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The Times and Trials of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case was the first of nine conspiracies in the armed forces of Pakistan to overthrow the civilian government. This is the first authoritative account of the 1951 Conspiracy based on official records. The study relates how the Conspiracy planned two attempts over a
period of more than two years, reveals the details of the coup plans, and seeks answers to questions which have been the subject of speculation and rumors for the last 46 years.
period of more than two years, reveals the details of the coup plans, and seeks answers to questions which have been the subject of speculation and rumors for the last 46 years.
Hardcover
First published December 24, 1998
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August 5, 2022
Original review posted on GR (3rd Feb. 2016):
Incredibly interesting historic-leaf out of an evergreen topic! Published in 1998 (I think there's an irony there somewhere), Hasan Zaheer's book reads more like a dry journal than dramatic narrative. It is without pictures.
Read abu's copy.
Since it’s that time of the month - evergreen conspiracies of whether the government will survive the latest fiasco or not - it is only fitting to go back to the roots of it all: ‘The Times and Trials of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 - The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan’, written by a bureaucrat Hasan Zaheer and published by Oxford University Press in 1998 (irony-laden year). It is without pictures so curious people will have to google everyone mentioned in the book!
Found the following tidbits to be interesting - some sound so familiar, as if it were yesterday:
- A Chief of General Staff, an Air Commodore and a Division head led the ‘conspiracy to commit coup’ attempt.
- Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan started thinking about overthrowing the government and organizing like-minded officers for the effort in 1949, two years after Independence. As Chief of General Staff, he was the third-most important military officer behind Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan and Chief of Staff General Mackey and ran a ‘conspiracy’ meeting with all members right next to GHQ at his home a few weeks (23rd Feb.) before his arrest on 9th March 1951!
- The said grievances against the civilian government headed by Liaquat Ali Khan were that a) it was corrupt and inept b) that civilian bureaucracy and police were corrupt, c) The people were not fully ready for a democratic state, but they had great faith in the army and there was no reason why it should not take over the government to run it honestly and efficiently. (pg. 166) d) that Kashmir cause had not been protected and in fact could not be protected due to presence of British officers in senior military positions as well as government’s preference and leaning towards U.S. Bloc. e) the refugees had not been properly rehabilitated.
Page 174 states ‘the reasons given for the military action were: i) the economic plight of the country, ii) the weakness of the government due to which Kashmir was lost, iii) the weakness of the government in all other internal and external affairs.’
- The government was unpopular.
- The proposed solution was that the country would be run better by the military (‘Military Council’)under Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan’s leadership (though other conspirators suggested the name of another senior general) to give it a clean and honest administration and give all people universal welfare equally - land and wealth be divided (through Islamic socialism, communism etc. - most had their own ideas). The Kashmir cause would be better served by the new military government in helping Azad Kashmir forces to fight Indians (pg. 184). The Military Council would hold elections within 6 months and hand over power to new civilian government.
- The coup plan entailed ‘creating public sympathy for the coup before the actual act’ and confinement of key military, police and civilian leadership by rounding them up at different places during coup - and technically killing anyone who resisted. Railway, telephone and telegraph exchanges and the Airforce wireless exchange had to be taken under control too. East Pakistan and it’s reaction was not considered. Noteworthy is that Defence Secretary at this time was Iskander Mirza.
- The plan unraveled when one of the co-conspirators - dissatisfied with its effectiveness to overthrow the government and too much left to chance - went ahead and squealed. Siddique Raja became one of the two approvers (co-conspirators to become witnesses for prosecution).
- There were massive rumors of conspiracy against government before the actual arrests.
- The book suggests that a) Ayub Khan and other military officers knew of the plan or the disgruntled sentiments of the senior military conspirators from 1949 - and did nothing, till March 1951, when all were rounded up. Ayub Khan said in book ‘Friends’, that in spite of being ‘suspicious of (Akbar Khan),‘ and knowing of ‘his ambition, his family background and his political leanings’, he posted Akbar Khan as CGS ‘to ensure that he remained under my eye and also not in direct command of troops‘ (!) b) One of the approvers (i.e. co-conspirators who turned witness for the prosecution) Sadiq Khan said that Akbar Khan said he had consulted Ayub Khan who would be president of the Military Council. c) Furthermore, way back in 1948, then C-in-C General Gracey informed Liaquat Ali Khan of ‘improper opinions’ being expressed at an Abbottabad dinner of a commander (co-conspirator Latif Khan, who headed Quetta Division by 1951).
