In 1999, Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharraf in a military coup that shook Pakistan’s democracy. Jailed in solitary confinement and tried on hijacking charges, Sharif found himself aloof in a 14th-century fort in Attock. Musharraf’s bloodless coup in October 1999 defined India’s relations with Pakistan in the years to come.
Behind the scenes, Musharraf had moved Pakistan’s nuclear weapons during the Kargil conflict without informing the civilian government, sparking serious fears globally.
Sharif insisted he had no knowledge of the Kargil operation until India’s then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee called him directly. Vajpayee then mentioned he felt Pakistan had stabbed him in the back. Sharif blamed Musharraf for sabotaging peace efforts.
“He’s neither a general nor a president,” Sharif told ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta in a 2007 Walk The Talk for NDTV. Here is a transcript of the interview, edited for clarity.
Shekhar Gupta: How do you keep this cheer?
Nawaz Sharif: Well, I was even cheerful while in jail, while in the Attock fort. Pakistan, unfortunately, is not in good hands, is not in good shape. Musharraf is mishandling Pakistan.
But you hear reports that she (Benazir Bhutto) is talking, she is holding discussion, which is also contrary to your agreement.
That’s true. We read that in the newspapers. We’ve also heard Mohatarma say that on the television, and I hope it doesn’t happen.
Would you like to tell Mr Vajpayee now that you never stabbed him in the back?
No, no, no.
You say it on your honour?
Oh, yes. If I say I never deceived him or never tried to, you see, I’ve never stabbed him in the back. I say it from here, not from there.
Since we are still in comparison, and I’m persisting, I’m not getting away from it. I’m not letting you get away from it. We heard Musharraf, when you were held in captivity, did the thought ever cross your mind that Musharraf could do to you what Zia did to Bhutto?
I think it was a very close call. Anything could have happened. Musharraf really wanted to secure a death penalty for me from the judge in Karachi.
If he had got the death penalty, he would have delivered it.
Yeah, certainly, there was no doubt about it. The judge didn’t give that punishment. He didn’t give me the death sentence. Then Musharraf appealed to the High Court to enhance the punishment, which clearly meant a death penalty. Well, of course.
He was charging you with hijacking.
He turned me into a hijacker, from the Prime Minister I had become a hijacker all of a sudden. It was an afterthought, and it took, almost about 30 days for Mr Musharraf to fabricate this false case against me.
So what was the one day or one moment when you were really concerned, when you thought it was such a low?
I was not concerned at all. Many people have this opinion that he will not spare you. And of course, it will be very difficult for the judges to say no to an army general. But the judge showed integrity. He was a man of integrity. He showed some guts. He took a stand. He was from Sindh. I respect the man that he is. Although everybody knew that it was a fabricated case. It was totally false. Yet he gave me a little bit of a sentence, but he didn’t give me the death sentence.
Were you treated well? I know you were handcuffed.
It becomes very personal if I talk about that. He did handcuff me. That’s right. He also kept me in solitary confinement. He mistreated me and my family. My father, who was a very old man at that time, died while I was in exile. I couldn’t even go for his burial in Pakistan. But I think that Mr Musharraf had no morals. He should have treated me in a better way. He could have done so. It didn’t cost him anything. But he kept me in solitary confinement, tried to torture me while I was in jail. He just gave me a small little cell which is seven feet by five feet. He kept me in a 14th century fort in Attock. I think Mughals used to keep the prisoners of war there.
Are you bitter?
No. But what he’s doing to the country and what he’s done to the country, I’m bitter about that.
I’m fascinated. We’ve talked for a long time, you’ve always referred to him as Mr Musharraf, not general. Not president, certainly, but not general.
He’s neither a general nor a president. He is not a general because I sacked him when he was a general. So, therefore, he’s not a general. He’s not a president because he forcibly took over my government. He subverted the constitution and became president. He removed the former president unconstitutionally and became president, prior to his visit to India.
Right.
So, you know better than I do that why did he become president at that particular moment before undertaking a visit to India?
Why?
Just to be saluted there by the Indian officials and army officials because he was otherwise the chief executive of the country at that time. He called himself the chief executive.
Yes, but for it to become a state visit, he had to be the president. So, are you then in a way suggesting that India gave him legitimacy?
