REFERENDUM has been used from time immemorial as a means of ascertaining the voice and will of the people on important national issues. In modern history, it has most often been used to seek the people’s voice on issues like independence from a colonial power or union with another country or membership of a regional or international organization. It has also frequently been used to ratify a new or revised constitution.

Ours is the only country where the referendum has been used as some kind of an alternative to election in order to legitimize the rule of a self-imposed military head of state who did not come into power through election. The referendum has been used thus not once but three times since the country’s creation.

In 1960, a referendum was used to confirm as president Field Marshal Ayub Khan who took over power in 1958. Similarly, a referendum was used in 1984 to extend the presidency of Gen Ziaul Haq who came into power in 1977. And now again in 2002, a referendum is being used to extend the rule of Gen Pervez Musharraf who took over the reins of power in 1999.

The earliest antecedents for referendum were found in the democratic institutions of ancient Greece. Recent history is replete with countless examples of governments in different parts of the world using the popular referendums to ascertain the people’s opinion on specific national issues.

In 1923 when the British South Africa Company charter expired in Southern Rhodesia, a referendum was held on whether to join South Africa. The vote went against union, and Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony. In a referendum in 1962, the people of Algeria voted overwhelmingly for independence from France after an eight-year war of independence. In 1969, the people of West Irian, a Dutch colony until 1962 when the Dutch relinquished possession to the UN, voted in favour of uniting with the Republic of Indonesia, and the province was renamed Irian Jaya in 1973.

Between 1991-1993, referendums were held in each European Community member-country to ratify the Maastrict Treaty that changed the European Community into the greater integrated European Union. Denmark had two referendums on this: in the first referendum, Danish voters turned down ratification and they only approved the treaty in a subsequent referendum after Denmark was granted substantial concessions and exemptions, including the right to opt out of both the European Monetary Union and any future common defence policy.

Over the years, voters in Switzerland, the only country that maintains only an observer mission status in the UN (meaning it can participate in UN deliberations but cannot vote), have rejected two referendums suggesting that Switzerland join as a full member.

Referendums have also been used to elicit the will of the people in changing the system of the country. In 1960, for instance, the South African government held a referendum to decide whether South Africa should become a republic and in 1961, the country officially became the Republic of South Africa. In April 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the establishment of an Islamic Republic after a popular referendum, following a revolution in January that toppled the Shah of Iran.

In Australia, the referendum was used to change the national status of a particular group of people. In 1967, after a national referendum, the Australian government recognized the aborigines as citizens on the Australian census. The referendum also gave the Australian government the power for the first time to create laws regarding the rights and welfare of aborigines.

At the same time, there are numerous examples of the referendum being used to ratify new or revised constitutions. In 18th century Revolutionary France, a new constitution was ratified by popular vote in a referendum and it took effect in October 1795. In 1982 in Turkey, a new constitution was ratified by popular referendum, and civilian government was restored in 1983.

Similarly in the Philippines in 1987, a new constitution was ratified by a national referendum. And in September 1991 in Bangladesh, a popular referendum ratified constitutional provisions abolishing presidential government and restoring a parliamentary democracy led by a prime minister.

In 1991 in Rumania, a new constitution was approved by a popular referendum. In the same year, a referendum in the Russian republic authorized the creation of a directly elected Russian presidency within the framework of the USSR. In another referendum associated with the December elections in 1993, Russians ratified a constitution which granted vast powers to the president and the executive organs.

Independent Armenia’s constitution was approved by a referendum in July 1995, replacing the 1978 constitution of the Soviet period. And in 1997, Poland’s voters approved a revised constitution in a nationwide referendum.

The closest that the referendum has come to be used in the way that it has been used in Pakistan is in the Central Asian republics, where the referendum was often used to approve the extension of a president’s term during the 1990s. The major difference, however, is that the Central Asian presidents had been elected into power before they resorted to the referendum, whereas our military leaders who seek to continue in power through referendums did not come into power initially through any election.

In 1994 in Turkmenistan, voters endorsed their legislature’s decision to extend President Saparmurad Niyazov’s term of office until 2002 without the need for a presidential re-election. In Uzbekistan in March 1995, voters approved in a referendum the cancellation of the presidential elections due in 1997 and extended President Karimov’s term of office to 2000.

A referendum in Kazakhstan in April 1995 extended to the year 2000 the tenure of President Nazarbayev who had been elected into power in presidential elections in 1991. It is a different story altogether that presidential elections in the Central Asian republics, according to international observers, have failed to meet democratic standards.

