This article was downloaded by: [University of Ulster Library]On: 07 December 2014, At: 04:55Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Click for updates

The Round Table: The CommonwealthJournal of International AffairsPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctrt20

Pakistan: A New HistoryVictoria Schofielda

a Lady Margaret Hall, University of OxfordPublished online: 14 Apr 2014.

To cite this article: Victoria Schofield (2014) Pakistan: A New History, The RoundTable: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 103:2, 256-258, DOI:10.1080/00358533.2014.901652

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2014.901652

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f U

lste

r L

ibra

ry]

at 0

4:55

07

Dec

embe

r 20

14

sation’s misunderstandings, the Karima story might never have been made more widelyknown.

Another chapter considers the politics of the statue of Dedan Kimathi, the dread-locked Mau Mau field marshal immortalised in bronze outside Nairobi’s Hilton Hotel,‘the unimpeachable individual signifying national achievement ... the striding figureatop a plinth’ (p. 176). In separate chapters Coombes and Hughes ruminate on thequeasy evasions of history that such monumental memory entails. They say nothing ofthe flaws in Kimathi’s autocratic leadership that led to his capture by the British in thefirst place, or of the doubts and divisions to which he admitted at his trial. Other diffi-culties are quite enough for their analytical purpose. As they point out, a reading ofKenya’s history that attributes the country’s independence to Mau Mau alone, as thestatue suggests, not only forgets the insurgents’ military defeat, but also turns Kikuyu‘loyalists’ (whose sons are the core of Kenya’s ruling class) into traitors, and excludesnon-Kikuyu from the national story. One can only sympathise, therefore, with theNMK’s delay in mounting an exhibition that purports to tell the ‘story of Kenya’, arecord of indecision and silence well told here. The authors conclude that ordinaryKenyans are wiser than their politicians and their international environmental lobbyistsin acknowledging the immigrant hybridity of their various ethnic identities. To memori-alise mongrels is harder than building monuments to heroes but, as our authors suggest,it might be a surer means to build a nation reconciled to its divided past.

Keen-eyed readers will notice that this reviewer is among the many thanked in theacknowledgements; he had enjoyed reading well-worked drafts that evoked littlecomment.

John Lonsdale © 2014Trinity College, University of Cambridge

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2014.896101

Pakistan: A New HistoryIan TalbotLondon, Hurst, 2012, pp. xv + 284, ISBN 978-1-84904-203-1 (hardback)

Ian Talbot is no stranger to writing about Pakistan. This book, the third edition of hisoriginal study first published in 1998, Pakistan, A Modern History, marks the continua-tion of a long-standing commitment both as an academic and as a field researcher tounderstanding Pakistan in all its complexities and fascination.

Taking both a thematic and chronological approach, Professor Talbot reminds us thatthe determining factor of Pakistan’s history is its location. Citing retired army officerRalph Peters’s 2006 notion, the author explains how Pakistan’s ‘sensitive geo-politicalsituation to the east of the Persian Gulf and in close proximity to Russia, China andIndia’ has made the country into a ‘garrison state’ in which the role of the armed forceshas become ‘over-developed’ (p. 15).

What follows is a sound but gloomy analysis of how Pakistan’s domestic history hasbeen influenced by its continual quest for stability, the division between phases fallingneatly within the decades of its nearly 67 year existence: the ‘first experiment’ (p. 47)

256 Book Reviews

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f U

lste

r L

ibra

ry]

at 0

4:55

07

Dec

embe

r 20

14

to institute democratic procedure in the 1950s failed when the struggle between itsrulers’ centralising tendencies and the demands of the provinces for autonomy reachedan impasse. The 1960s were dominated by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who introducedthe citizens of Pakistan to their first decade of military rule.

Pakistan’s stability was badly rocked in 1971 with the secession of Pakistan’s easternwing to become the independent country of Bangladesh after a bloody civil war, therepercussions of which are still felt to this day. There were, however, some democratichighpoints in the 1970s, when the government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhuttointroduced a Constitution in 1973 which, for the first time, had the agreement of allfour provinces.

Yet again, after less than a decade of elected civilian government, the 1980s werecharacterised by military rule, this time that of General Mohammed Zia-ul Haq whoattempted, as Talbot says, ‘to resolve Pakistan’s long-standing quest for stability bymeans of Islamization and depoliticization’ (p. 140). This was arguably Pakistan’s mosttesting time: courted by the United States and Britain for assistance in ousting the Sovi-ets from Afghanistan, western support of the Afghan jihad enabled Zia to ride rough-shod over the political and civil rights of the citizens of Pakistan, at the same time ascovertly enhancing Pakistan’s nuclear programme and laying the foundations forrenewed belligerence against India as a result of the unresolved dispute over Jammuand Kashmir.

