IN a meeting with James I (1603-1625), Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Lord Chief Justice of England, told the king that he could not take the action he contemplated because it would be against the law. Horrified, the king roared: “Do you mean that I am under the law?” Calmly, the Chief Justice observed that while the king ought not to be under any man, he was indeed under the law.

Almost two thousand years before James and Coke, Socrates (399 BC) had been using deductive reasoning and analysis (by asking questions and subjecting answers to rigorous examination) to expose the weaknesses of received opinion and conventional wisdom. The Athenians convicted him of corrupting the youth and sentenced him to death.

Plato recounts the last few hours of his life in one of his “dialogues” (Phaedo). As Socrates awaited execution, his friends surrounded him. They had already bribed the jailer, made arrangements for transportation, and were now urging him to escape from prison. Socrates declined, arguing that the law of the state must be obeyed, even if it was a bad law, for if it became acceptable to disobey it, cities would come to ruin.

In his celebrated essay, ‘Civil Disobedience’, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) maintained that a man of honour must follow his conscience rather than the law, if the two came in conflict, for laws, like the governments that made them, were often wrong and unjust. In such instances, he added, the individual had not only the right but the obligation to disobey and resist the law by all non-violent means within his reach. Fill up the jails, he said, which would force the government to repeal the unwanted law. Thoreau’s reasoning is believed to have influenced the thinking of Mr M.K.Gandhi in India and Rev. Martin Luther King, leader of the black people’s liberation movement in the United States.

James I may have been behind the times in his own country. But, for centuries before and after him in much of the world, rulers have acted from the premise that their word was law. Made for others, it applied to them only if they so desired; they could ignore it when it became burdensome, and in any case they could change it at will.

Civil disobedience is common in our subcontinent, but at the level of official theory, the position of Socrates is the one more generally accepted. If the law is bad or unjust, get it changed through prescribed ways and means, but obey it as long as it remains on the statute books. What about the primacy Thoreau assigns to conscience?

This is indeed a difficult question. We cannot simply dismiss him out of hand. Distinctions between a good law and an unjust law, between an ordinary law and a “higher” law, between the law of man and the law of God are all well known and respected. Ask any “true” Muslim, or for that matter a good Jew, and he will advise you to disobey a law of the state if it is repugnant to the law of God.

On the other hand, how can we be sure that each individual’s conscience is informed by higher moral values and principles, or that his thinking on issues in debate is not idiotic? Occasional disobedience of an unjust law by single individuals may be praiseworthy and it may also be instructive. But if the idea that one may disobey a law that is bad in one’s own view were to gain general acceptance, chaos would ensue.

One may opt for reserving civil disobedience for occasions when issues of great moment are involved and, with regard to which, society and polity are being untrue to their own professed values. For instance, having justified their revolution on the basis of the “self-evident truth” that all men are created equal, America’s “founding fathers” had no business denying equal rights to their Black population. Civil disobedience to right this grievous wrong was justified. But we must guard against resorting to it on frivolous grounds.

Turning more specifically to Pakistan, we encounter a very complex situation. In certain contexts the rule of law prevails, binding not only private persons but also public authorities and officials. Courts may invalidate acts of government on the ground that they violate a relevant law, and they may annul laws because they have been found to be repugnant to the Constitution. Individual citizens may sue a public authority to get whatever is owed to them, including compensation for damages resulting from the earlier denial of their rights.

Books carry thousands of laws and tens of thousands of rules to regulate the government’s internal workings, interaction between individuals, associations, governmental and non-governmental agencies and institutions. Considering the sheer volume of law and regulation, an outsider might get the impression that here in Pakistan we had a government of laws, not of men. But he would soon find that such, alas, is not the case.

It is a commonplace that governmental corruption-mostly in the forms of bribery and nepotism — exists in Pakistan on a massive scale, which means, ipso facto, that violation of the law is equally pervasive, inasmuch as each instance of taking a bribe or indulging in nepotism constitutes a violation of the law. Who in Pakistan is then under the law? Any beyond those who have no other option?

There may indeed be a few who will live by the law in all circumstances regardless of the resulting inconvenience. I have known at least a couple of such Pakistanis. Many more will obey the law regarding, let us say, murder, rape, robbery, and theft even if they thought they could get away with these acts, not only because the law but their own sense of morals forbids them

The vast majority of our people, both high and low, will disregard burdensome laws if they do not expect to suffer serious penalties. Such cases will usually arise when persons have to deal with public authorities and officials. Even persons we generally regard as “nice” — doctors, lawyers, actors, singers and dancers — will cheat in filing their income tax returns.

