FOUNDED in 1906 the All India Muslim League (AIML) was one of the oldest political parties in the subcontinent, and its descendant, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), is the oldest party in this country. AIML began as, and for the most part remained, a grouping of nawabs and landed aristocrats. As it went along, a few wealthy Muslim businessmen, lawyers, other professionals, and better-known intellectuals came in.

With the exception of one brief split when a small group of Punjabi notables (including Allama Iqbal) broke away from the main body and formed a faction of their own, AIML remained whole. This may appear surprising, for the feudal political culture does not inspire landed aristocrats to work together steadily for any constructive purpose. Temporary and shifting alliances to overthrow a weakening overlord or to defeat and humiliate an equal may be made, but the idea of “team work” to advance the public interest is foreign to the feudal mind.

The feudal lords in AIML stayed together primarily because political power, and the rewards that go with it, over which they might have quarrelled, was nowhere in sight. Until the demand for Pakistan became non-negotiable, the party only demanded safeguards for Muslim rights, especially more jobs in government and larger representation for them in legislatures. If these demands were met, the resulting benefits would go to the landed aristocrats and other Muslim elites.

The landed aristocrats in the party’s committees and councils accepted Mr. Jinnah as their spokesman because he was an even greater aristocrat than any of the rest of them. A different type (modern and westernized), but an aristocrat nevertheless, and much more competent in dealing with the British rulers and Hindu leaders.

Muslim middle and lower classes, including small landowners in the rural areas, began to identify with AIML as the demand for Pakistan came to be taken seriously. It had become the chief representative of the Muslim people by the time the elections of 1945 and 1946 came along. Even though Mr. Jinnah was perceived as the “creator” and founder of Pakistan, some of the credit for this accomplishment went to the party as well. Its successor after independence, the PML came to be regarded as the party that had “struggled” for Pakistan and held in considerable popular affection.

But the context in which the party had worked changed radically in the wake of independence. It now became the ruling party, and its leading members became heads of government and ministers at the national and provincial levels, exercising real authority and power over men, matters, and things. With the rewards of power at stake, the feudal inclination to factionalism surfaced; it remained muted at the centre but raged in the provinces.

Abdul Qayyum Khan, a patriot but an autocrat to the core, chief minister of NWFP, hounded Pir Sahib of Manki Sharif until the latter left the party to form a group of his own. Factional fighting was much more intense in Punjab. Here Nawab Mamdot became the chief minister while Mian Mumtaz Daultana served as his finance minister. Both were great landlords, fully partaking of the feudal ethos; the latter in spite of his British education and an allegedly leftist bias.

Daultana saw Mamdot as a relatively unlettered and incompetent person, thought of himself as being infinitely brighter and more capable, and could not understand why he should have to serve in a subordinate position instead of being the chief minister. He began to challenge Mamdot both in the government and the provincial PML organization. Their row assumed crisis proportions and could not be resolved despite the Quaid-I-Azam’s efforts to bring the two men together. Daultana mounted a campaign to get the provincial PML council to repudiate Mamdot.

It is said that after the Quaid-I-Azam’s death, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan sided with Daultana in his tussle with Mamdot. In any case, we know that he asked the governor to dismiss the Mamdot government after which the latter left the PML and formed a Muslim League of his own. Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din, also a great landlord, a well-educated man, a serious socialist, and a provincial minister, quarrelled with Mamdot over policy issues, left the government and the party, and launched a party of his own.

Soon after Prime Minister Chaudhry Mohammad Ali’s resignation, about one half of the PML members of the West Pakistan assembly, seduced by Governor Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani and President Iskander Mirza, defected from their party and formed the Republican party overnight. After Ayub Khan’s promulgation of the 1962 constitution and subsequent restoration of political parties, many of the PML notables, wishing to align themselves with the “king,” split from their party, formed the “Convention Muslim League,” and adopted Ayub Khan as its president. The remaining part came to be called the “Council Muslim League,” presided over by Daultana.

The Convention Muslim League disappeared from the scene after Ayub Khan’s ouster in March 1969. PML resurfaced and, for lack of an option, functioned as an opposition party during Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto’s rule. Zia-ul-Haq had held the 1985 election on a non-party basis but was soon persuaded to allow political parties to re-emerge. PML reappeared then and Prime Minister Junejo became its president. Following his dismissal, the party split again, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to be the head of one of its larger factions.

Nawaz Sharif, overthrown in October of 1999, is in exile and a large segment of his party has turned away from him. It is now split in two main factions, one still acknowledging him as its leader and known as PML (N); the other calling itself PML (QA) and said to be favoured by the present regime. In addition there are, and have been for may years, at least half a dozen other factions that are relatively inactive.

