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These
are very exciting times for Pakistan. Despite my long absences, I can well imagine what
must be going on in our major cities, especially in the lawyersí
bar-rooms and the tea and coffee shops where the ‘politics-walas’ congregate; one buzzword will surely be heard all
over: democracy.
This is a good sign because if in the last 60 years we have not been able to
appreciate democracy, there is no reason we will not be able to do so now or
in the next 60. The life of nations is a long one, provided they take good
care of themselves.
The first and foremost principle of modern democracy is one-person-one-vote. Pakistan fulfils that criterion admirably, although when it
comes to putting value on the evidence of men and women in a court of law, we
have a strange system that declares the evidence given by a woman half in
value to that of a man.
But then we are not a democracy of the ordinary type but an Islamic
democracy, which allows one-person-one-vote, but not a female witness being
considered as reliable a witness as a male. From what I know, the arithmetic
is that one man and two women fulfill the required minimum of two witnesses!
The second principle of democracy is open and free elections by secret
ballot. We have been less keen on this kernel value of democracy. Our
erstwhile legislators were elected in 1946 when Pakistan did not even exist. Thereafter, they were not sure
if they would be elected to parliament and so they kept postponing elections.
However, when we did hold fair elections, we were not willing to honour the connected third principle of democracy. It is
that the party, which wins a majority, has the right to form the government.
In 1954, the so-called Jugtu Front, comprising
disgruntled East Pakistani politicians, swept the provincial elections but
were not allowed to last long in government.
In December 1970, we had the only true, nationwide free election. The results
showed a clear majority for the essentially East Pakistan-based Awami League. The Awami League
won 161 seats out of 162 for East
Pakistan in a National
Assembly constituted by a total of 300 seats. It was denied the right to form
the government by the West Pakistani power elite.
It provoked a popular uprising that resulted in a bloody civil war, which in
turn provided Mrs Indira
Gandhi an opportunity to order her military to intervene and help the Mukti Bahini rebels to come to
power in what became Bangladesh. Pakistan was fractured into two.
When the mercurial Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became Prime
Minister of Pakistan, he carried out some progressive reforms on behalf of
workers and peasants, but then made a mockery of the fourth principle of
democracy: that parliamentary majority should not be distorted to become the
tyranny of the majority. He used his parliamentary majority to have the Ahmadiyya community declared non-Muslims in 1974. Such an
agenda belonged automatically to extremist forces and not to one claiming to
be a social-democrat, but Bhutto wanted to wrestle the initiative out of the
hands of the former.
The outcome was just the opposite. The ulema were
greatly emboldened to advance their own agenda by the oligarchy of senior
civil servants and military officers. Both considered Bhutto’s Islamic
socialism as an anathema. The Nizam-e-Mustafa
movement they launched was hell-bent on getting him out of power and they
succeeded in that.
Those forces brought General Ziaul Haq into power and Bhutto was hanged by a split Supreme
Court verdict. The long years of the Zia
dictatorship greatly undermined democracy and democratic values, although
even he could not prevent some restoration of the democratic process.
Prime Minister Junejo was expected to play the role
of a rubber stamp but he proved to be a man of substance and began to assert
an independent rule-oriented line in his conduct of office. That resulted in
his dismissal in 1988. General Zia perished in a
plane crash soon afterwards.
New, elected governments again came into power. Both Benazir
Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif became prime ministers twice, but were dismissed
by the oligarchy each time on charges of corruption. Benazir
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif
were ever so willing to conspire against each other during that period, which
made the oligarchy despise them even more strongly.
While in office, Ms Bhutto sent General Faratullah Babar to the Talibans to assure
them of Pakistanís support. Nawaz
Sharif tried another route to stardom. He
introduced the 15th amendment, which if it had been passed by parliament
would have made the dogmatic Shariat the supreme
law of the land. This not even Zia had tried.
Both are now in exile, but not because they stood up as representatives of
the people and champions of democracy against the oligarchy, but because
despite their best efforts to appease the oligarchy they failed. They now
live in exile and are outbidding each other as thoroughbred democrats.
There is no doubt that as long as the oligarchy enjoys an overwhelmingly
dominant position, democracy in the sense of a government based on the will
of the people, can never be established in Pakistan. It is, however, equally true that as long as the
politicians do not distinguish between the interests of the nation and their
own personal interests to remain in power, they will be easily expendable by
the oligarchy.
I have a strong feeling that the oligarchy will be forced to review its own
interests sooner or later. In particular, the military will have to do some
soul searching. There is a widespread feeling in Pakistan that what was once one of the best fighting forces
in Asia, has become a closed club of some generals who
exploit their power and positions to amass great personal wealth and
immunities.
Democracy in the 21st century must mean a form of government that upholds the
rule of law, strict adherence to parliamentary procedure, and respect for
human rights of all and sundry without any exception. We need to generate
discussion on this theme. If I were to say what is the best
legacy of General Pervez Musharraf,
it is undoubtedly the freedom of expression. I hope it survives when he
leaves, now or later.
The author is
a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies
(ISAS), National University
of Singapore.
Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg
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