- To try the accused, a special legal document ‘The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Special Tribunal Act’ was created and approved by the Assembly in a single day. It reduced the fundamental human rights of an accused and strength of evidence.
- 15 were arrested, accused and charged. Two other became approvers (co-conspirators turned witnesses for prosecution). Prosecution submitted list of 351 witnesses out of whom 17 were considered important by Tribunal, apart from 'to-do lists' in Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan's handwriting.
- The trial started on 15th June 1951. The Tribunal had 3 judges: Just. Abdur Rahman from the federal court, Just. Amiruddin Ahmed from Dacca High Court and Just. Mohd. Sharif from Lahore High Court.
- Judgement had 852 'foolscap' pages with 41 appendices.
- They were sentenced on 5th Jan. 1953 (the longest was for Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan - 7 years, and the punishment trickled down to 5 and 4 years for others).
- Liaquat Ali Khan got assassinated in Oct. 1951. The new PM’s government got dissolved by Governor-General in 1953.
- The same thing happened in 1954, this time by Governor-General Iskander Mirza! New assembly got made in 1955.
- Everyone was released in 1955 when a court declared ‘The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Special Tribunal Act’ null and void under a technicality in Maulvi Tamizuddin case!
- The country got it’s first home-grown constitution in 1956.
- Gov. Gen. Iskander Mirza got rid of the constitution and declared court martial in 1958 - and immediately got removed by C-in-C Ayub Khan!
- So ‘dayr ayad durust ayad’? (Better late than never?)
- Faiz Ahmed Faiz was one of the 15 accused and charged and put on trial and convicted for the ‘conspiracy’. He had risen to Lt. Col. in Moral Welfare Directorate of the Indian Army during Second World War! In 1951, he was not just a famous poet and leftist (and V.P. of Trade Union and other organizations ‘that were a front for communist party’), but also the editor of ‘Pakistan Times’ and President of All Pakistan Newspaper Editors Conference association.
The chapter on ‘Conspiracy’ ranges from pages 161-203. Page 198 details the 1 hour lecture given by Faiz at the fateful 23rd Feb. 1951 meeting (at Akbar Khan’s house near GHQ) where he noted that the Press was under his control and under the control of some underground workers and they could mould public opinion in favour of the action taken by army.
But that is not why I am mentioning him: it is the role of the media in the aftermath of the announcement on 9th March 1951 by PM Liaquat Ali Khan that a conspiracy had been uncovered in the armed forces ‘to create conditions in the country by violent means and to subvert the loyalty of Pakistan’s defence forces’ and he could not ‘disclose publicly the details of the plans of those who were implicated in the conspiracy’ for ‘reasons of national security’, but assured the nation that if the plans had succeeded, ‘they would have struck at the very foundations of our national existence and disrupted the stability of Pakistan’. He expressed full confidence in the armed forces. (Dawn, Karachi, 10th March issue)
Page 14 states that ‘a public campaign started against the ‘traitors’ started simultaneously with the PM’s announcement. 18 Pakistani editors - representing the entire Press of Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka ad Peshawar met in Karachi the same evening (i.e. 9th March) under the presidentship of Altaf Husain, editor of Dawn. The meeting, without waiting for or demanding details, endorsed the government’s action, and gave an assurance of unqualified support to any further measures, however severe they might be. This resolution AND the PM’S statement appeared side by side n the front page of 10th March issue of Dawn.’ As Hasan Zaheer writes (and he is right), ‘There were no facts available at the time, or even later, which justified the national Press in giving the government a carte blanche. One prominent editor, Z. A. Sulehri even resigned from APNEC because Faiz was the President of the editor’s association and had been arrested!’
- Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan recounted a story of 14th Aug. 1947 that Akbar Khan denied as having ever taken place: at a reception by Quaid for Mountbatten, Akbar Khan went to Quaid and said that ‘Our hopes of a new system have not been realized. We still have the same colonial structure. We should bring about a change in line with the genius of our people.’ To which Quaid pointed a finger at Akbar Khan and said ‘Look here, you are a soldier. You have no business to criticize the government. You must concentrate on your profession.’
- There was a happy-ever-after for the former military convicts - some entered politics, others business. They were all unhappy with the treatment meted out under the trial but they had natural deaths.
Review posted on YT (4th Aug. 2022):
A sitting unpopular Pakistani prime minister removes an army chief and installs another one. He then alleges a conspiracy against his government and democracy by a section of the armed forces, bureaucrats and vets, powerful media players and foreign-influenced civilian infidels. He is also suspicious of the move occuring right after he cancelled a trip to Moscow, alligning the country with U.S. instead of U.S.S.R. Another section of the army, this one under the newly-selected army chief, comes to the prime minister’s rescue in the interest of national security. The Constituent Assembly passes a special law to try all of the traitors swiftly, curtailing their fundamental rights. All of the political parties call the attempted coup an act of treason. All of the country’s media supports the army action without question. The news is tailored to make it seem less like a mutiny in the army itself, and more a clash of West versus East aka U.S.A. vs. Communist U.S.S.R, a fight between good and evil.
The traitors allege they were simply trying to save the country from corrupt and inept government, as well as corrupt bureaucracy and police. The economy was in shambles. The country, they said, was not ready for the democratic setup and should be under an honest and efficient military command to bring universal welfare to the people, with equal distribution of land and wealth, save the Kashmir cause, protect the strategic national interest and take the country on the path to financial glory, as seen fit by them. And cherry on top, this military command would’ve called a free and fair election in 6 months.
These unruly, insubordinate, traitorous military officials who subsequently got convicted of treason, got a slap on the back, a few years in airy fairy jails, and were out in 4-5 years. They spent the rest of their lives pursuing politics, business, and a general sense of entitlement over all of Pakistan. They said they had been treated unfairly at their trials, after all they hadn’t really done anything, just talked about a coup, that’s all, and it was a tragedy that they’d been demoted. They also made their displeasure known of how the army chief saw their patriotism as nothing more than personal ambition, and had insulted them by sending a a team of measly police to capture and arrest them, rather than a corps or commandos or secret service agents befitting their status. Some even wrote books about their perceived ordeal but lived happily ever after and suffered no less than a natural death.
If only Pakistan’s prime ministers were so lucky.
For Liaquat Ali Khan’s government was saved, but not for long. The prime minister attended a rally, made a speech and got promptly assassinated. The army chief became the defence minister, and in the short span of 5 years oversaw six prime ministers, got another extension and promotion with a new title, overthrowing the government, to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak. He even held an unfair, unfree, biased and racist election, which further divided the country.
In fact, it is even suggested that it was this army chief who had committed the real conspiracy by planting the label of traitor on senior military men to weed out ‘patriotic’ and ‘rival’ officers! The coursebooks and media sang sonnets of the reign of this army chief, especially during the tenure of the coup by another army chief.
If you get a sense of deja vu you’re not alone. The more things change, the more they remain the same. It seems everything is always at a crossroads in Pakistan. For this story is not of 2022, it’s of 1951, more accurately, of 14th August, 1947, when Pakistan, carved and renamed out of an India, was a baby.
That’s when Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan, a brooding, young war hero, a pashtun and soon-to-be Kashmiri freedom fighter, had a dream. A dream he is alleged to have shared with the founder of Pakistan. Legend has it - as told by Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan and vehemently denied by the general himself - Gen. Khan spoke to Quaid-e-Azam Mohd. Ali Jinnah during a reception on the 14th about his disenchantment with the way things were going, saying that ‘Our hopes of a new system have not been realized. We still have the same colonial structure. We should bring about a change in line with the genius of our people.’ To which Quaid-e-Azam gave him the finger (well, he raised his finger at him) and said ‘Look here, you are a soldier. You have no business to criticize the government. You must concentrate on your profession.’
