The publisher’s launch of Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s new book, Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove, was well attended. At Faletti’s Hotel – a well-preserved relic from colonial times – Mr Kasuri and his wife Nasreen busily greeted the guests, many of who belonged to Lahore’s elite. Coming from the same elite, during his days as Pakistan’s foreign minister – invariably clad in a bespoke Bond Street pinstripe suit with neatly coiffed caramel locks – Kasuri has never made any pretense of being one of his central Punjab constituents of rural Kasur. His grooming, his Oxbridge education and his lineage not only make a remarkable CV, but also leave him standing head and shoulders above his counterparts. As foreign minister, he cut a more impressive figure than Jack Straw, then the British foreign secretary.
Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Relations Including Details of the Kashmir Framework Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri Oxford University Press, 2015 PRs 2,450
Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove starts with a brief but engaging introduction to Kasuri’s far-from-humble background, which, on his maternal side, reads like the who’s-who of British Indian nobility. His writing style has that element of surprise associated with a gifted writer – that is, when not describing diplomatic events, which at times sound like the PTV news bulletins that have dominated the national discourse invariably approved by the military establishment. Waiting in the damp monsoon-washed hills of Murree for the pastry wala to open his tin box and let the young Khurshid smell the creamy confectionary is a memory that many Pakistanis can claim as part of their childhood. It is while reading those pages that deal with his personal life that one wishes he had written more than the bland diplomatic chronicling he seems to have ended up doing in the book.
Kasuri’s passionate desire to describe how India and Pakistan came close to resolving the Kashmir dispute during his stint at the Foreign Office may be dear to his heart, but it doesn’t disclose anything new other than what is already known through newspaper reports and a number of books on the subject. There is, on the other hand, a smattering of anecdotal accounts of events to which he was privy. All in all, the book combines a narration of near-history-in-the-making, especially with respect to Pakistan-India relations, and personal analysis seen through Pakistani Foreign Office jargon and mindset.
Apart from Kasuri’s dream coming true in terms of becoming a foreign minister of his country, it is slightly disappointing to note that his rational and logical view of India and Kashmir could only be expressed through the cast-in-stone narrative of Pakistan’s military establishment. The impression one gets is that the straitjacket of diplomatic terminology, hardened through the bitter experiences between Pakistan and India, has been the most difficult thing to shed on both sides of the border. There is usually so much sensitivity between the two countries’ foreign offices that even a slip of the tongue is interpreted as a shift in mood and, ultimately, in policy.
Kasuri is at pains to describe the similarities between his decision to leave a democratically elected Nawaz Sharif and his father Mahmud Ali Kasuri’s brave step in leaving arguably the most popular political figure in Pakistan’s history, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The latter had introduced too many dictatorial provisions into the 1973 Constitution, against which the senior Kasuri had protested as head of the Constitution Committee. Kasuri left Nawaz Sharif over the issue of the 15th Amendment, which was designed to make Sharif the ‘Amirul Momineen’. Kasuri proudly describes how he was congratulated by friends and colleagues for keeping the family tradition alive by sticking to his principles in the way his father did.
The straitjacket of diplomatic terminology has been the most difficult to shed on both sides of the border
But the similarities end there. Even though he became one of Bhutto’s harshest critics and was at the forefront of the mass street movement in 1977 that culminated in military rule, Mahmud Ali Kasuri never entertained the thought of joining General Zia-ul-Haq’s military government, which meant he had to undergo the hardships of imprisonment in his old age. He might not have approved of his son’s decision to stand in the manipulated elections of 2002, much less his becoming a foreign minister under the military rule of General Musharraf. Kasuri, however, sees no moral dilemma in exercising this ‘pragmatism’ on which one sees so many politicians justify their self-serving decision to join a military dictator or (euphemistically) implore the ‘umpire to raise a finger’.
That said, for someone like Kasuri, the exposure he got while serving as foreign minister was phenomenal, whether or not the decision to join a dictator was a conscientious one. Having been born and brought up in a household that ate, drank and breathed law, it is surprising that he did not join the legal profession. Instead, Kasuri was more attracted to his father’s political activism and later fixated on the idea of becoming Pakistan’s foreign minister. The story goes that, one day, the young Khurshid peeled off his barrister’s gown in exasperation after having had to wait for hours for his turn to argue before a judge: he announced that he would not practice law again. That frustrating experience meant the legal profession lost a vociferous, passionate and forceful advocate like his legendary father, in much the same way that the dreary files and legal briefs in Motilal Nehru’s law chambers failed to inspire Jawaharlal Nehru as a young barrister.
The author, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri
When Ehsan Wyne, a communist lawyer, asked Kasuri at the book launch what measures Pakistan had taken to rein in non-state actors – something that India continuously complains about – his answer was quite startling. It was leftist elements, mainly communists, he said, who had infiltrated into Kashmir in 1947, not the conservative Pushtun tribals as is commonly known. In effect, this says that two wrongs make a right. His personal experience and analysis against the backdrop of his antecedents would make far more interesting reading should Kasuri decide to pen his autobiography, notwithstanding his genuine desire to focus on his passion in life – foreign affairs, and especially India-Pakistan relations.
Fond of the epigrams attributed to world leaders and statesmen, Kasuri includes a number of such quotes in his book, mostly on foreign policy. One such quip from former British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, sums it all up: “Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good governance at home.”