The inclination to ignore or violate the law is not related exclusively to financial gain. James I was not looking for ways of making money when he proclaimed that he could not be under the law. Kings and dictators act in an arbitrary or whimsical fashion because the ability to do as the spirit moves them gives them a good feeling. In many other instances they like to be able to do away with actual or potential opponents in their quest for power after power until they have become absolute rulers.

Ghulam Mohammad removed Prime Minister Nazimuddin, Iskander Mirza forced Prime Minister Suhrawardy out of office, Ziaul Haq fired Prime Minister Junejo, and Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed first Benazir Bhutto and then Nawaz Sharif. These were primarily acts of self-assertion on the part of the head of the state in each case to show all concerned that he, and not the prime minister, was the real “boss” regardless of what the Constitution or the tradition of parliamentary government might say.

Prime ministers, provincial chief ministers, higher civil servants, and others in superior positions have been no less arbitrary in dealing with subordinates who showed signs of having minds of their own and with defiant opponents. Some of the latter have been assaulted, tortured, detained without trial for extended periods of time, or made to run from one court to another to defend themselves against numerous allegations at the same time in trials that have gone on for years. On the other hand, when found expedient, individuals charged with serious crimes such as murder have been elevated to high public office.

Successive governments, including the present one, have maintained an accountability bureau for catching and punishing corrupt politicians and officials. But its performance, past and present, has caused a widespread impression that, more than a cleansing agent, it is an apparatus for hounding those towards whom the current regime has chosen to be unfriendly.

For generations we have willingly followed tradition and parts of the law of God. We have obeyed the law of the state mostly out of fear: not from the conviction that it deserves to be obeyed because it is the law. We have not been taught to respect the law as such. The reason may well be that in our historical experience law has worked more often as an agent of coercion than as a liberating or otherwise beneficial force. Rulers who made and enforced the law were feared but rarely, if ever, held in high regard.

If respect for the law is to be cultivated in our society, the process must begin at the top. If presidents and prime ministers remain free to act outside the law, so will their subordinates down to the police constable. Let those who make laws show respect for them and, at the same time, refrain from making unjust and self-serving laws.

And, finally, let us hope that our rulers will not follow Ziaul Haq’s precedent of quoting the scriptures in support of his arbitrary exercise of power. Let us hope also that General Musharraf’s recent statement (February 5) that his authority to rule comes from God, and that his acts should therefore be regarded as divinely approved, was not intended to be taken literally or seriously. Even as an adventure in poetic exaggeration or metaphorical expression, it is extremely disconcerting. But of this more later.

PAKISTAN is currently in the midst of a healthy and amusing debate on secularism. It is healthy because those who wear Islam on their sleeves are on the defensive. It is amusing because the two-nation theory on which Pakistan is premised does not fit into the accommodation that secularism demands.

It all began over the promise President Pervez Musharraf held out to the world in his January 12 speech: to make Pakistan a moderate and progressive Islamic state. In a subsequent interview to the Newsweek, he went to the extent of describing Pakistan a “Muslim secular state.” The interview was tape-recorded. Still the president’s spokesman said three days later that Musharraf never used the word ‘secular.’ US Secretary of State Powell has only heightened the debate by tagging the term ‘secular’ onto Pakistan when Musharraf was recently in Washington.

Indeed, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, expounded the two-nation thesis on the ground that Hindus and Muslims living in the subcontinent were two separate nations. But after winning Pakistan, he changed the concept of nationhood from religion to country. His opening address before the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan confirmed this: “You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan... You will find that in the course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is a faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”

Even in an interview a few weeks before the partition plan was announced, Jinnah said, “The members of the new nation would have equal rights of citizenship regardless of their religion, caste or creed.” What he was conveying to the people of Pakistan was that they, whichever religion they belonged to, were one nation, like Indians or Americans. The state could not be mixed with religion.

For Jinnah, Pakistan and India were two nations, comprising Muslims and Hindus. He never favoured the transfer of population. And the little time he had before his death, he spent on emphasizing that Pakistan was a democratic, secular country. That Jinnah did not want Pakistan to be run “by priests with a divine mission” goes without saying. Nor did he want the country to be theocratic. He had made this known even before Pakistan’s formation.

The post-Jinnah-Liaquat rulers have tried to go back to the two-nation theory, deliberately creating a gulf between Hindus and Muslims. There are several elements in Pakistan which are hell-bent on interpreting Jinnah wrongly. Some quote chapter and verse from the Pakistan Constitution to argue that Article 31 makes it mandatory to follow “the Islamic way.”