In our country the referendum has been used by all three military leaders to not only ratify their rule as president but also give them a blank cheque to amend and change the Constitution of the country. In other democratic countries, leaders come into power through national elections, while any change, if at all, in the constitution is usually ratified through a popular referendum.

In New Zealand in 1993, the voice of the people was even sought in a national referendum on whether it should change its electoral system at all. Here in this country, not only has the referendum been misused as an election but major constitutional amendments changing the structure of constitutional government are not put to the vote of the people, for example, the Eighth Amendment.

Both referendum and election involve voting, but the referendum is not an election. The referendum is a process that allows citizens to vote directly on proposed laws or other government actions. It is only in an election, direct or indirect, that voters should choose the official or officials to act for them. In our country, this otherwise very clear distinction between a referendum and an election has been blurred. Civilian leaders come into office through elections but military leaders stay in power through referendums.

The country has failed so far to establish a stable system of constitutional government simply because the rule of law, i.e. the principle that every member of a society, even a ruler, must follow the law, is seriously deficient: whether it be civil law, criminal law or constitutional law. Unless all learn to respect and protect the law and make the law pervade, the people of this country will be destined to tread a path of continued political instability and stunted economic and social development.

EMINENT historian Eric Hobsbawm in his celebrated work on social strife in the 20th century — The Age of Extremes — quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn as commenting thus upon the demise of the Soviet Union: “Although the earthly ideal of Socialism-Communism has collapsed, the problems it purported to solve remain: the brazen use of social advantage and the inordinate power of money, which often direct the very course of events. And if the global lesson of the twentieth century does not serve as a healing inoculation, then the vast red whirlwind may repeat itself in entirety.”

Now any sensible citizen of the world today would be able to tell us that either Solzhenitsyn was colour-blind or he was being yet again getting paranoid of his favourite ogre. For if he were to look again today — from Palestine to Gujarat, from Afghanistan to Burundi or Bosnia, from Alaska’s forbidden oil fields to the Narmada riverbed, would Solzhenitsyn find any tinge of red anywhere in the world?

And if you must choose any one colour to flag the moment in history, the dominant colour for India, for the moment and perhaps the foreseeable future, is saffron. Call it blood-soaked saffron if you must quibble, but it’s not red.

Part of the reason for India’s macabre choice of saffron, or perhaps part of the explanation for this peculiarly garish fetish, was in evidence last month when the country’s two main communist parties held their congress in two different parts of the country. Now there are differences within communist parties and between them.

But for the life of me I cannot today say with any confidence that you or I would be able to tell the difference between the Communist Party of India and the much bigger Communist Party of India-Marxist.

There was a time when they parted company over their attitude towards Indira Gandhi or the Soviet Union or whatever. Today both are regrettably dead and gone. Ideally this should have paved the way for the two communist parties to come together again — not to make revolution or overthrow the state or something else from the textbooks, but to save lives. Their own and those of their supporters.

The rightwing Hindu campaign is not so much targeting the communal counterpoint — the rightwing Muslim groups. No, it needs them to survive and grow. It is gunning after the liberal Hindus and ideologically-driven democrats among the minorities. That was the lesson, on the very first day of the Gujarat pogroms, from the murder of Ehsan Jaffri and his family, who was a former member of the Communist Party of India and a former Congress MP.

Not just India’s rightwing Hindu analysts but the average Western sociologist is today eager to equate Osama bin Laden and Che Guevara in the same vein.

Therefore, it was ironical and amusing, if such a feeling is permitted today, to see quite a few of the world’s communist parties coming out of the woodwork to rally support for their Indian comrades.

Listed below are excerpts from the messages from some of the Marxist parties that either sent delegates to the CPI-M’s recent party congress in Hyderabad or dispatched what the old guard still quaintly calls “fraternal greetings”.

The messages reflect a reality of their own regardless of what Solzhenitsyn might have construed from them.

BD’s Workers Party: It is a proud privilege for the delegation of the Workers Party of Bangladesh to attend the 17th congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ... It is important for us particularly because we belong to the same subcontinent, share a common history of struggle against British imperialist subjugation and for emancipation of our people under the leadership of the Communist Party founded in British India ...... We remember with gratitude the support and help given to us by the CPI(M) in our difficulties, particularly during our struggle for independence against the Pakistani occupation army in 1971.

Myanmar’s Communist Party: We are now at a turn of history when the US, making use of every available excuse, is trying to establish a new world order according to its own vision, an American Era ... The dialogue between the State Peace and Development Council Government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the main opposition party in our country, has been dragging on for more than a year without producing any tangible results.

