11.62 P.R. OLIVER CALLS ON
SYED ARMED SAID KIRMANI
Public Record Office
REF: FCO 37/472
British High Commission,
(1/6)
R.J.
Stratton, Esq..
Dear
Dick,
Politicians
On
5 June I called on Syed Ahmed Said Kirmani (Convention M.L.). Questioned about
the present state of the party, he admitted with engaging frankness that it had
suffered a set-back with the Ayub "debacle." Today's report in the
Pakistan Times of the prosecution complaint lodged against one of the former
President's sons would not help matters. Nevertheless, he was not utterly
despondent. The best course was for the party to lie low for the present, and
let the others make the running. When they had tired themselves out with
scheming and counter-scheming, then would be the time for the P.M.L. to
re-enter the lists. And, whatever their present unpopularity in the cities, he
was convinced that their ground-roots strength in the countryside - especially
in the West Wing - remained unabated. (Mamdot had made the same point, although
he spoke rather of feudalism, which coming from him was perhaps natural).
2. He claimed that the great advantage
the P.M.L. had over the Council Muslim League lay in the efficiency of its
party machine. The Council M.L. consisted of a group of Political
intellectuals, who carried weight in the towns, but it had no low level party
organisation elsewhere. At the same time, he admitted that it was about time
that the P.M.L. set about its pattern; whilst lying low, there was every reason
not only to ensure that the party machinery was still working smoothly but also
to draw up and have ready a fresh party manifesto.
3. The main thing which the P.M.L. lacked
was a leader. Ayub had gone, and he admitted that there was at present no
successor, although a possibility might be Mahmoud Haroon, (He disclaimed any
such ambition on his own part; he was a party manager, but was far too
unpopular in the towns to be a possible leader).
4. He did not think that there was much
chance of election within the next eighteen months, but doubted whether Yahya
could afford to continue exclusively
service
rule for so long. (He hinted that there might be pressure from such aid-giving
countries as the
5. He claimed that Bhutto, Bhashani and
Mujibur Rahman had all lost a good deal of their initial impetus and had
experienced some falling off of strength, to the advantage of the P.M.L. Asghar
Khan, he said, was too aloof and too little of a mixer to stand any real chance
as a political leader. Finally, in reply to a question by me, he said that he
did not exclude the possibility of a reconciliation between the P.M.L. and the
Council M.L. or in any event the winning by the former of a number of the latter's
adherents. Such an alliance might produce a winning combination of party
machine and potential leaders. I have some doubts about this. On the other
hand, it is perhaps significant that whilst I was talking with him, saw someone
arrive in the front courtyard who looked surprisingly like Shaukat Hyat Khan.
However, I could easily have been wrong, and certainly there was no sign of him
when I left.
6. I am copying this to
Yours
(P.R. Oliver)
Source:
The British Papers – Secret and Confidential India.Pakistan.Bangladesh
Documents 1959-1969,