One, the Constitution was adopted in 1973 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s regime. Two, even if the Constitution is strictly followed, Article 31 enjoins only on the Muslims “to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam...”

What kind of secular state would it be, if the 95 per cent people were to live in the “Islamic way?” The founder of Pakistan was opposed to introducing religion in the affairs of the state. The criterion should be what he said: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens of one state.”

Musharraf has made speeches on building Pakistan into a modern, progressive state. But for such an edifice to be built, secularism is the foundation stone. He does not have to feel embarrassed over the word secularism, which denotes pluralism. He cannot placate religious groups and secular elements at the same time.

True, Musharraf has restored the joint electorate, which another military dictator, General Zia-ul Haq, had dropped from the Constitution. But secularism does not mean joint electorate alone. It is a temperament that has to be cultivated. It is a commitment to tolerance and open society and means rising above one’s own religion. Followers of one belief are not superior to people from other faiths.

Every religion has noble teachings and lofty moral principles. There is a tendency in each of us to mock the unfamiliar in others’ faith and worship. Such words as ‘heathen’, ‘idolatry’ and ‘superstition’ are often used as insults. But in the moment of prayer, every man is at his best. He should command respect.

But how can the seeds of such thoughts be sown when the books and teachers in Pakistan spew hatred against the heritage of Hindus? General Ayub Khan abolished most of history from the school system and introduced what was called “social sciences.” General Zia-ul-Haq demolished whatever was left of history. He created a new subject, “Pakistan Studies,” which was not history but a treatise on Muslim separatism. In the name of ideology of Pakistan, the books have buried deep Jinnah’s thought of not mixing the state with religion.

In his latest book ‘Pakistan’s Political Culture,’ Prof. K.K. Aziz aptly describes its effect on a Muslim: “He found himself hanging from a rope stretched over an abyss whose two cliffs were his yesterdays and his todays, and he did not know whether to try to move towards his yesteryear or towards the current times. He could not distinguish between his yesterday and his today. How could he look forward to his tomorrow? His perplexity was complete.”

What Pakistan did in 50 years to disfigure history, India, under the BJP-led government, is trying to do in five years, its term till next parliament elections. At the command of Human Resource Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, history is being rewritten to glorify “Hindu culture.”

Even otherwise, there is an effort to saffronize the country. It is a pity that the BJP-led government should be busy in polarizing society. It will be counter-productive because the majority in the Hindu community believes in pluralism and open society.

In fact, pluralism and open society are the two recognizable traits of a modern state which Musharraf should be following to change Pakistan. But is he prepared to revise the textbooks, change class instructions and repeal the blasphemy law? The government has already refused to drop the blasphemy law. In the same way, it does not want to change the provision that declared the Ahmedis non-Muslim.

If Musharraf wants Pakistan to turn over a new leaf, his fight against obscurantism has to be relentless. Does he have the commitment — and support — to do so? It is one thing to please the West but another to take steps on the ground to reform a society which has lived and developed with a particular identity in the last 50 years.

And how can Pakistan be a modern, progressive state without democracy? Musharraf says he will continue as President for the next five years. He needs to have the sanction of people through the ballot box. His ratings of popularity, according to the Pakistan press, are above 60 per cent. Fair and transparent elections have to confirm this.

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s directive to conduct the polls by October this year is there. But so far there has been no movement towards implementing the order. Political parties have not been allowed to function. The return of leaders of the two main parties from abroad is not even on the cards.

If Musharraf wants to follow in Jinnah’s footsteps, he will have to completely change himself and his military junta. The next few months will show if he wants to do so. But will the army commanders go with him all the way?

The writer is a free lance columnist based in New Delhi

THE much-publicized encounter between the former interior minister, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain and the ad hoc Public Accounts Committee is ending amicably. It has caused the suspension of only a few security guards. So it had to be. When the elephants fight only grass gets crushed.

The inquiry that has been ordered is not to determine whether Chaudhry Shujaat forced his way into the Parliament House with a clutch of his bouncers (press reporters and a photographer in tow) violated the decorum of the committee in session, intimidated its chairman and members. Nor would the inquiry determine whether the committee had acted illegally or improperly in releasing its finding to the press on the misuse of the public fund and facility by the Chaudhry.

That is a closed chapter. Chaudhry Shujaat has apologized for his conduct and the committee has agreed to review its finding against him. The inquiry will only determine how the former minister’s horde was able to enter a high security area unchecked and undeterred. The suspended guards will be lucky if they escape dismissal. The inquiry is unlikely to exonerate them on the ground that where a venerable committee could be cowed down, brushing aside the humbler guards would have posed no problem.