How do we explain this virtually irresistible tendency to split into factions? In one of his more celebrated contributions to The Federalist Papers (# 10), James Madison, “father” of the American Constitution, wrote that the seeds of factionalism were sown in the nature of man. In the absence of substantial reasons, men would divide into factions on frivolous grounds.

But he added that while factionalism could not be abolished, its disintegrative potential could be controlled. American political parties, decentralized and not prone to internal discipline, tolerate a degree of factionalism within their ranks. Barring some great and momentous issues on which a party must stand apart from its principal rival, some Democrats in Congress will vote with the Republicans on most of the bills, and vice versa.

It is one thing to have stable or transient sub-groups within a party but another for them to break away and set themselves up as separate parties. The inclination to factionalism is indeed brought under control in some political systems, for instance, the British. In the case of Pakistan, it may be said that factionalism is not peculiar to PML, and that it afflicts other parties also — PPP, ANP, MQM, JUI, JUP, and others. But it may be true also that PML surpasses others in this regard. Let us try to find the reasons

I mentioned the feudal ethos as an agent that inclines persons to uncontrolled factionalism. It should be noted that this ethos has a way of spilling out and spreading to other classes. Nawaz Sharif, Gauhar Ayub, Sartaj Aziz and some of the other leading men in PML do not come from feudal families, but it is likely that they do, nevertheless, partake of the feudal ethos.

Second, unlike several other Pakistani parties, the PML has never stood for anything in particular. It has professed a commitment to the two-nation theory, Muslim nationalism, and separate electorates, none of which had any role to play after India had been divided and Pakistan made. Its claims of attachment to Islam and its sponsorship of Islamization have generally been seen as self-serving and expedient, or simply hypocritical.

Absence of commitment to an image of the good society, or even a coherent and well-made package of proposals for social change, resulted in loosening the bonds of togetherness in the party. It sought nothing beyond ruling authority and power, the quest of which generated struggles for larger shares of rewards within is ranks. The losers in this struggle tended to break away and form factions of their own, more out of frustration and spite or from the desire for self-assertion than from any realistic expectation of gaining power.

Personalism, and authoritarianism that goes with it, will also contribute to factionalism. Those who enter politics want to be able to direct and influence others. If the party bosses deny those who have independent bases of support in their own constituencies not only a share of power but also access to the party’s inner councils, and reduce them to the status of mere subordinates who may speak if and when they are spoken to, they will become disaffected and look for opportunities elsewhere, especially if their party is not the ruling party. Some party functionaries and workers may be personally dedicated to a leader, and if he chooses to make a faction of his own, they will go with him..

PML has often been called the “king’s party.” At this time those who remain in PML (N) may be doing so out of a sense of personal loyalty to Mr. Nawaz Sharif, reinforced by their assessment that he is a winner, and that sooner than later he will return to the Pakistani political scene. But if it transpires that he is gone for an indefinite period of time, his faction will probably wither away and its members merge with PML (QA), said to be favoured by the present government, or look for other pastures.

A Shia doctor is shot dead every other day, on some days two. The killing of Shias has been going on for some years though the backlash has been less frequent. Why the assassins have now chosen the doctors among them baffles.

In this cycle of personal tragedy and public sorrow, amusement is provided by the decision of the Sindh cabinet: “The cabinet also took notice of the killing of doctors in Karachi and directed the police to beef up the security measures of doctors” — reported in Dawn on Wednesday last apparently based on an official handout.

So in the cabinet marathon of six hours the dead doctors “also” ran. The cabinet also decided to pay compensation to the heirs of a policeman killed in an “encounter.” The heirs of the doctors are expected to live on the memory and savings of the dead. In any case, far too many are dying for a deficit treasury to help.

The cabinet direction to the police to “beef up” the security means, if it means any thing at all, to put two policemen where previously there was one. How will the police protect thousands of doctors in their hospitals and homes and on the streets is a question which if it was contemplated by the cabinet is not reported in the press. It is not humanly possible. The cabinet “taking notice” is where the action will rest till the killers strike again.

When bullets are sprayed on worshippers, a policeman or two hang around the mosques for a week or two after the mayhem. since like the doctors the houses of worship are also in thousands the protection is merely symbolic. The assassins choose their own place and time.

Whatever its strength or resources, the police cannot check the targeted murders. The state has to end its involvement in matters religious which has only fostered sectarian hatred. During the colonial period and in the early years of Pakistan debate or schism marked the religious controversy. The violence and murders started when the state became a party to it.

If a larger police force where able to check religious violence it should have been diminishing over the years and not increasing. My friend Arbab Hedaytullah who was IG of Sindh police from 1977 to 1982 recalls that the expenditure on police in 1977 was Rs 17 million. It rose to 21 million in five years. Now, in the year 2001-02 it is more than 6000 million — a 300 times increase.