China’s Communist Party: As a fairly influential political force in Indian politics and social life, the CPI(M) has played an important role in promoting social progress and development in India, and has exerted positive and effective influence in safeguarding regional and world peace. We appreciate your efforts and achievement. (Nothing on America)

Cuba’s Communist Party: We can never forget the permanent solidarity of the CPI(M) with the revolutionary process that our people are carrying out. With the dismemberment of the former USSR and the collapse of socialism in the Eastern European socialist countries, Cuba lost 85 per cent of its import and export markets ... This congress is being held at a very difficult time for humanity.

The barbarous, repulsive and unjustifiable terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have become a starting point for the only world superpower, in an exercise of unipolarity, to launch a war and reserve for itself the right to decide which organizations or countries are terrorist or not and which people can be the target of its attacks with “intelligent weapons”, weapons which also kill children, women and elderly people, who are then euphemistically regarded as “collateral damages.”

India’s Communist Party: This day, next week, our party, the CPI will be holding its 18th congress, and we expect to hear the address from the general secretary, CPI(M). It will be a truism to say that both the congresses are meeting at a very critical moment in history. The country has just passed through the trauma of the horrendous Godhra violence, the Gujarat riots and the Ayodhya turmoil.

Korea’s Workers Party: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has unfolded a vigorous struggle to champion the independent development of the country and the rights and interests of the broad masses of the people and to strengthen the unity and solidarity of the world socialist movement, maintaining the revolutionary principles of the working class, thus achieved a great deal of success in this process.

Sri Lanka’s Communist Party: We, Sri Lankan Communists, had long years of traditional friendship with the Indian Communists from the very inception of the Communist movement in our two countries .... Contrary to all prophesies, predictions and dreams of the bourgeois theoreticians and ideologues for prosperity and affluence under neo-liberalism, these once developed countries have today joined the ranks of the poor Third World.

We remember how communist parties in several countries changed their ideological positions, changed their names and even their colours, succumbing to the ideological onslaught let loose by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist countries. The Communists of India and Sri Lanka have not only survived, weathering those political and ideological storms and hurricanes but fortified their positions undeterred by defeats, setbacks and reversals.

Nepal’s Communist Party (UML): The contagion effect of recession in the USA has now entered into the European Union and other countries with severe adverse effect on the economic growth and employment. Despite their tactics of mergers and acquisitions, many big industries and companies have collapsed with mounting unemployment and rising class contradictions in capitalist countries.

Pakistan’s Communist Party: Please accept our heartiest greetings on the 17th congress of your party. Due to certain unavoidable circumstances, we are unable to participate in this very important event. Our two countries have a common heritage and the people on the two sides of the border share each other’s sentiments.

We are facing the same types of problems, i.e. social, economical and political backwardness. Religious fundamentalism is our common enemy. It will be appropriate to assure that our party will always be by your side in the struggle against the common enemies of the two countries. Your congress is being held at a very critical juncture of history. On the one hand, international imperialism has decided to impose its will on the world by all means and, on the other hand, progressive forces are regaining their confidence and are realigning themselves.

You are holding this congress at a time when the imperialist forces, in the garb of a coalition against terrorism, are present in the region. They have killed thousands of innocent citizens of Afghanistan to oust the same obscurantist regime of the Taliban they themselves had imposed on the people of Afghanistan to promote fundamentalism in the region. It will not be wrong to imagine that the world is about to enter into a new slavery if imperialism succeeds in imposing its policies through international financial institutions, WTO and by use of force.

In this grave situation it is the duty of progressive forces to put a united resistance against this onslaught. We are sure your 17th congress will address the whole situation and will be able to evolve a suitable strategy. We will like to avail this opportunity to renew our old proposal to form a coordinating committee to cope with the situation in a better way.

Russia’s Communist Party: We are well aware of the political situation in which you have to pursue your activities. India is experiencing the consequences of the “new world order” and of the aggressive actions of the United States in this area of the world. That is why at present of great importance is the fraternal solidarity of the communists of all the countries in opposing the imperialist forces.

Vietnam’s Communist Party: Over the past years since the 16th congress, with new developments unfolding in the national and international situation, your party has overcome many difficulties, persistently striven for the consolidation of national independence, unity and integrity, and made active contributions to the common struggle of the democratic and progressive forces in India and throughout the world for peace, national independence, democracy and social progress (Note no word on America!).

Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Cyprus, France, Guatemala, Germany, Chile, Greece, Israel, Japan, Palestine, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, United States were the other countries whose communist parties sent messages to the congress.

CONSENSUS on important national and provincial issues is a visible trait of the Sindhi press, which has once again been demonstrated in its answer to the question of the presidential referendum as most of the dailies have opposed it with strong arguments. Kawish writes that President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s address to the nation has triggered many questions and debates. He has ultimately declared to have joined politics while remaining in the government service. This attitude of the general in no way conforms to the Constitution and law of the land. Both civilian and military rules, as well as the Constitution, do not allow a government servant to take part in politics. Even a government servant cannot participate in politics or assume a public office within two years of his resigning. These constitutional and legal restrictions have been imposed to ensure that a government servant does not consider himself to be a decision-making institution, and matters concerning administration remain separate from state affairs.

Politics has its own prerequisites and first and foremost among them is to listen to difference of opinion. There is no room for one-way traffic in today’s politics since democracy and politics are synonyms in the contemporary world. This is why one-sided politics is considered dictatorship. The people of Pakistan are worried that the president is not willing to allow the heads of the two largest parties of the country to return home to play their political role. If Gen Musharraf thinks that the masses are satisfied with his performance and support his plans, why he is afraid of those who, according to him, are corrupt and had not given any relief to the public.

The president has also said that he would give powers to prime minister but would keep so much authority with himself that the premier could not undo the reforms introduced by him and that the National Security Council would also be established. The restoration of the troika and formation of the NSC means nothing but reducing the powers of elected representatives and increasing and constitutionalizing the army’s role in government and politics. The examples of Turkey, Indonesia and the Philippines show that similar constitutional role of their armies has failed to improve the governance, politics, economics and administration of these countries, rather has contributed to their deterioration. Besides, these countries do not have a conflict with their neighbours, like we do, which bounds their armies to be always alert.

The people are also thinking that Gen Musharraf may be a gentleman but what would happen if an adventurist general replaces him in future. He has linked his reforms with himself but this individualistic approach cannot be condoned as logical since man is mortal and institutions and mechanisms are superior to him.

The presidential address has also strengthened apprehensions about the coming parliament. He has made it clear that it would be unavoidable for the coming prime minister to have faith in the unity of command and for the assemblies to be complaisant to him. It means that the coming system would be presidential and not parliamentary.

It is obvious from the way referendum is being held that the president would succeed in get a “yes” vote but what if he does not get the votes of the majority? He has also ruled out any role for the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League (N). What if one of these two parties gets the vote of the majority of the people? Will the power be handed over to it in this case? These and other questions raised earlier demand satisfactory answers. Whether it is the referendum or election, the people want them to be impartial and judicious and also respect for their opinion and those elected by them. Real democracy is not merely limited to voting process, it is a situation under which masses feel to be involved in governance and decision making.

Sindhu points out that the democratic people have been shocked over the announcement of the intentions of the president to amend the Constitution. The Constitution was not made in a day and it was the result of a consensus at the parliament among the elected representatives. Anyway it is easier to destroy something than to build it. If the general wants to remain president and in the meantime improve the future of the country, he should adopt a constitutional way: after holding a transparent election and reconciling with the political parties, he should become a presidential candidate through parliament. This is the only democratic way, and no referendum will yield the required results.

Tameer-i-Sindh recalls that Gen Ziaul Haq also had been self-elected after holding a similar referendum. That move had invited bitter criticism then and now again we are facing the same situation. There is no room for referendum in the Constitution and this formula which is being repeated according to the doctrine of necessity had already proved a failure. Hence, it will be much better for the president to take political parties into confidence on this issue and refrain from turning the country’s parliamentary system of government into a presidential one.

“Does the country need me?” Ibrat writes that this question had been asked earlier also and it had produced more questions than answers. Now once again the nation is confronted with this question. According to the daily the answer to whole of this controversy lies in complete, impartial and fair democracy. The referendum and the form of government to be evolved through it will alienate a big majority of the people as the leadership of the two major parties will be kept out of political arena and, subsequently, the parties might challenge the very electoral process. Some of these parties may be guilty but millions of their voters are not and they should not be punished for the mistakes of the few.

