DEMOCRACY AND PAKISTAN: An impossible combo by Priyadarshini Ghosh

As I write this article, the last images of 'The
Daughter of the East', Benazir Bhutto, might
be still hovering in our minds. That purple
salwar kameez will be a grim reminder of the
uncanny but true fact, that terrorism has its
roots firmly entrenched in the sub continent.
We, in India have grown up with the stories of
how our leaders have been victims of bullets.
For Pakistan this was the second time, a
leader of the status of an ex PM has been
assassinated. Earlier, it was Liaquat Ali Khan,
who was assassinated in 1951. Benazir's
death has once again triggered the debate of
how democracy is the most elusive goal in
Pakistan. Already newspapers have written
obituaries on democracy in Pakistan. Home
coming after eight years of self-imposed
exile, instead of strengthening Pakistan's
resolve to usher in an era of democracy,
made her to lay her life in her prime.
Accusations and counter accusations, so
much peculiar to our sub continental psyche,
has already raised its ugly spectre, blurring
the need for immediate introspection, as to
where Pakistan has gone wrong in traversing
the course of democracy, since its inception
in 1947.This article, focuses on the reasons
behind the failure of democracy to find its
strong foothold in the soils of Pakistan.

Since 1958, Pakistan has been struggling to
have its 'Tryst with Democracy.' Time and
again the Constitution has been trampled
under the military boots and right to freedom
and political activities have been strangled
with the periodic imposition of martial law.
Although Pakistan did have a long period of
democracy from 1947-1958,characterised by
the trappings of a parliamentary government,
but the absence of general elections and
participation through political parties, as the
catalysts for interest articulation, made
democracy in Pakistan a body without a soul.
Real power throughout this period was in the
hands of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy.
After a long spell of military rule, the
government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto marked a
watershed in Pakistan's chequered history,
for it was not only the first civilian govt, but
also the longest to remain in power. He
however had dug his own grave with his
authoritarian fervent and failure to develop
grassroots civilian institutions. General Zia ul
Haque's coup in 1977 brought down the
curtains upon his tenure and his life and
thereby once again ended the chapter of
democracy in Pakistan.

Veena Kukreja in her book, 'Contemporary
Pakistan' has called military intervention in
Pakistan as a norm rather than an aberration.
She writes, "The interplay of domestic,
regional and international factors weakened
the position of the political parties and
politicians within the evolving structure of the
Pakistani state by tipping the institutional
balance in favour of the civil-military
bureaucracy. The failure of democracy and
ascendancy of military rule in Pakistan is
commonly interpreted in terms of their
weakness in its political party system and the
difficulty inherent in welding together a
linguistically and culturally heterogeneous
society."

Very few states of the world started with
greater contradictions and handicaps than
Pakistan. It faced some serious political,
administrative and economic problems at its
nascent stage, coupled with the massive
exodus of refugees and communal riots. It
was speculated in some quarters that
Pakistan would collapse under the weight of
its own problems. What saved her from
'withering away' was the centralized polity,
with an entrenched bureaucratic apparatus
and a strong military. But in the process, the
prospects for the growth and the
development of autonomous and viable
political institutions were jeopardized.

As is common knowledge, Pakistan was
created out of a number of provinces from
India. The imperatives of building
administrative machinery from scratch,
together with the Muslim League's near
non-existent organizational network in these
provinces, strengthened the hands of the
bureaucracy and gave them an edge over the
political arm of the state. Those engaged in
the task of managing the central
administration were politicians who were
weak or had no social bases of support in the
provinces. Hence, they could not stand their
ground against the bureaucrats who had
inherited the British colonial legacy.
Pakistan's obsession with Kashmir made
matters worse and thereby further created
contradictions between state formation and
political institution building.