The crime of which the most vicious form is the killing of innocent, unwary people for their belief alone may have risen in the same proportion. Obviously the Sindh cabinet and the cabinet at Islamabad have to set right the laws and policies rather than repeat irksome directions to the police to prevent murders and arrest the culprits within 24 hours.

In the current upsurge of reforms the police is expanding its hierarchy of control but doing little for the police station or its incharge. The image of the SHO remains that of a boor and corrupt tyrant, and of the police station as a place of torture, not of relief.

Taking the example of Karachi once again, its police force in the ‘70s and ‘80s was headed by a deputy inspector general with three regional SPs assisting him. Now there is an additional IG, called the capital city officer, a number of DIGs and 18 regional SPs (town police officers). In increasing their own numbers and prospects the senior police commanders seem to forget that the remedy of a citizen begins and invariably ends at the police station, and their only job is to make the police station work.

At the grassroots, which is the buzzword of the current administrative reforms, is the police station. Power and prestige should have evolved to it but hasn’t. Then there are too many police stations but all are ill-equipped, both in trained men and materials. It is worth considering to reduce their number in Karachi to 18 coinciding with the jurisdiction of the town police officers. Vehicles, wireless, stationery etc. could then be provided to them for quick reach and disciplined behaviour.

No longer then the complainants would be required to bring their own paper for recording their reports or bring a taxi if a police official were to visit the scene of crime. The same principle should apply to the other parts of the country especially to cities where population is large but not the distances.

Apart from the 300 times increase in expenditure over 20 years, the police is expecting billions more for its new structure. The suspicion is that most of it will go to buildings and salaries leaving little for training and mobility of the men at the police stations. Currently about 85-90 per cent of the police budget goes in paying salaries leaving less than 15 per cent for all other activities. This ratio should be reversed. More untrained and immobile people will only add to public harassment. Fewer people with skills and pride in their profession should be at the centre of reforms and not just the numbers.

The other day President Musharraf is said to have sanctioned 120 million rupees for the construction of a police office at Peshawar. How this huge investment in brick and mortar will alleviate the misery of the common man or enhance his sense of safety is difficult to understand. The pioneer cadres of public servants after independence operated effectively from the barracks.

The president and his NRB sound naive when they assert that the public safety commissions would save the police from political pressure and the people from police harassment. Of the 140 million people a fraction of one per cent may be able to reach the safety commissioners. Those who pin excessive hopes on the commissions should recall the frustration and anger of proactive Justice Bhandari of Lahore High Court in dealing with the officials accused of torture and illegal detention. Yet he was able to provide little relief.

The essence of it all is that unless the police force is trained and equipped well and emphasis shifts from quantity to quality with an enlarged police station as the centrepiece of the reorganization, the billions being spent will go waste (almost 65 per cent of Sindh’s tax collection goes to police). Since the taxes are not increasing but the police is, little may be left for the other activities once the new system comes into full play.

Meanwhile, the hope remains that the generals and their academic hirelings would change their thinking and policy to put an end to the sectarian murders, and not just keep directing the police to do it.

IF you have to choose between information and common sense in Delhi, opt for common sense. Don’t of course mention this to journalists, or they might have nothing to write about. Don’t tell politicians and bureaucrats either, or they will have nothing to talk about.

Since the favourite parlour game of India is speculation, everyone one wants to know what is going to happen next. The route map to foreknowledge is not inside information but plain-text common sense. Information is brittle and variable. This is not a character flaw of Delhi’s heavy hitters. It is not that people tell lies; it is simply that truth changes.

During moments of drama or concern truth can change very fast; while you are pontificating on one version another has already replaced it in some corridor of power. Politics is a game of options chasing one another; if power is moored too strongly to principle, it snaps, bringing some edifice down. The navigators of the system keep skimming a twisting current in order to move forward. That is their sole means of travel.

All the information spewing out of Delhi over the past week suggested some kind of a crisis, even one that could conceivably bring down the government of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. The leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, nestled in the pillboxes of television, seemed to have launched a war against the BJP-led government as they sought to begin construction of their version of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Even if Mr Vajpayee had been prime minister of a BJP rather than a coalition government, he could not have arbitrarily acceded to a demand violative of court injunctions; there was no way in which he could have compromised as leader of a coalition. In other words, if a temple were built in Ayodhya the government would fall in Delhi. To a growing number of people this seemed to be a cause for some alarm; to me, this confrontation was more amusing than real. All one had to do was apply the cold touch of common sense on the rhetoric, and the fizzle went flat.