GOOD old Ashfaq Ahmad would have no objection to the submission that in our parts wisdom springs from ignorance. The less knowledgeable you are the wiser you are likely to be. Particularly mystics in our tradition are not scholarly folk. They are supposed to be unschooled rustics. Annemarie Schimmel with her Ph.D, knowledge of 21 languages, over 100 books and countless scholarly articles to her name, would thus be a freak in our godly pantheon if a Sufi she were as Prof Khwaja Masud said she was, calling her the Western world’s Rabia Basri. He was speaking at a function to celebrate Prof Annemarie Schimmel’s 80th birthday, organized by Islamabad Cultural Forum on Friday evening at the TVO Centre.

Khwaja Sahib, who will himself be 80 this August, referred to the rumour some years back that Dr Schimmel had converted to Islam and in that context related Maulana Rumi’s encounter with the mullahs of his time who wanted to know which of the 72 sects of Islam he belonged to. Rumi had replied he belonged to all of them. You are an apostate then, the mullahs had retorted. So be that, Rumi had replied, if that pleased his examiners.

Karen Mittmann, a close friend and companion of Dr Schimmel, said Annemarie was learning Arabic at the age of six and had already got her Ph.D while still at school, that she knew 21 languages, could write in 14, speak seven and deliver lectures in four. Even at this advanced age she observed a strict work discipline. Starting at seven in the morning on the typewriter, she would have 30 to 40 pages ready for the publisher by 11. She had 20,000 books in her library, which she could pick from the shelves without a catalogue. She was a poet of gentle evanescent moods, a keen observer of life with a playful humour and a traveller ever on the move. She had made 40 trips to Pakistan, her favourite destination. All this meant knowledge had not stood in her way to wisdom.

Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik dwelt on Schimmel’s extraordinary understanding of Islam, her ability to empathise with how Muslims felt about things. She had caused quite an uproar against herself when she commented she could understand the Muslim rage at Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. She had acquired that deep insight into the Muslim psyche not only through her vast readings in Islamic and Sufi literatures but through her wide and intimate interaction with Muslim scholars and intellectuals as well as simple folk. Such multi-dimensional exposure to an Eastern culture few other Western scholars could claim. He traced her journey to Pakistan to her interest in Iqbal that resulted in valuable works on the Allama’s philosophic thought, its growth and the directions it took as he moved from Sialkot to Lahore, to London and to Heidelberg.

Malik said Schimmel was able to record the spiritual history of the South Asian Subcontinent through her intimate knowledge of the regional languages. She gave them the same position of eminence as she gave to Persian, Arabic and Urdu because when it came to transmission of the essential message, the sophisticated urban voices were saying the same thing as the songs of the rustic bards. He referred to as Through the Wheel and Pain and Grace in this context. In the latter work she compares Khwaja Mir Dard with Shah Latif Bhitai. In Pearls of Indus, she studies a less known poet, Shah Inayat Jhoke, whom she calls the Hallaj of Sindh. Sibte Hassan had described him as the Socialist Sufi of Sindh.

The German ambassador concluded the discussion by describing Schimmel as a channel of understanding and dialogue between East and West. A great job indeed in the days of clashing civilizations. This brought to mind her lecture in Islamabad in 1993 on the role of mysticism in modern life. The focus of her address was not on the need for Muslims in particular to learn to swim with the tide of modernity or imitation of Western modes of thought and behaviour as generally understood, but for man to find repose and rest from the pressures of modern life through an inner connection with the Eternal. But that did not mean one sat down in a corner to suck in silence the nectar of Nirvana or got benumbed by Satori, the inexpressible experience of the mystic’s union with Reality or Truth, but to serve the society, help the weak and resist evil, (not just its Axis in three countries) a social duty most of the Muslim saints performed to the end of their lives. In this context she cited the example of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and referred to the meaning of his return from Meraj as explained by Iqbal in his Reconstruction lectures. The divine message was not to be reserved for personal gayan or enlightenment but had to be spread for the good of the mankind.

The concept of a Sufi separated from society, fasting and praying and waging an ascetic war to conquer the flesh was very much a product of hermit traditions in religions other than Islam. The Sufi functioned in society as a peacemaker, a font of love and harmony between people. By serving all without distinction of caste, creed or colour, he became a symbol of Tauhid, the central tenet of Islam.

The late Dr Ajmal, who was presiding over the function with the deep languor of his big murky eyes, explained the relevance of mysticism in the life of the common man who could make the world a better place to live for himself and others by refining his lower passions of hate and anger and civilising his baser instincts. It was in detaching the core person from the razzle- dazzle and not listening to propaganda and publicity that one could find some peace for oneself.

That was a memorable evening with Prof Schimmel. And this one at TVO the other day without her was even more poignant as you could feel her presence in the warm love of her admirers.