistan`™s infamous ISI and obviously quite close to General/Chief Executive/President etc Pervez Musharraf. Before becoming all that it is Musharraf, who, as DG, military operations has planned the Kargil misadventure, where the elder brother`™s son who joined the army is killed at the nod of Shahnawaz, who had wished him a long life at his birth.
The 9/11 terrorist attack on the US comes as quite a blow for Pak army, when it has to begin hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. Over the following years the terrorist groups which Pak army has raised and nurtured have turned out to be a cancer for Pakistan, where its hapless people and even the army and the ISI, all become their targets. Shahnawaz `s wife too is threatened for her talent. But this does not stop Pak army from actively pursuing its anti-India fixation. Shahnawaz is now planning 26/11 on Mumbai, for which he gets a fantastic windfall. As part of Aman ki Asha initiative, his wife and other artists are invited to Mumbai to perform in a programme in which the elder brother`™s daughter is also to participate. Shahnawaz, who accompanies her gets a golden opportunity to live in and personally reconnoiter the Taj Mahal Hotel, which is the target planned for 9/11. Both the brothers, still unaware that they are so, meet again when Shahnawaz`™s wife felicitates his brother`™s daughter after the cultural programme.
The story has been brilliantly woven into the ironically eventful post Independence history of the India and Pakistan. Pre and post Independence history, which shaped the destinies of both India and Pakistan has so far not been part of schools syllabus in India. In Pakistan it has been altered, to put it mildly. That makes this book`™s story all the more interesting and informative. The author, an early retired armoured corps colonel, had the book released by retired Lt Gens G D Singh and Syed Ata Hasnain, who also shared their own experiences of partition. Some of Hasnain`™s relatives remained in Pakistan and he has a cousin serving in Pakistan Army.
This book should be widely read by all generations on both sides of the border. If Pakistan decides to ban it, its sale will only shoot up.