General Musharraf : A Bad Army Chief But The Best President of Pakistan
Rajiv Upadhyay
General Musharraf , once the undisputed king of Pakistan ,died away from his home land , in Dubai on 4th February, unsung and unwept by any one except his wife and children. Neither the army nor the country he once lead , wanted to appear close to him by remembering his contributions or writing any kind obituary . His death was not regretted even in USA although he did enormous service to US interests in the region . Indian army will always hate him for the Kargil war but surprisingly he was almost liked by the Indian people in the end and the media went gung ho during his visit to India in 2001.
History will be even kinder to him in Pakistan, for the enormous good he did to people and the country during the eight years of his rule from 1999 to 2007.It will hold him guilty of unnecessary Kargil war and defeat and his coup removing the democratically elected Nawaz Sharif as prime minister.His suspension of Supreme Court too was not liked by Pakistani people.
But his best achievement was in economic front. 11.8 million jobs were created in his rule and debt to GDP ratio fell from 100 to 55 % . Pakistan’s reserves increased from 1.2 billion dollars in 1999 to 10.7 illion dollars in 2004. He gave tough competition to India by achieving average economic growth of 6.3 % during his tenure . He was able to attract billions of dollars of FDI and investment increased from 17 to 23% . Mobile phone , TV and news channel boom took place in his time .Press enjoyed more freedom and faced less physical attacks then under subsequent democratic regimes particularly under Imran Khan .
His second most important contribution was making the nation more tolerant and shun religious extremism which became a feature of Pakistan from Zia’s time . His attack on Lal Masjid , a center of Islamic terrorism was a great step although it was unpopular and started his downfall . His greatness lied in realising the value of peace with India in spite of his army background and working with full sincerity to achieve it. He came closest to solving the Kashmir problem .
Small corruption like a flat in London is nothing compared to the loot by politicians and some army chiefs or General Pizza !
As said earlier , history will be kinder to him after some decades when his political victims are no more .