However sordid the episode, in its aftermath the propriety of the proceedings of the committee and the conduct of the former minister both should have been examined. A compromise just to avoid “controversy” was an easy but improper way out of it. It may leave Wasim Sajjad, the former Senate chairman, and Yusuf Raza Gilani, the former speaker, wondering why they did not act the way Chaudhry Shujaat did when the committee publicized the waste or extravagance in their establishments.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is perhaps the most important of all the committees of the National Assembly — when it is in existence. It is a constitutional responsibility of this committee to examine the accounts and the report of the auditor-general (a constitutional office) on them to satisfy itself that the money disbursed was available, applied to the service or purpose for which it was provided and conformed to the rules governing it.

In the absence of the National Assembly, the same responsibility is now vested in an ad hoc Public Accounts Committee by the Chief Executive’s Order No. 1 of the year 2000 issued under the Proclamation of October 14, 1999 (similar has been the practice under the previous martial laws).

The present committee comprises six retired secretaries, a retired general, three accountants and the dean of a business school. H.U. Beg,its chairman, is the longest serving finance secretary of the country — may be ten years. Besides finance, the only other interest he had in life was jogging uphill till a buckling knee forced him to take to cycle. The other members, at least the retired secretaries, are all austere, frugal men known for their loyalty to the profession and family. Considering their disposition, combined with the current circumstances, it is no wonder that the indignant retort to the unwelcome visitor came from the only general on the committee. The hallmark of the whole lot is restraint, not confrontation.

In conducting its proceedings the ad hoc PAC is required by the CE’s order to “ensure transparency and to accelerate the process of accountability.” On the contrary, the proceedings of the parliamentary committee are confined to the Assembly chambers and its report made public only when authorized by the speaker. Its recommendations evoked little public interest. The reasons were two: they were not adequately publicized and, secondly, the irregularities pointed out were years after their perpetrators had either died, retired or otherwise receded into oblivion.

The current ad hoc PAC, on the other hand, is spotlighting the irregularities committed during the period immediately preceding the start of the tenure of the present government, and the press is covering them while the ministers and bureaucrats culpable are still around and the elections are approaching. Seen in this background, the ire and rash behaviour of Chaudhry Shujaat is understandable as he is said to be assured of getting a high public office in the post-election set-up.

Yet another reason for him to be angry is that in the decade preceding the Musharraf proclamation, excessive use or misuse of telephones or transport was not considered an irregularity. If the money wasn’t available, it was appropriated from the other heads of saving or the bills were just not paid. Specifically, Chaudhry Shujaat is aggrieved that he is being indicted for running up the phone bill of a ministry to an astronomical level of which he had held but additional charge for a few months. He may never have sat in that ministry, as he now asserts, but the men of ministers crawl all over. It would be particularly true of Chaudhry Shujaat who comes from a near-by district and is known to keep his office and home open for his folks and job seekers.

Notwithstanding this fact of life, it remains the responsibility of a minister to ensure that the affairs of his ministry are properly managed. He is there not to claim credit for good that happens but also to accept the blame for what goes wrong. The committee mostly proceeds on the reports of the auditor-general which also incorporate the viewpoint of the concerned ministry. Yet another grievance of Chaudhry Shujaat is that the bureaucrats tend to pin the blame on the minister even for their own misdemeanours. Now, the secretary being the principal accounting officer of the ministry this grievance cannot be dismissed as wholly unfounded, especially after a minister has left his post or hasn’t bothered, even when he is around, to look at the reports. Most ministers don’t. One simple remedy to that can be to make the secretary once again responsible for keeping the affairs of the ministry in good order as he used to be till the ministers insisted this honour should belong to them. They did not seem to be conscious of the responsibility it entailed, and is now facing the music — of NAB in this case — when out of power.

The whole episode has been unpleasant but some good must flow out of it. First, the committee’s proceedings should be open to the public for scrutiny and even put on air as the Congress hearings and even court trials are in the US. Secondly, the culpable should be heard. Thirdly, those found guilty of large waste or serious irregularities should be retired, if a bureaucrat, or disqualified from contesting the future elections, if a minister. Further, this very ad hoc PAC, before it is disbanded, should also examine the accounts pertaining to the present government’s tenure to demonstrate that it can be as unsparing of the bureaucracy — civil and military — as of the politicians.

All said, an intriguing thought lingers. What a battery of charges — criminal trespass, assault, obstructing public servants in their duty, etc. etc — the visitor to the Public Accounts Committee would have faced were he to be Asif Ali Zardari and not Chaudhry Shujaat Husain? Or, as they say, every dog has his day.