One question was sufficient. How would it help the VHP, or any of the official and unofficial elements that were part of the temple movement, to bring down a government created around the central presence of the BJP? How would it help Mr Ashok Singhal to replace Mr Vajpayee with someone else? Mr Vajpayee may not be Mr Singhal’s preferred choice for prime minister: in fact some VHP leader called the prime minister a “new Mussalman” which, presumably, is as low as it gets in the VHP vocabulary.

Doubtless in Mr Singhal’s ideal world the prime minister of India would carry a trident in his pocket, talk like Nathuram Godse and behave like Narendra Modi. But until we reach that horizon, Mr Singhal will have to settle for less ideal mortals. How does a Sonia Gandhi or a Chandra Shekhar or a V.P. Singh or a Chandrababu Naidu or any member of the long list of hopeful waiting to pick up the prime ministership from the debris of this coalition become more useful to Mr Singhal than an Atal Behari Vajpayee? Mr Vajpayee will at least maintain a dialogue, and hopefully push all concerned towards some semblance of shared decision-making: anyone else would draw a hard line in front of the VHP fairly quickly and let the dispute wait in the courtroom for as long as it takes.

Since it made no sense for the VHP to push the government so far that it would topple, there was never any serious danger of the government being in any genuine crisis. The simulated crisis was a show manoeuvred between a number of staging points.

The question invites itself: why stage such a show? The answers are many. The date itself was fixed long ago, so any immediate cause cannot be attributed to it. The VHP’s continuing problem is what might be described as the sag factor: it has been promising a temple for too long without doing anything about it. Mr Ashok Singhal was, after all, ten years younger when he joyously participated in the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya and asking him to wait for another ten years might be asking for too much as far as he is concerned. (One can hardly eliminate the human element from wars driven by passion).

Ten years ago the prospect of BJP rule over India might have seemed a distant dream, but even the birth of this dream did not straighten the sag. A BJP Prime Minister has proved as reluctant to place a temple above the law as any of his predecessors. One immediate reason for the extraordinary stridency displayed by VHP leaders was clearly the environment created by the Gujarat violence, both at Godhra and its aftermath.

The terrible death of karsevaks at Godhra gave the VHP a kind of moral legitimacy it had yearned for but never seemed to obtain, particularly from the middle class. Anguish does have that kind of fallout. But that anguish was soon overshadowed by the larger wail of lynch mobs permitted to kill and torch Muslims across Gujarat; no one had any right to any space on the moral high ground after that.

If the strategy was to simultaneously become the martyrs of Godhra and the avengers of Gujarat, to generate sympathy among Hindus for the temple through Godhra and strike terror among Muslims through Ahmedabad, then, in the final analysis, it all unravelled and failed. As that old adage puts it quite neatly, you cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hound. The mobs of Ahmedabad and innumerable other cities and villages of Gujarat changed the chemistry of the reaction in Delhi and the country. If the Hindutva movement had reacted with prayer rather than punishment to Godhra, there would have been a national outpouring of sympathy of unparalleled proportions. It lost that chance when it could not cleanse hatred from its reaction.

Mr Vajpayee has a deceptively languorous approach to power. That stoic half-smile silence tends to give the impression that he either does not care or can be bullied. Everyone has his own style of management; Mr Vajpayee prefers elastic handcuffs for his flock. Make that very elastic. Elastic is the only band that can keep a blob of jelly under some form of control.

But Mr Vajpayee also has a veteran’s eye; he knows at which point the shifting mass of jelly that is government can spill out of control and then out of his hands. If there was a crisis last week then it was propelled by the law of unintended consequences. The VHP leadership thought it could raise the temperature without scorching itself or, more dangerously, burning down the government: fire should not be left in the hands of novices. Nor should television cameras be left in front of them.

As the “crisis” progressed it was evident that many of the leaders had fallen in love with the sound of their own voices. Hearing yourself on the box can be heady, particularly if no one listens to you normally. The man who called the prime minister a “new Mussalman” had clearly lost connectivity with his brain muscles. Mr Vajpayee brought the heat down with one sharp shower of cold reality. Within minutes the VHP had recognized the virtues of a court order.

Gujarat has poured acid on wounds that were once again beginning to fade. The BJP, which could claim that it had managed to control communal violence under its watch, is now as guilty as the governments of 1992 or 1984 or whoever and whenever looked the other way while mobs feasted on blood. The real challenge before Prime Minister Vajpayee now is to heal a nation that has had a cardiac relapse under his care; this attack was straight to the heart. Building a temple on land is easy compared to finding some space in the heart.

In his incarnation as a man Lord Ram was revered as the paragon of honour and justice. As a Lord, he would never accept worship in a temple built with bloodstained hands.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.