Musharraf's legacy.

President General Pervez Musharraf lived an accomplished civil and military life. He passed away slowly in Dubai, at the age of 79, after fighting an illness that was perhaps undefeatable. General Musharraf rose to the highest echelons of his career in the military, and led from the front in the 1965 and 1971 wars as an SSG Commando. He was picked up as Army Staff by superseding many of his seniors, as is our political convention, by the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But as fate would have it, Sharif was deposed in a bloodless coup by Musharraf, as his men in uniform held the fort in all discipline of military rituals by refusing to accept their chief's impromptu dismissal. The rest is history, as Musharraf held the reins of power for almost a decade.

He was a man of action and believed in advocating the positive side of Pakistan. That was why his political slogan was 'Pakistan First'. He will long be remembered as a hero and a villain for his role in Kargil's 1999 warfare with India. This was why he was contested closely at home and abroad. Though he managed to create a political legacy of his own by knitting forces...