Sunday, 25 October 2015 | RAJESH SINGH | in Agenda
Author Christophe Jaffrelot identifies the feudal nature of Pakistani politics as one of the primary causes of the failure of democracy. It
began as the process of consolidation in the 1950s, and the aftershocks continue to be felt to this date. Whether it was military rule or the odd civilian one, feudalism retained its primacy, writes RAJESH SINGH
The history of Pakistan begins with India, and each one of that country’s policies, whether domestic, foreign or military, has remained India-centric. This has been convenient for political leaders and military despots who could mask their failures in making Pakistan a functional state by routinely ramping up anti-India sentiments rooted more in the past than in the present or consideration for the future.
The Indian demon has thus been sought to be exorcised often, but never with the real intention to drive away the evil spirit. Pakistan’s leadership and its intelligentsia need to keep alive that demon, never mind if the target looks or acts nothing like the demon they like to imagine.
But the obsession with India is only one part of the Pakistan problem. In fact, it is not even a problem, but the manifestation of a problem. The problem is that Pakistan is a heap of paradoxes, and it has been unable to sort that out. It’s out of this confusion that we get to see actions and reactions which are inexplicable to rational thinking.
Pakistan is in a state of mind where it cannot think straight or sensible. It charges at windmills, bellows at allies, snarls at well-meaning advice and strikes to hurt others but bleeds more in return. The tragedy is that it learns nothing in the process or at best learns all the wrong lessons. Therefore, it is doomed to repeat the terrible consequences that befall it.
Even supposedly sensible Pakistani leaders have fallen into the trap. Benazir Bhutto did, and Nawaz Sharif has been doing over and over again. His latest performance at the United Nations General Assembly strengthens the belief that Pakistan will never learn. Like Benazir was, he too is terrified to take on the might of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He has been deposed once and is now content to be the Army’s rubber stamp — an Army that patronises and promotes anti-India militancy, whether through irregulars or the uniformed.
The aggression has taken a toll on Pakistan’s economic growth and credibility among the global community. This has come at a time when India has been progressing steadily and often with quantum jumps, building new partnerships and strengthening old ones, and crafting a high degree of acceptability as a responsible nuclear power and a vibrant democratic country. India is being sought after by the rest of world while Pakistan is treated with wariness at best and deep distrust at worst.
What are the paradoxes that Pakistan is unable or unwilling to escape from? Are they self-generated or legacies of history? How is it that despite all this, Pakistan remains in existence as a nation, even if with a big question mark on its credibility? Is there a silver lining in the dark clouds?
These and other questions have sought to be answered by Christophe Jaffrelot in his book, The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience. The author can claim to have written perhaps the most exhaustive book on modern Pakistan; it is a tome with 647 pages, not counting the glossary etc. Interestingly, while Jaffrelot deals with a range of issues, from an overarching Islamist ideology to military dictatorship to democracy to the battle for supremacy among ‘majority Muslims’ and ‘minority Muslims’ to the innumerable contradictions that have become a way of life in Pakistan, even he couldn’t escape the inescapable: The Indian influence.
His introductory chapter begins with references to India and the book ends with the following words: “…good Islamists, including the LeT, still have a strong presence in the public sphere”. The introduction quoted Mohammad Waseem’s Politics and the State in Pakistan: “The new nation was thus born with an image of India as a villain, a satan, and a monster next door, out to devour the newborn state.”
These troublesome though largely unsubstantiated misgivings became the foundation for Pakistan’s thought process, which got more rigid as it evolved over the decades since 1947. It also led to perhaps among the first major paradoxes: Democracy alongside over-concentration of powers in an individual.
Jaffrelot says that Pakistan’s founder MA Jinnah was a “democrat”, but he also “introduced a strong personalisation of power that Pakistan has never managed to shed. Jinnah not only held the position of governor general, but was also president of the Constituent Assembly… The central cabinet was even more docile than the Working Committee of the AIML (All India Muslim League) had formerly been… Jinnah’s viceregal style put a lasting strain on the democracy to which he claimed to aspire”.
