Tariq Ali writes:

Given the political conjuncture in the country, the publication of Shuju Nawaz’s Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within is timely. He overlooks links between military entrepreneurship and corruption, but nevertheless this is the best researched and most serious history of the Pakistan army. Nawaz, a former IMF staffer who lives in Washington, had unprecedented access to the military archives. Belonging to a military family, he was treated as an insider and interviewed numerous army personnel. His brother Asif Nawaz was the army chief when he died suddenly and mysteriously in January 1993. His widow received letters suggesting murder. Some were anonymous, two were not. One was from a servant at Prime Minister’s House. He named senior government officials who, he alleged, had told him to put poison in the food served to the general. It was widely rumoured that Sharif (then the prime minister) had had General Nawaz poisoned because a military operation in Sindh against the MQM had embarrassed the government (then in alliance with the MQM) and Asif Nawaz was obstinately refusing to allow a cover-up and, more important, could not be bought off. Sharif denounced these reports. When traces of arsenic were found in the dead general’s hair, Shuja Nawaz fought for a new investigation and the body was exhumed. The military establishment closed ranks and the official inquiry, supported by evidence from US medical experts, upheld the result of the original autopsy: the general had died of a heart attack. Perhaps he did. As with much else in the book the incident is described dispassionately, both sides of the argument are clearly laid out – yet another unsolved mystery involving an illustrious corpse for Pakistan to consider. There might be more of these if the war next door continues.

(LRB 17 July 2008)

Oxford | hardback 655 pp. |ISBN: 9780195476606