If the so called enlightened public opinion has
now raised the hue and cry about the weak
democratic base in Pakistan, then the
apparent fact that needs to be made clear is
that this has been a pernicious problem for
Pakistan. When Pakistan was created, it had
no well developed party organization that had
a significant bearing upon the process of
state formation. Pakistan could never develop
a political culture based upon consensus,
which is the very basic edifice of democracy.
The Muslim League which basked in the glory
of creating a Muslim state for Pakistan could
never transform itself from a nationalist
movement to national party having a mass
appeal. Apparently it was not even a touch
closer to being a shadow of the Congress
Party in terms of being the pioneer in the road
towards democracy, constitutionalism and
political mobilisation. Unlike, the Congress
Party which gradually became a mass party,
the Muslim League established in 1906, by a
group of elite Muslims to protect their rights
and interests never became a mass party
until 1939-1940. Its claim of being the
representative of the Indian Muslims were
challenged by several other Muslim
organisations who were fighting for
independence, but were opposed to the idea
of creating a separate homeland for the
Muslims.

The opposition, whose constructive criticism
is the quintessence of a healthy and
functioning democracy has always been
dismissed to the periphery of the power
structure in Pakistan.Ab initio, all vestiges of
opposition to the Muslim League was
considered to be an expression of opposition
to the Pakistan Movement as a whole. Hence,
formation of the Awami League in erstwhile
East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), in 1949 and
other such regional coalitions attracted
hostilities from the govt. in Pakistan.
Consequently, opposition political parties
have not been able to develop a political
culture suitable for democratic opinion
making and interest articulation. Even during
the tenures of both Nawaz Shariff and
Mrs.Bhutto, they were themselves engaged in
a game of mud-slinging. Either, one was out
of the country when the other was in power,
or one had re-opened corruption cases or
cases of electoral mal practices against the
other during their respective periods of
premiership. Even after the coup of General
Musharraf in October 1999, it took years for
both the leaders to forget their mutual
bickering and come to a common platform to
form the Alliance for the Restoration of
Democracy (ARD).In fact it was left to the
Pakistani judiciary, till recently to raise the
banner of revolt against the crucification of
democracy in Pakistan. Why was it not the
political parties who should have taken the
lead role in the movement for democracy?
The fact remains that, political leaders in our
neighbourhood have only provided
lip-services to all calls for bringing real
democracy. Their politically correct rhetoric
never found its expression in concrete
actions. And when it finally did, the result was
- assassination.

Pakistan, also suffered from leadership crisis
that had hindered the flowering of
democracy. Initially, there was the towering
personality of Md.Ali Jinnah, but even he did
not exhibit the brilliance of a Nehru in political
institution building. Ayesha Jalal in her book,
'Jinnah: The Spokesman' engages in the myth
shattering exercise surrounding Jinnah's
Quaid-e-Azam stature. She wrote that Jinnah
could not contribute in any serious way
towards developing a constitutional structure
in Pakistan. The kind of leadership he
provided during the Pakistan movement, he
could not provide the same in the
post-independence period. The assassination
of Liaquat Ali Khan (incidentally in the same
park where Benazir Bhutto was killed),
created a phase in Pakistan, wherein the
bureaucrats came to fill the political void, who
in the course of time shared an empathy
towards the Pakistani army, on account of
their common class background.Infact, the
military-bureaucratic coterie manifested
more in the past few years, i.e., 1988-1999.

Pakistani politicians are also to be equally
blamed for not realizing the need for
consolidating the roots of democracy. The
political parties in Pakistan are heavily
personality oriented and regional in
character. Although the political parties in
India also share this common feature, but it
scores over one point in this regard. In India
we have the norm of intra-party elections,
but Pakistan in this case presents a sad story
altogether. There is nearly non-existent
grassroots coordination among the political
parties in Pakistan. To build up strong bases
in the provinces, the political parties in
Pakistan donot interact directly with the
common man, but forge links with the local
rich notables. Hence very often they fail to
feel the pulse of the people. The situation was
no different when there was a democratic
interlude in Pakistan during the premiership of
both Nawaz Shariff and the late Mrs. Bhutto.
Then there were these never ending
personality clashes between the President,
the PM and the Army Chief throughout
Pakistan's history. Differences arose between
the President and the PM, when the later tried
to induct his/her own men at the helm of
affairs, especially in the judiciary.Ghulam
Ishaq Khan dismissed Nawaz Shariff, Farooq
Ahmed Leghari was responsible for the
dismissal of Mrs. Bhutto in her second
innings.Nawaz Shariff fell over the question of
the role of the military in Pakistan
politics.Jahangir Karamat,the then Army Chief
insisted that the army in Pakistan should be
given an institutional status in the form of a
Security Council.Shariff did not agree and
made Karamat resign.Musharraf came in as
Shariff's man to the post following Karamat's
resignation.Shariff hand picked Musharraf,
because he felt that the later would be a weak
General, as he was an 'Indian Mohajir'.
But,what followed next was contrary to his
observations. Musharraf is a pseudo
democrat in a sham democracy, who claims
to be the poster boy for democratic transition
in Pakistan. He twisted and moulded the laws
according to his advantage and held two
sham referendums to remain firmly secured
in his position. All this in his words, to save
Pakistan against men who conspired against
Pakistan's peaceful transition to democracy.
Bravo General! Or should I say Mr. President?