No one knows what reply if any Akbar Khan may have given, because he denied the conversation ever occured, but I can only imagine what answer the subsequent generals would’ve given to the civilian Quaid to show him his place, how suspicious they would have been of his people power, and how they would have made sure that such an educated civilian politician who stands up to them ceases to exist with dignity, liberty and life intact.
The book ‘The Times and Trials of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 - The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan’, is written by bureaucrat Hasan Zaheer and was published by Oxford University Press in 1998, a year before yet another military coup d’ e’tat. The book reads more like a dry journal than a dramatic narrative but it contains information gleaned from declassified GoP documents as well as interviews with key convicts. It’s a good book. Reading it is a thrill until you realize there are no pictures, so curious (and irritated) people will have to google everyone mentioned in the book, except perhaps, legendary Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I would’ve liked to have seen the ‘To-Do List’ that was hand-written by leading coup mastermind Gen. Akbar, but it’s not in the appendices.
What the book clearly shows is how the wheels of defence, judiciary, bureaucracy, intelligence, political parties and media are used and abused by elements within these groups to gain power. And such games have yielded more chaos and uncertainty every single time they are played. Meanwhile, the people of Pakistan soldier on.
Incredibly interesting historic-leaf out of an evergreen topic! Published in 1998 (I think there's an irony there somewhere), Hasan Zaheer's book reads more like a dry journal than dramatic narrative. It is without pictures.
Read abu's copy.
Since it’s that time of the month - evergreen conspiracies of whether the government will survive the latest fiasco or not - it is only fitting to go back to the roots of it all: ‘The Times and Trials of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 - The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan’, written by a bureaucrat Hasan Zaheer and published by Oxford University Press in 1998 (irony-laden year). It is without pictures so curious people will have to google everyone mentioned in the book!
Found the following tidbits to be interesting - some sound so familiar, as if it were yesterday:
- A Chief of General Staff, an Air Commodore and a Division head led the ‘conspiracy to commit coup’ attempt.
- Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan started thinking about overthrowing the government and organizing like-minded officers for the effort in 1949, two years after Independence. As Chief of General Staff, he was the third-most important military officer behind Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan and Chief of Staff General Mackey and ran a ‘conspiracy’ meeting with all members right next to GHQ at his home a few weeks (23rd Feb.) before his arrest on 9th March 1951!
- The said grievances against the civilian government headed by Liaquat Ali Khan were that a) it was corrupt and inept b) that civilian bureaucracy and police were corrupt, c) The people were not fully ready for a democratic state, but they had great faith in the army and there was no reason why it should not take over the government to run it honestly and efficiently. (pg. 166) d) that Kashmir cause had not been protected and in fact could not be protected due to presence of British officers in senior military positions as well as government’s preference and leaning towards U.S. Bloc. e) the refugees had not been properly rehabilitated.
Page 174 states ‘the reasons given for the military action were: i) the economic plight of the country, ii) the weakness of the government due to which Kashmir was lost, iii) the weakness of the government in all other internal and external affairs.’
- The government was unpopular.
- The proposed solution was that the country would be run better by the military (‘Military Council’)under Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan’s leadership (though other conspirators suggested the name of another senior general) to give it a clean and honest administration and give all people universal welfare equally - land and wealth be divided (through Islamic socialism, communism etc. - most had their own ideas). The Kashmir cause would be better served by the new military government in helping Azad Kashmir forces to fight Indians (pg. 184). The Military Council would hold elections within 6 months and hand over power to new civilian government.
- The coup plan entailed ‘creating public sympathy for the coup before the actual act’ and confinement of key military, police and civilian leadership by rounding them up at different places during coup - and technically killing anyone who resisted. Railway, telephone and telegraph exchanges and the Airforce wireless exchange had to be taken under control too. East Pakistan and it’s reaction was not considered. Noteworthy is that Defence Secretary at this time was Iskander Mirza.
- The plan unraveled when one of the co-conspirators - dissatisfied with its effectiveness to overthrow the government and too much left to chance - went ahead and squealed. Siddique Raja became one of the two approvers (co-conspirators to become witnesses for prosecution).
- There were massive rumors of conspiracy against government before the actual arrests.