He is the man who is responsible for derailing the process of normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India. He is the man who actually subverted the whole process. India knows it very well. Mr Vajpayee knew that very well. If he now wants to become the champion of good relations between India…
So, were you surprised that Mr Vajpayee laid out the red carpet for him? Not once, but more than once.
Well, it was Mr Vajpayee’s decision.
Were you disappointed?
I feel the other way around.
Were you disappointed?
I won’t use that word. I’ll leave it to the judgement of Mr Vajpayee.
Now, let’s go back. Your equation with Mr Vajpayee. You said that Mr Vajpayee thought you had stabbed him in the back. You said, “I say from the heart, that’s not the case”. When did you first find out what was happening in Kargil?
When Mr Vajpayee called me. He called me on the phone. He said, Mr Nawaz Sharif, are you aware of what is happening in Kargil?
No, the day before air incidents happened.
Perhaps, right, perhaps. That is when I came to know about that. Mr Musharraf had kept it secret from me and also from his core commanders, his other colleagues, which was revealed later. I also was stunned when I heard from Mr Vajpayee that our regular troops and regular army are engaged in this battle in Kargil.
You thought it could be the Mujahideen?
I felt very upset. I was given this report that it was Mujahideen.
Right. When casualties were coming back, those were not being reported.
They were not reported properly.
But Nawaz Sharif, you said a while back that you saved the Subcontinent and the world from nuclear contamination at that time.
Not that I said, even President Clinton has said.
So how close did we come to it?
Well, this could have spread. This could have spread all over the Pakistan-India border.
But you have to appreciate the fact that Mr Vajpayee kept it cool. He did not escalate it. He was under great pressure to escalate it.
Yes, he is a statesman. There’s no doubt about it. I have great regard for him.
So he also made a contribution to controlling it.
Yes, yes. Absolutely. I don’t take the credit alone. The credit goes to him too. That he was very helpful.
He played the role of a statesman. He had a right to act in anger.
Yes, yes. Absolutely. When he passed his remarks that I was stabbed by Pakistan or I was stabbed by Nawaz Sharif.
I don’t think he mentioned your name, but he said Pakistan.
He didn’t mention my name?
I don’t think so.
I think he was absolutely justified in saying so.
I’m asking this because there have been reports, fairly credible reports in Western media. Also some of the accounts which have come up now from Western experts, participants also, that General Musharraf did move the nuclear assets in a way that got the world worried. It got America also worried.
Yeah, I read that, and when I confronted General Musharraf, he said no.
But there was a cause for concern. Something had happened.
I haven’t held any inquiry on that. Maybe if we have an opportunity to hold an inquiry, we will do so.
If you do come back to power, will there be an inquiry?
We will try to look into it. Yes.
So the Western world says that they feel more secure under Musharraf, because Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state. They feel it’s more stable under Musharraf and he has better control.
The democratic governments have been highly responsible. They have acted very responsibly. There is no allegation or no charge of any nuclear proliferation while we were in charge in Pakistan. We have a system in place.
But A.Q. Khan, your party is not supporting him also.
Well, A.Q. Khan.
A lot of what he did, happened under your term.
There are allegations on A.Q. Khan, but of course, if the allegations are true, then is Mr A.Q. Khan alone in this affair?
Will you elaborate on that?
I’m not privy to any inside information.
Will you elaborate on that?
This is what I’m saying. I’m not privy to any inside information. But then my point is that Mr Musharraf, if we look at the allegations made against A.Q. Khan, before I can make any comments, I need to go into the details of what the actual matter is. I have no access to that information.
Let me persist a little bit. Were you concerned that under Musharraf, the army could be acting irresponsibly, the nuclear weapons and the reports came out? Were you alarmed at that point? Did you take actions then to make sure no arbitrary action will happen?
I was concerned with the statements that were appearing in the press at that time. I did ask Mr Musharraf as to how far this is true. He said, no question, not at all. They are absolutely false. So I didn’t go beyond that.
Your control was good enough that if he had moved them quietly, you would have known or not for sure?
When we have a system in place where the prime minister has to give a final approval before any such action is taken.
No, final approval for the usage of weapons or the movement of weapons? For both?
For both, yes.
If they were moved, it was without your permission?
If they were moved, it was without my knowledge.
And that is something that needs to be looked into in the future?
Whenever the time comes, yes. We will certainly look into it.