As the author notes, Jinnah’s death provided an occasion to the civilian leadership to course-correct and establish a truly democratic system. But led by Liaquat Ali Khan, the political leadership failed to seize the occasion. Things in fact turned for the worse, as soon thereafter, military Generals took over the reins of office, pushing aside even the democracy that survived merely in name.
The personalisation of power was complete under Ayub Khan and later in the Yahya Khan and Zia ul-Haque dispensation. Ironically, even during the brief term of a civilian leader, ZA Bhutto, centralisation of power was at its peak, partly leading to his downfall.
The situation thereafter has been no different; the only difference being that the de jure leader of the Pakistani Government has been often subordinate to the Army, which controls the state as completely as Jinnah did. On the rare occasion when an elected leader desired to spread his wings, the Army ousted him with such ease that one was left with the impression that democracy wasn’t something that Pakistanis were really passionate about.
The other paradox to hit Pakistan early on in its existence had to do with managing the conflict of simultaneously being an Islamist state and a democratic one too. It links up with the earlier stated theory that Pakistanis do not really care much for genuine democracy.
Jinnah had grand visions of the two being complementary to each other. The author points out that Jinnah had told a meeting of the Muslim League that Pakistan’s Constitution would be a “democratic type embodying the essential principles of Islam”. It should have been clear then and there that this was not possible. A nation that commits itself to a Constitution which rests on principles of a religion cannot possibly be inclusive enough for various religious denominations. As a result, it could not be truly democratic.
Over the years, the fault lines have accentuated, and not just between Muslims and non-Muslims but also between different sects of Muslims. The ‘essential principles of Islam’ got somehow connected with the Urdu language, and as a result, the Bengali-speaking Muslims in what was then the eastern part Pakistan got discriminated against.
That chapter ended with the division of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, in which India very happily played a part. But even Urdu hasn’t come to the Mohajirs’ rescue; the community continues to be discriminated against in Pakistan. Neither Islamic rule nor democracy in its true spirit has succeeded.
Jinnah, more than anyone else, is responsible for the crisis of identity that Pakistan finds itself facing. Perhaps it is this crisis that has persuaded it to be at loggerheads with India, because being anti-India (and by its convoluted logic, anti-Hindu) at least provides Pakistan a sense of definition.
The author identifies the “feudal nature of Pakistani politics” as one of the primary causes of the failure of democracy. It began as the process of consolidation in the 1950s, and the aftershocks continue to be felt to this date. In fact, whether it was military rule or the odd civilian one, feudalism retained its primacy.
Jaffrelot is, however, being too generous to Jinnah when he says that “if eleven years after Partition, the country’s efforts to establish a democratic regime failed, it is probably because the democratic ideals of Jinnah and his followers were subordinated to the security imperative spawned by the fear of India”.
There are many problems with this argument. In the first place, there is the author’s own paradox: Having earlier noted the over-centralisation of authority and the personalisation which Jinnah promoted and which harmed the growth of democracy, how can he then turn around and talk of the “democratic ideals of Jinnah”? The author’s belief that the fear of India may have subordinated Jinnah’s dream of democracy is not on firm ground. The fear of India was an imagined one, and imagined precisely to ensure that Jinnah and leaders after him could justify their authoritarian ways.
Moreover, the security imperative for India too has been there since Independence (vis-à-vis both Pakistan and China). That did not lead to dictatorships or military rules in New Delhi. But Jaffrelot is right in observing that often the abject failure of civilian leaders to govern and their being at loggerheads most of the time without realising the damage they were doing to the democratic fabric or at least what existed of it was creating the perfect environment for the khaki to seize power.
Since the civilians and the Generals failed Pakistan on repeated occasions, there arose a desperate requirement for ‘other forces’ to undo the damage. The author notes, “The convergence of political and military circles, to the point of forming an establishment sharing numerous legal and illegal interests, makes the need for assertive opposition forces outside these spheres all the more pressing.”
