Democratic Order in Pakistan

Columnist A RASHID talks about democracy in the country.

During 55 years of our existence, we have either had exuberant prophesies of doom by characterizing every juncture to be the worst of our history or cherished complacence about various sets of our political leaders. In the same vein, the proponents of General Pervez Musharraf’s military government are characterizing the event of October 2002 general elections as the forerunner of real and grass root democracy and the renaissance of Pakistani nationhood. The opposing camp holds the view that the electoral exercise under discussion was merely a farce and the worst specimen of rigging and manipulation and that the fall out of this heinous happening will finally doom the country for good.
The reality is somewhat different to the above views. It is neither the quintessence nor the doom of the country as a nation. It is at best a step ahead in the evolutionary process of our identity.
For more than half a century we have aspired to cobble a democratic order but it remained elusive. The ultimate blame is placed on the armed forces of the country for repeatedly disrupting our democratic efforts by imposing martial law. Imposition of repeated martial rules has decidedly been a major retrograde but the overall causes of democratic elusiveness extend far beyond that. Even if we examine the hypothesis where there were no martial laws, we may perhaps conclude that the plight of our much coveted democratic order might have been in worse straits today.
By now, we have had ample electoral exercises to ascertain the voting pattern in the country. We have no doubt, that the vote of the common man is controlled by the feudal lords in the country side and by the touts of establishment in the urban areas. The rationale of this philosophy resides in two realities. One is lack of literacy, and the other is the complete hold of feudal aristocracy over the economic and social life of the agrarian population. Though a lot has been done to proliferate education in the country by various administrations but all efforts towards expansion of optimum educational infrastructure have failed to keep pace with the exponential population growth. These two evils combined, have rendered the electoral exercises totally meaningless. The vote is, therefore, not cast on merit, either of the political outfit or the candidate. The use of the vote is predetermined by the feudal despots in the country side and the official tout of the establishment in the rural areas.
During the 11 years of democratic period, before General Pervez Musharraf took over in October 99, the two mainstream political parties, Muslim League and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) played a musical chair between themselves. Their corruption and misrule stood thoroughly exposed before the whole world. Shadowy areas of doubt about the corruption and plunder of Mr Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto crystallized during the last three years of military rule. The whole world, including the elected and the electorate of Pakistan, is marveling on the impudence and shamefacedness of the electorate who have returned candidates from PPP and the Muslim League (the Kings party included) as their representatives in the national parliament and the provincial assemblies. If this we call the democratic process, then only God can help us. Some body in the Dawn of 16 October has shed tears on the issue of fragment parties having been returned in the recent elections. He alleges that the mainstream parties (meaning PPP and Muslim League) have been denied the proverbial sweep due to the machinations and manipulation of the military government. That means that even the intellectuals of the country have resigned to the status quo and cherish to perpetuate the direction of peoples vote by the feudal lords and touts of the establishment.
Then it has also become a fashion to advance a highly inapt analogy to blame the armed forces of the country for repeated impedance of the democratic process. It is said ‘look, democracy has taken roots in India because the armed forces of India did not interfere in the civilian affairs’. This argument is advanced in sheer isolation. The armed forces of India did not indulge in taking over the charge of the civil government because the civil governments never presented such an eventuality of corruption and misrule like in Pakistan. Indian government carried out ruthless but meaningful land reforms at the right time and destroyed the fiber of feudal aristocracy of India. Having done that the people were freed from the feudal bondage and their discretion of voting was restored. That is how the tradition of representative governments was established. The public representatives behaved during their tenure, more from fear of being rejected by the electorate, next time, rather than the fear of God. In our polity, the element of genuine voting right being missing from the start, the elected representatives do not fear rejection by the people next time. The fear of the people not being there to the people who never had the fear of God, no holds barred in corruption and misrule, becomes their manifesto. This process raises blinding dust and the armed forces step in as referees. The vicious circle goes on.
Eleven years is a significant unit of time to study the progress of democratic practice. To the dismay of all we find that with the passage of time, instead of things moving on the positive side, progressive deterioration remained the order of the day in Pakistan. What does this reality convoy? It conveys a caution that instead of reinforcing a failure, just to prove our loyalty to democracy, by indiscreet repetition of our flawed method of bringing about a democratic order, better try to remove the impediments on the road to that end.
It has become customary to contend that 12 October 99, the army took over power by removing a ‘democratically elected government’, while all the technical details amply prove that that was not a democratically elected government, by any stretch of imagination. That government too was product of a manipulative electoral exercise. To straighten the record, it may be recalled that whenever army intervened and assumed power in Pakistan, the people of Pakistan heaved a sigh of relief.
In the case of the latest military takeover on 12 October 99, apart from the general public, all segments of society, including even most of the opinion makers, endorsed the change. That does not mean that the people of Pakistan do not like democracy. No, they like democracy but do not like the caricatures of democracy.
Abundant lip service is always paid to the concept of structural reforms by carrying out the cosmetic changes but no body ever tried to bell the cat and try the genuine reforms, that is, land reforms and population control, due to the vested interests of the ruling elite. The status quo suits the landed aristocracy, the city bourgeois and the military establishment. That is how, no forward movement takes place and no genuine reform is undertaken. Every one keeps throwing dust in the eyes of the world at large. The military blames the rampant corruption of the civilian politicians and the civilians keep happy blaming the military.
Improve literacy by revolutionary methods, which is possible by effective measures to arrest population growth. Carry out meaningful and ruthless land reforms and democracy will surely become the way of life of the people of Pakistan.