Autobiography as a genre is the art of self-justification, and worse, it is self-glorification. Rai Riaz Husain’s autobiography is mercifully free of the twin maladies. It is more like a travelogue of a civil servant who describes what he witnessed in the high offices in Pakistan. Reading Rai Nama in Urdu, one is reminded of Ambassador Iqbal Akhund’s Memoirs of a Bystander, which is also free of self-projection.
Mr Husain worked as Press Secretary for Mian Nawaz Sharif and Zafarullah Khan Jamali, and had diplomatic assignments as press officer in Tokyo, Colombo, and Delhi. He retired as Director General of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Serving in high places of power, as Francis Bacon put it, makes men “thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business.” It is a challenging situation, particularly for a press officer, who, unlike other servants of the state, works in the limelight. This exposure brings fame, earns envy, and subjects one to public scrutiny. Keeping your cool and maintaining a smile while surrounded by sharks requires strong survival instincts.
Rai Nama narrates the happenings in a high place of power, with a smile and without malice. The personality and working style of the two prime ministers—Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mir Zafarullah Jamali—are sketched out in the light of the personal experience of the author. The perennial tension of civil-military relations is made self-evident in the working of the two prime ministers.
Young civil servants, aspiring ones, journalists, and political commentators will find it useful as a guide to understanding the dynamics of power play in high offices in Pakistan
How the unelected, unanswerable forces assert themselves in the decision-making of civilian leaders, and how the prime ministers parry them, try to assert their lawful authority, and often stick to their decisions at the cost of their own survival, is clearly illustrated.
The author admires the prime ministers for their courteous behaviour towards their supporting staff. He is also critical of the haphazard dismissal of COAS General Musharraf and the chaotic installation of the new COAS, which never materialised.
The book adds a different perspective to the historic events of the nuclear tests and the subsequent state visit of the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Pakistan.
Mr Husain’s diplomatic assignment in New Delhi was the most interesting and challenging, too. His exposure to the Indian state and society seems to have made him a more patriotic Pakistani. His impression is that the Indian leadership, officials, opinion-makers, media personnel, and the public have still not accepted Pakistan as a sovereign state.
The book is also a critique of Pakistan’s anachronistic feudal ethos that hobbled national progress by blocking land reforms and keeping the masses uneducated. The author narrates his personal life and his family’s struggle in the feudal-dominated Jhang, and how the lack of schools and colleges in the area kept the region backwards but allowed the big landowners to maintain their grip on power. It also speaks proudly about how the author and his siblings successfully struggled to receive higher education.
The book is highly readable for its smooth prose and fair description of the events the author was part of. Young civil servants, aspiring ones, journalists, and political commentators will find it useful as a guide to understanding the dynamics of power play in high offices in Pakistan.