Pakistan’s ‘democratic interlude’ (pp. 143–167) throughout the 1990s was underwrit-ten by a consistent policy of covert military strategies, both in Afghanistan and in India,which yet again undermined democratic procedure. As the author rightly points out,following the Kargil intervention in 1999, the disagreements between Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif and his Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, ‘were a factor inthe October 1999 coup’ (p. 167), ushering in yet another near-decade of military rule,albeit with some elective overlay.

When describing the Musharraf period, Talbot is unrestrained in emphasising thatPakistan had become a ‘Janus State’ (pp. 169–199), the period marked by the use ofIslamic proxies, most notably in Afghanistan, which served not just to ‘derail relationswith its neighbours’ but which came ‘at an increasing domestic cost’ (p. 171). Whileproclaiming himself as the saviour of Pakistan and providing assistance to the UnitedStates in the ‘war on terror’, Musharraf failed either to roll back Zia’s Islamisation or tostrengthen democratic institutions. His much-publicised ‘peace process’ with India hadalso stalled (p. 199).

Unexpectedly, and Talbot is right, a narration of Pakistan’s history does sometimesread like a Bollywood script (p. 169), the strengthening of democratic institutions leftto Musharraf’s successor as president, Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto—assassinated in December 2007. Under his authority, the Pakistan People’s Party,founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1967, became the first in Pakistan’s history to retainpower for the prescribed five-year period, contest elections, and then, having lost thoseelections, be able to relinquish authority without the customary military intervention.

Talbot’s conclusions remain pessimistic. Having ended his second edition by high-lighting the need for ‘genuine political participation of previously marginalised groups’to avoid ‘further polarisation and instability’ (p. ix), his conclusion to this volume high-lights the challenges arising from population growth and environmental concerns aspotentially being greater than the country’s current security concerns. And he is correct.

The Round Table 257

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f U

lste

r L

ibra

ry]

at 0

4:55

07

Dec

embe

r 20

14

With a population of over 180 million and rising (compared with approximately 35 mil-lion in West Pakistan in the 1951 census), Pakistan is sitting on a demographic timebomb (p. 226), a shortage of water being among its major concerns.

Victoria Schofield © 2014Senior Member, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2014.901652

A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power and theParliamentary System in Post-colonial India and CeylonHarshan KumarasinghamLondon and New York, I. B. Tauris, 2013, pp. xiv + 297, ISBN 9781780762289(hardback)

India and Ceylon, nations that attained independence from Britain in 1947 and 1948,respectively, both adopted variants of the Westminster model of government, whichconcentrates power in an executive that is dependent on maintaining the support of alegislature elected primarily through territorial constituencies. Harshan Kumarasinghamcompares how executive power was conceived and worked under this system duringthe first 10 years of independence in the two countries. To this end, he employs an‘interrelated three-level theoretical approach of cultural conditions, horizontal account-ability and path dependence’ (p. 204). Under the rubric of cultural conditions, Kumaras-ingham identifies how differences in the political culture of the two nations shaped thedetails and early functioning of their parliamentary systems. Many of these differencesstemmed from the contrasting nature of late colonial politics in these two entities of theBritish Empire. Under horizontal accountability, Kumarasingham compares relationshipsbetween the prime minister, the head of state and the cabinet. Finally, under path depen-dence Kumarasingham selects issues of governance during the first 10 years of indepen-dence that he sees as shaping the longer-term trajectories of the two nations. For Indiathis is federalism, and for Ceylon it is communalism.

The strength of the book lies in its comparative approach. Except for some inter-esting reports from the British High Commissions in Delhi and Colombo, Kumaras-ingham covers material that has already been well researched by other scholars. Inmany instances, however, his comparative analysis brings out insights that can behard to see when examining only a single case. One example is the argument thatthe different ways in which executive authority was exercised by South Asian politi-cians in British India and Ceylon in the late colonial period continued to shapepolitical behaviour under the Westminster system. Another example is the interestingproposition that while India was much more radical than Ceylon in rejecting the cer-emonial trappings of colonial government, it from the beginning kept more closelyto many informal conventions and underlying values characteristic of the Westminis-ter model. A third example is how the very narrow social class base of national Ce-ylonese politicians obstructed efforts to design policies and institutions that mightdefuse political polarisation along lines of ethnicity. In India, by contrast, the broadersocial base of the political class, along with stronger political party structures,

258 Book Reviews

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f U

lste

r L

ibra

ry]

at 0

4:55

07

Dec

embe

r 20

14