The impossible task of establishing
democracy in Pakistan was further made
impossible, thanks to the benevolent
international community. Musharraf's
democratic credentials were never contested
by the West, because he was the neocons'
most trusted ally in their 'War on Terror'.
Mr.Bush might be charting out his roadmaps
for peace and democracy in West Asia or
funneling millions of dollars through the
secretive Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI),
which is under the US Office for International
Aid, to the Venezuelan opposition, for the
'promotion of democracy', but things in
Pakistan always call for benign neglect. I
guess, even the international community has
now become immunized to the western
double standards on democracy in South
Asia.

Ethno-religious factors also had a deep
impact in Pakistani politics, which further
worsened the conditions suitable for
democracy to germinate. Leaders across the
political spectrum have used 'Political Islam'
as a tool to legitimize their positions. As far
as the ethnocentric problem goes,
deep-rooted ethnic sentiments run high in
Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province,
Waziristan and Baluchistan, where the
warlords and tribal chiefs call the roost. The
influence of the major political parties of
Pakistan in these areas is very minimal. To
add to these problems, is the omnipresent
shadow of the Pakistani army hanging all the
time. Democracy can flourish only when the
army is allowed to operate from the barracks
and not harbor the intense urge to wrest
political power at the first instance. In India,
for every problem that our country faces, we
do not look upon the army as our
saviour.Thats because sixty years of
democratic experience has strengthened our
faith in our democratic tradition to withstand
the onslaught of political exigencies. The
army is our last resort.Ironically, in Pakistan,
it is the first resort. And it is this
military-mullah nexus that has bedevilled the
prospects of democracy.

What emerged out of Mrs. Bhutto's tragic
assassination is that terrorism has nothing to
do with the religion of the victim. A fact which
needs to be finally taken account of. All those
who think contrary are 'Enlightened Fools',
who should be ashamed to call themselves, a
part of the civil society. Any consistent
Pakistani observer, will definitely rejoice upon
the fact that the Pakistani civil society has
finally awaken from their prolong slumber.
Common masses and the student community,
who were hitherto numbed in their response
to the blatant murder of democracy in
Pakistan, now are no longer muted in their
outbursts. Taking to the streets in Pakistan is
now no longer the sole responsibility of
people like Asma Jehangir, Aitzaz Hussein
and Imran Khan. For democracy to flourish,
the people must be pro-active. Pakistan has
realized this fact late, but it's never too late
to make a beginning.

With the present political pandemonium in
Pakistan, a question mark now hangs over the
fate of the Feb 18th elections. How much free
and fair those elections would be, is only a
matter of speculation or should I say is a
foregone conclusion. Whatever be its
outcome, we pray and hope that Pakistan and
its people are able to find a way out of the
current violent and tragic imbroglio.We, THE
UTOPIAN DREAMERS, wish to express our
heartfelt condolences to the Bhutto family
and at the same time salute the brave
Daughter of the East, who became a martyr
for a cause, in trying to respond to the call of
her conscience, when she decided to come
home to her roots, after eight long years, to
pull out Pakistan from the political abyss it is
fast slipping into.