You keep on calling Musharraf unreliable, untrustworthy. And here we have India, which has invested now more than five years talking to him. The peace process has gone some distance. In fact, there is sometimes talk of a settlement.
It is up to India to see that it wants to talk to a dictator, a man who has no following in Pakistan. I would like to ask you? Who does he [Musharraf] represent? I’m talking about Mr Musharraf. Does he consult the parliament? Does he take the people of Pakistan into confidence?
The Indian point of view is that we can’t decide who is in power in Pakistan. We can’t wait forever.
What is the hurry? Why is India so impatient? Of course, India has a democracy, a democracy which everybody recognises. India proudly calls itself as the biggest democracy of the world, which everybody endorses, including me. India is a very lucky country that India stuck to its constitution. Their generals respected the constitution. The Pentagon doesn’t interfere with your generals and with your armed forces. But the other thing is that India has stuck to the constitution. India respected the constitution. The generals respected the constitution. They respected their oath that they take on commission in the army. They’re never indulged in politics. They abide by the constitution of India. India’s biggest achievement in the last 60 years of independence is that it has respected and retained the sanctity of the ballot box. I think this is India’s biggest achievement in the last 60 years. I would give full credit to India for that.
So what happens if the government of India finds an agreement now with Musharraf?
Frankly, I don’t recognise Mr Musharraf as the president or a legitimate president of Pakistan. I don’t recognise Mr Musharraf’s government as a legitimate government. He is guilty of subverting the constitution. He is guilty of overthrowing an elected government. This is regarded as a big crime in Pakistan, according to our constitution. So if I accept this document or a treaty of Mr Musharraf’s signs with India, then it amounts to recognising, it amounts to giving recognition to Mr Musharraf or legitimising his government. So there’s a principle involved. For me, it is very difficult to compromise that principle.
So you are saying in English that an agreement signed between the government of India and the Musharraf regime will not be acceptable to you per se on the fact?
No, and I don’t agree with Mr Musharraf’s policy. He is acting in a very casual manner. He is giving different options on Kashmir off the cuff. He doesn’t consult the parliament. He doesn’t consult the political leaders in Pakistan. He doesn’t consult the political parties in Pakistan.
You will say India should be patient. What’s the hurry?
What’s the hurry? Because democracy is coming back into Pakistan. It is always good that the two democracies talk to each other rather than democracy talking to dictatorship.
When democracies talk, where do they begin? Do they begin with the Lahore declaration or do they begin with the Shimla agreement?
We have signed so much and done so little and delivered so little? We don’t know where to start and where to end.
We’ve come this far without mentioning two words, Kashmir and America. Kashmir, we can hold a three-hour interview again. But America, aren’t you surprised that Bush is not listening to your view that there should be democracy in Pakistan? On the other hand, he’s going with the view that Musharraf is important to America as a stalwart ally, as they call him, because I think Musharraf will catch Osama and Mullah Omar and the rest.
Musharraf wanted the recognition. Musharraf wanted legitimacy. He felt that it is the American president who can bestow or grant legitimacy to Musharraf if it recognises him and his government. It was a different case when President Clinton was the president of the United States of America. He came to Pakistan and stayed with it, refused to shake hands with the dictator Musharraf publicly. And here is President Bush, who preaches democracy in Iraq, who preaches democracy in Afghanistan and supports a uniformed president in Pakistan. Aren’t these double standards?
This is not a uniform policy.
This is not a uniform policy. (laughs)
It’s not as if war against terror won’t go on if Musharraf is not there.
We’ve been fighting terrorism ourselves. I’ve been fighting terror. I had excellent rapport and a very cordial relationship with President Clinton. We both cooperated with each other on this war on terror. That doesn’t mean that it is only Musharraf who is committed to fighting the war against terror. We’re all committed. In fact, I’ve been myself a victim of terrorism, where I had a very narrow escape twice. The bridge was blown up.
It is said about Musharraf saab, “Saaman sau baras ka, pal ki khabar nahi”. Somebody had said that Musharraf saab was on his way, the bridge was blown up, and it was a narrow escape. That’s why “Saaman sau baras ka, pal ki khabar nahi”.
That’s a cruel one. (laughs)
Also read: Of valour and sacrifice: A look at Kargil conflict through famous battles and maps