- The book suggests that a) Ayub Khan and other military officers knew of the plan or the disgruntled sentiments of the senior military conspirators from 1949 - and did nothing, till March 1951, when all were rounded up. Ayub Khan said in book ‘Friends’, that in spite of being ‘suspicious of (Akbar Khan),‘ and knowing of ‘his ambition, his family background and his political leanings’, he posted Akbar Khan as CGS ‘to ensure that he remained under my eye and also not in direct command of troops‘ (!) b) One of the approvers (i.e. co-conspirators who turned witness for the prosecution) Sadiq Khan said that Akbar Khan said he had consulted Ayub Khan who would be president of the Military Council. c) Furthermore, way back in 1948, then C-in-C General Gracey informed Liaquat Ali Khan of ‘improper opinions’ being expressed at an Abbottabad dinner of a commander (co-conspirator Latif Khan, who headed Quetta Division by 1951).
- To try the accused, a special legal document ‘The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Special Tribunal Act’ was created and approved by the Assembly in a single day. It reduced the fundamental human rights of an accused and strength of evidence.
- 15 were arrested, accused and charged. Two other became approvers (co-conspirators turned witnesses for prosecution). Prosecution submitted list of 351 witnesses out of whom 17 were considered important by Tribunal, apart from 'to-do lists' in Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan's handwriting.
- The trial started on 15th June 1951. The Tribunal had 3 judges: Just. Abdur Rahman from the federal court, Just. Amiruddin Ahmed from Dacca High Court and Just. Mohd. Sharif from Lahore High Court.
- Judgement had 852 'foolscap' pages with 41 appendices.
- They were sentenced on 5th Jan. 1953 (the longest was for Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan - 7 years, and the punishment trickled down to 5 and 4 years for others).
- Liaquat Ali Khan got assassinated in Oct. 1951. The new PM’s government got dissolved by Governor-General in 1953.
- The same thing happened in 1954, this time by Governor-General Iskander Mirza! New assembly got made in 1955.
- Everyone was released in 1955 when a court declared ‘The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Special Tribunal Act’ null and void under a technicality in Maulvi Tamizuddin case!
- The country got it’s first home-grown constitution in 1956.
- Gov. Gen. Iskander Mirza got rid of the constitution and declared court martial in 1958 - and immediately got removed by C-in-C Ayub Khan!
- So ‘dayr ayad durust ayad’? (Better late than never?)
- Faiz Ahmed Faiz was one of the 15 accused and charged and put on trial and convicted for the ‘conspiracy’. He had risen to Lt. Col. in Moral Welfare Directorate of the Indian Army during Second World War! In 1951, he was not just a famous poet and leftist (and V.P. of Trade Union and other organizations ‘that were a front for communist party’), but also the editor of ‘Pakistan Times’ and President of All Pakistan Newspaper Editors Conference association.
The chapter on ‘Conspiracy’ ranges from pages 161-203. Page 198 details the 1 hour lecture given by Faiz at the fateful 23rd Feb. 1951 meeting (at Akbar Khan’s house near GHQ) where he noted that the Press was under his control and under the control of some underground workers and they could mould public opinion in favour of the action taken by army.
But that is not why I am mentioning him: it is the role of the media in the aftermath of the announcement on 9th March 1951 by PM Liaquat Ali Khan that a conspiracy had been uncovered in the armed forces ‘to create conditions in the country by violent means and to subvert the loyalty of Pakistan’s defence forces’ and he could not ‘disclose publicly the details of the plans of those who were implicated in the conspiracy’ for ‘reasons of national security’, but assured the nation that if the plans had succeeded, ‘they would have struck at the very foundations of our national existence and disrupted the stability of Pakistan’. He expressed full confidence in the armed forces. (Dawn, Karachi, 10th March issue)
Page 14 states that ‘a public campaign started against the ‘traitors’ started simultaneously with the PM’s announcement. 18 Pakistani editors - representing the entire Press of Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka ad Peshawar met in Karachi the same evening (i.e. 9th March) under the presidentship of Altaf Husain, editor of Dawn. The meeting, without waiting for or demanding details, endorsed the government’s action, and gave an assurance of unqualified support to any further measures, however severe they might be. This resolution AND the PM’S statement appeared side by side n the front page of 10th March issue of Dawn.’ As Hasan Zaheer writes (and he is right), ‘There were no facts available at the time, or even later, which justified the national Press in giving the government a carte blanche. One prominent editor, Z. A. Sulehri even resigned from APNEC because Faiz was the President of the editor’s association and had been arrested!’
- Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan recounted a story of 14th Aug. 1947 that Akbar Khan denied as having ever taken place: at a reception by Quaid for Mountbatten, Akbar Khan went to Quaid and said that ‘Our hopes of a new system have not been realized. We still have the same colonial structure. We should bring about a change in line with the genius of our people.’ To which Quaid pointed a finger at Akbar Khan and said ‘Look here, you are a soldier. You have no business to criticize the government. You must concentrate on your profession.’
- There was a happy-ever-after for the former military convicts - some entered politics, others business. They were all unhappy with the treatment meted out under the trial but they had natural deaths.
Review posted on YT (4th Aug. 2022):
A sitting unpopular Pakistani prime minister removes an army chief and installs another one. He then alleges a conspiracy against his government and democracy by a section of the armed forces, bureaucrats and vets, powerful media players and foreign-influenced civilian infidels. He is also suspicious of the move occuring right after he cancelled a trip to Moscow, alligning the country with U.S. instead of U.S.S.R. Another section of the army, this one under the newly-selected army chief, comes to the prime minister’s rescue in the interest of national security. The Constituent Assembly passes a special law to try all of the traitors swiftly, curtailing their fundamental rights. All of the political parties call the attempted coup an act of treason. All of the country’s media supports the army action without question. The news is tailored to make it seem less like a mutiny in the army itself, and more a clash of West versus East aka U.S.A. vs. Communist U.S.S.R, a fight between good and evil.
The traitors allege they were simply trying to save the country from corrupt and inept government, as well as corrupt bureaucracy and police. The economy was in shambles. The country, they said, was not ready for the democratic setup and should be under an honest and efficient military command to bring universal welfare to the people, with equal distribution of land and wealth, save the Kashmir cause, protect the strategic national interest and take the country on the path to financial glory, as seen fit by them. And cherry on top, this military command would’ve called a free and fair election in 6 months.
These unruly, insubordinate, traitorous military officials who subsequently got convicted of treason, got a slap on the back, a few years in airy fairy jails, and were out in 4-5 years. They spent the rest of their lives pursuing politics, business, and a general sense of entitlement over all of Pakistan. They said they had been treated unfairly at their trials, after all they hadn’t really done anything, just talked about a coup, that’s all, and it was a tragedy that they’d been demoted. They also made their displeasure known of how the army chief saw their patriotism as nothing more than personal ambition, and had insulted them by sending a a team of measly police to capture and arrest them, rather than a corps or commandos or secret service agents befitting their status. Some even wrote books about their perceived ordeal but lived happily ever after and suffered no less than a natural death.
If only Pakistan’s prime ministers were so lucky.
For Liaquat Ali Khan’s government was saved, but not for long. The prime minister attended a rally, made a speech and got promptly assassinated. The army chief became the defence minister, and in the short span of 5 years oversaw six prime ministers, got another extension and promotion with a new title, overthrowing the government, to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak. He even held an unfair, unfree, biased and racist election, which further divided the country.
In fact, it is even suggested that it was this army chief who had committed the real conspiracy by planting the label of traitor on senior military men to weed out ‘patriotic’ and ‘rival’ officers! The coursebooks and media sang sonnets of the reign of this army chief, especially during the tenure of the coup by another army chief.
If you get a sense of deja vu you’re not alone. The more things change, the more they remain the same. It seems everything is always at a crossroads in Pakistan. For this story is not of 2022, it’s of 1951, more accurately, of 14th August, 1947, when Pakistan, carved and renamed out of an India, was a baby.
