Abdul Qadeer Khan: The villain and the hero
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He was forced to confess on national TV regarding his involvement in running a proliferation network and exporting nuclear material to US-designated rogue countries such as Iran, North Korea, and Libya. He was house arrested. Even after five years of confinement, his movement was kept limited and monitored. Throughout his life, ever since he was cast in the dark shadow of a nuclear smuggler, he led the life of an unsung hero. The limelight reserved for heroes was not for him to bathe in. However, when he breathed his last, he was one of the most respected and revered people of Pakistan. His coffin was wrapped in a Pakistani flag, and the entire top military cadre attended his last rites. Though he was not given the traditional full state funeral, the flag was lowered half-past for three days to mourn the passing of a man who gave Pakistan its atom bomb. Dr. Abdul Qadeer will remain a part of Pakistan’s history for both good and wrong reasons. However, the question is, does he deserve to live in history as a villain? Or was he turned into a villain to appease mightier powers?
When India detonated its first atomic bomb in 1974, Pakistan was barely standing on its feet and licking its East Pakistan secession wounds. There is no denying that Pakistan’s divisive economic policies in East Pakistan and disparaging treatment of Bengalis created differences between the two wings. But it was India’s facilitative role that played a decisive role in breaking Pakistan.
At that time, Pakistan’s leader had two options. One was to build Pakistan’s economic prospects and make it an economic hub. The other was to match the nuclear muscles of India and become a nuclear power. We chose the second path. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan and the architect of the Pakistan atomic program famously said: “We will eat grass... but we will get our own (nuclear bomb).”
Therefore the combination of the ‘never again’ paradigm, the humiliation ensuing from the breakup of Pakistan in 1971, the tolerance of the international community of India’s nuclear pursuit in 1974, and the convergence of scientists and engineers to give Pakistan its atom bomb made the second path even more accessible for the leadership to tread.
We have no formula to judge heroism; hence we turn sinners into heroes and heroes into sinners depending on what suits us in a given time.
Durdana Najam
Usually, the narrative we hear is that Pakistan’s nuclear program was either stolen from the west or was China’s blessing on us. Both are just myths, as has been explained by Brig (retd.) Feroz Khan in his book “Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb.” Putting any of Pakistan’s effort in China or the West’s basket is tantamount to trivializing the “indigenous contribution of Pakistan’s scientists.” Any help from China was sought to remove only the technical impasse. Whereas Pakistan’s ability to master the nuclear fuel cycle comprising uranium enrichment and plutonium route was a collective effort of various people in different time frames. Brig. Khan has also refuted the popular storyline that gives Pakistan’s military credit for stitching the project together. According to Khan, throughout its development, until Ghulam Ishaq Khan half-heartedly handed over nuclear-related documents to the new Chief of Army Staff General Abdul Waheed Kakar in 1993, Pakistan’s nuclear program was under civilian control.
In this equation, where does Dr. Qadeer fit both as the enabler and exporter of the nuclear program?
This is a case of multiple predicaments. One, it reflects Pakistan’s crisis of identity and its elites’ sense of alienation to nationalism. States everywhere do dirty work, but they do not reveal it all to protect the national interest. Two, Pakistan’s nuclear program was not the product of hard-core indigenous research and development; instead, most of it was getting things off the shelf, leaving the space open for proliferation activities. Three, we have no formula to judge heroism; hence we turn sinners into heroes and heroes into sinners depending on what suits us in a given time.
The unfinished business of Dr. Qadeer’s true worth might unravel as we grow out of our identity crisis and start seeing the grey part of reality. But, until then, let us live with the assumption that Dr. Qadeer played a crucial role in making Pakistan a nuclear power.
*Durdana Najam is an oped writer based in Lahore. She writes on security and policy issues.
Twitter: @durdananajam