One of the rays of hope the “resilience”, which Jaffrelot refers to as part of his book’s name was the judiciary. The past tense is be noted because, as the author points out, even the judiciary, after showing sparks that illuminated the clouds over Pakistan’s democracy, fizzled out.
The author traces the meteoric rise in public esteem of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, to the extent that he became, in Jaffrelot’s words, “one of the most powerful men in Pakistan”. After he arrived in the Supreme Court, Justice Chaudhry began asking Pervez Musharraf regime uncomfortable questions about the mysterious disappearance of Baloch activists. Not used to being interrogated, General Musharraf asked the judge to quit.
By now, Justice Chaudhry had an inkling of a big confrontation brewing. He refused to oblige and Gen Musharraf sacked him. A new judge, hand-picked by the Government took charge, and the regime considered it the end of the story. After all, that’s how it had always been.
But then, out of the blue, lawyers in large numbers, beginning from the apex court and then all the way down, rallied around the sacked judge. Bar associations across the country erupted in massive protests, and sundry other organisations and individuals extended their support. Opposition leaders such as Asif Ali Zardari quickly extended support and promised his re-instatement as Chief Justice if they came to power. After General Musharraf’s exit, that promise never was fully kept.
But something else happened along the way, and that was where yet another of the many paradoxes the author has written about made its entry. The feisty judge, who took the new establishment as well and sought to rid the nation of political corruption, began to be seen to be leaning towards fundamentalists and Islamists. Jaffrelot writes about the reservations that commentators in Pakistan had begun to voice about the judge, “One of the reasons... has to do with his relations with certain figures from Islamist circles, relations that were formed around the issue of the disappeared.” From there on, Justice Chaudhry began losing credibility.
The democratic spirit of the lawyers’ community, which had spearheaded the pro-Chaudhry and anti-Musharraf movement, too seemed to crumble over time. The big moment of shame was when they showered flower petals on the assassin of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer when he appeared in court in connection with the killing. The liberal instincts of the lawyers, so much at display in their support to Justice Chaudhry, seemed to have dried out when it came to support of Taseer, who had raised his voice against a blasphemy law.
This leaves us with the only other ‘independent’ pillar of democracy in Pakistan the media. Jaffrelot has much to say here as well, and there are paradoxes here too. But it must be admitted that sections of the media in that country have remained courageous enough to run stories that have been deeply embarrassing to both the civilian rulers and the Generals. Some have paid the price for being intrepid.
As the author points out, “Not only are hundreds of websites blocked when they criticise the Army, but journalists are assaulted, even murdered, when they do the same.” He offers the example of journalist Umar Cheema who was brutally tortured for writing on corruption in the Army, and of another journalist Saleem Shahzad, who wrote about the infiltration of Al Qaeda in Pakistan Army, as well as the terrorist group’s role in an attack on a military base in May 2011.
In totality, sections of the media there have demonstrated more spine than the rest of society to promote transparency and democracy, though it is also a fact that quite a number of media houses have connections with one political group or the other and sometimes perhaps with militant organisations as well.
Jaffrelot tries hard to be sympathetic to the Pakistani dilemma, but is simply unable to wish away the hard realities. He believes that the “fear of India is not merely a pretence” (though he doesn’t offer too many convincing reasons to back his claim), but cannot run away from the fact that the “collusion and transactions between the civilians and the military” has primarily stunted the growth of democracy into a full-fledged tree, and that the collusions continue to go on “whereas mass poverty remains the rule”.
The author ends with a sort of footnote post-conclusion: ‘After 16 December 2014: What “Post-Peshawar” Pakistan?’ In this end lies another shot at hope; hope that Pakistan will change after the brutal mass killing of innocent schoolchildren on that fateful day.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had then announced, “The Peshawar atrocity has changed Pakistan.” From India’s perspective, it hasn’t. Perhaps, after many more paradoxes later, that change may come. Or, it just may not. Because, the resilience in Pakistani society and sane political leadership, which Jaffrelot speaks about, is not in most cases where it should be, but where it definitely ought not to be. That’s where the problem lies.