That’s when Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan, a brooding, young war hero, a pashtun and soon-to-be Kashmiri freedom fighter, had a dream. A dream he is alleged to have shared with the founder of Pakistan. Legend has it - as told by Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan and vehemently denied by the general himself - Gen. Khan spoke to Quaid-e-Azam Mohd. Ali Jinnah during a reception on the 14th about his disenchantment with the way things were going, saying that ‘Our hopes of a new system have not been realized. We still have the same colonial structure. We should bring about a change in line with the genius of our people.’ To which Quaid-e-Azam gave him the finger (well, he raised his finger at him) and said ‘Look here, you are a soldier. You have no business to criticize the government. You must concentrate on your profession.’
No one knows what reply if any Akbar Khan may have given, because he denied the conversation ever occured, but I can only imagine what answer the subsequent generals would’ve given to the civilian Quaid to show him his place, how suspicious they would have been of his people power, and how they would have made sure that such an educated civilian politician who stands up to them ceases to exist with dignity, liberty and life intact.
The book ‘The Times and Trials of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 - The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan’, is written by bureaucrat Hasan Zaheer and was published by Oxford University Press in 1998, a year before yet another military coup d’ e’tat. The book reads more like a dry journal than a dramatic narrative but it contains information gleaned from declassified GoP documents as well as interviews with key convicts. It’s a good book. Reading it is a thrill until you realize there are no pictures, so curious (and irritated) people will have to google everyone mentioned in the book, except perhaps, legendary Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I would’ve liked to have seen the ‘To-Do List’ that was hand-written by leading coup mastermind Gen. Akbar, but it’s not in the appendices.
What the book clearly shows is how the wheels of defence, judiciary, bureaucracy, intelligence, political parties and media are used and abused by elements within these groups to gain power. And such games have yielded more chaos and uncertainty every single time they are played. Meanwhile, the people of Pakistan soldier on.
April 28, 2017
Written by a retired government servant who accidently stumbled upon the papers of the trial in the archive and later on sought permission of prime minister to use the info to write on the matter. Thus author not being a historiographer hasn't done justice to the issue at hand.
Half of the book has nothing to do with the topic. This half being a history of Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. The author gloriously titles this half as first cause of the coup but there's no chapter or paragraph titled 2nd cause of the coup. This seems to be an attempt to bolster the size of the book nothing else.
Still the book sheds light on an important episode of history of Pakistan. and is no mean effort by any standards. A good read if one has absolutely no idea of what happened in this so called coup. But beware this seems so one sided a story at times
Half of the book has nothing to do with the topic. This half being a history of Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. The author gloriously titles this half as first cause of the coup but there's no chapter or paragraph titled 2nd cause of the coup. This seems to be an attempt to bolster the size of the book nothing else.
Still the book sheds light on an important episode of history of Pakistan. and is no mean effort by any standards. A good read if one has absolutely no idea of what happened in this so called coup. But beware this seems so one sided a story at times
October 9, 2017
Waste of time and money.
The author avoids quoting primary sources as a healthy person avoids contagious disease. There is no sufficient mention of others sides, Kashmir, and Bharat, which decreases its authenticity. There is no mention of what tribal fighters did there, what were the response of those whom they wanted to free. Unnecessary details of unimportant things.
In the first two chapters, the author goes back and forth in time and space.
There is the least matter about Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and Sajjd Zaheer activities regarding the 'conspiracy'.
The book proves that Akbar Khan has mental issues, laws were abused, and accused civilian were unfairly prosecuted.
The author avoids quoting primary sources as a healthy person avoids contagious disease. There is no sufficient mention of others sides, Kashmir, and Bharat, which decreases its authenticity. There is no mention of what tribal fighters did there, what were the response of those whom they wanted to free. Unnecessary details of unimportant things.
In the first two chapters, the author goes back and forth in time and space.
There is the least matter about Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and Sajjd Zaheer activities regarding the 'conspiracy'.
The book proves that Akbar Khan has mental issues, laws were abused, and accused civilian were unfairly prosecuted.
February 13, 2018
This book provided a panoramic view of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy of 1951, the actors involved and the legal proceedings thereafter. It is a masterful retelling of that case, the ideology underpinning its planning and how the conspiracy was foiled eventually. A must-read for students of Pakistan history
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews