Open Letters: Dear President Musharraf

Mainak Dhar is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad whose career in the corporate sector has spanned almost a dozen years across Mumbai, Bangkok and now Singapore. Cubicle dweller by day and writer by night, he has written six books, including the bestselling novel, The Funda of Mix-ology. Learn more about it at www.getthefunda.com.

In this new series, Mainak writes open letters to people in the news, commenting on the state of affairs in the world today.

Dear President Musharraf,

I had thought about writing to you earlier but kept putting it off, thinking I would do so when I had something substantive to write about. This week you provided me with not one, but three reasons to write in. The first was your proclamation that you had no intent of stepping down despite what increasingly looks like a precarious political situation with your allies having been trounced in the recent elections.

The second was the return to the news of the man who turned your nation's nuclear arsenal into the world's first atomic chor bazaar, Dr. A.Q.Khan, when by adding to his list of inconsistent and dubious comments, he claimed that he had never really sold nuclear technology to rogue regimes, but had been forced to confess to doing so by your government. The last skeleton tumbling out of your closet was Nawaz Sharif claiming that he had been given no inkling of the Kargil misadventure you were about to embark on.

So what's common to all three of these? The fact that I believe they hold important clues as to what your real motivations may be, and what will ultimately drive when and how you do leave office. Some articles in the press are saying that you are driven by a 'messianic complex', and that you really believe that you are indispensable to Pakistan's progress and survival. I'm no psychiatrist, but this seems like contrived psychobabble that tries to put some gloss over what I have come to see as your true driving force- nothing more glorious than a very strong instinct for personal survival.

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Your coming to power was an attempt to avoid being sacked or worse over the Kargil fiasco. Now we know that you had kept the civilian government in the dark over your adventure, and when it turned sour, you overthrew Nawaz Sharif to avoid having to face the consequences. You kept trying to please both sides in the US invasion of Afghanistan, first by dropping your Taliban allies like a hot potato when the US invaded and then by turning a blind eye to their new sanctuaries in Pakistan to please your own domestic fundamentalists. You peddled nuclear know-how for missile technology and feted A.Q.Khan as a national hero, and then hung him out to dry when the US started ringing the alarm bells over North Korea's nuclear programme. You made all the right noises about turning over a new leaf with India but did nothing to rein in elements of your Army and ISI abetting insurgency in India.

As I look back at this astounding record of duplicity, a few things stand out. The first of course is how you have always managed to survive, even if it meant speaking out of both sides of your mouth, or abandoning erstwhile allies. The second is that being motivated by personal survival is not in itself a bad thing, but it being the primary motivator is hardly the hallmark of a good leader, since leadership inevitably means sometimes having to put other's interests above one's own. Finally, this history also indicates one plain fact- you have made precious few friends. The US government will say the politically correct things while you are in power, but your peddling of nuclear technology and harbouring Taliban fugitives would not have endeared you to them. So you can probably forget about getting refuge from them once you leave office. Your old friends the Taliban are out for your blood, as are fundamentalists in Pakistan, incensed at your betrayal of them, so staying on in Pakistan without the shroud of official secrecy would be tantamount to suicide.

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Net, your selfish pursuit of personal survival has led you to a corner where to meet that same desire to survive, you really have no option but to hang on to power as long as you can. That, I believe is the crux of why you refuse to step aside.

This farce will play itself out, and one way or the other, your regime will come to an end. Perhaps the best thing you could do is for once to act selflessly, and to not subject your country's ordinary citizens to more instability and political theatre. Let them get the government they voted for- one without you at the helm- and step aside gracefully. Yes, there will be risks, and your enemies will be at your throat, but perhaps it is time for you finally to face the consequences of your actions like the decorated soldier you once were instead of continuing to run from them, or making others pay the price, like the political survivor you have become.

Warm regards,

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