A FORTNIGHT after the referendum of April 30, the political situation in Pakistan remains unsettled. The world seems to have written off Pakistan as a serious candidate for democracy. At home, political forces are bracing themselves for a long-drawn fight for restoration of rule by public representatives.

A frequent question among Pakistan watchers is: why did President Musharraf have to do it in this way? Also, is it really that Islam is incompatible with democracy? The re-emergence of cynicism about Pakistan in the western media is palpable.

The West has typically refrained from endorsing the results of the referendum. This subtle snub stopped short of becoming a tirade against Islamabad as long as the western troops were carrying out mopping up operations against Al Qaeda along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The message to Islamabad is clear: while your cooperation in the war against terrorism is welcome, your behaviour at the polls is not.

The world opinion has pointed to the unconstitutional nature of the presidential election through referendum and to the deliberate multiple voting, allegedly supervised, arranged and promoted by the state machinery. Examples of procedural laxity included virtual non-application of indelible ink; allowing polling beyond the stipulated time; counting of votes in the absence of poll observers, polling agents of opposition or any members of neutral organizations; stamping of ballots by the election staff or, under their supervision, by voters or even school children; taking away unopened ballot boxes at the end of polling; and collecting identity cards from people and using them for bogus voting.

A decade-long exercise in formulation of proposals for reforms in the electoral system led by donor agencies, NGOs, media and political parties has gone down the drain. For example, the Election Commission’s independence and neutrality was on top of the reform agenda. It has been beaten into smithereens. The campaign’s one-sided character marred the reform agenda for introducing a balanced exercise in canvassing. Provisions for penalizing the use of state machinery and the state functionaries for partisan purposes were ignored.

There were similar reform proposals about correcting, updating and cross-checking electoral rolls. The idea that a voting exercise can be carried out without electoral lists never occurred to researchers and protagonists of reform. Waiving the provision for checking the credentials of voters through ID card as the sole proof of identity nullified the political consensus developed through the 1990s as a mechanism to get rid of the curse of impersonation.

After the referendum, public controversy focused on the voter turnout, somewhere between 5 per cent and 15 per cent. Only government officials felt obliged to go beyond 15 per cent. Of course, the Election Commission gave a figure nearly four times higher. If the official turnout figure was 20 per cent, it would have sounded convincing. If the ‘yes’ vote was 60 per cent of the polled vote, it would have looked genuine. Fewer votes are better than smelly votes.

Islamabad had tried to convince the people for two years that politicians had violated the rule of law as enshrined in the Constitution. The claim of the military government to a high moral ground on this score has become immensely difficult to sustain after the referendum.

Public officials at various levels, both at home and abroad, face an uphill task of convincing people about the fairness of the referendum. Pakistani diplomats in the West have been confronting allegations of rigging by writing rejoinders in newspapers against critics. The fact that their arguments sound hollow in the face of facts costs them heavily in terms of their credibility as clarifirers.

The referendum shows that the state in Pakistan rules society despite the will of society. It seeks to change this will into obeisance to the writ of the state. Fears have been expressed that the referendum can be a precursor of the October elections inasmuch as the strategy of remoulding and controlling the will of society might be taken to its logical end.

The strategy of state managers requires a belief in the gullibility of people. It is hard to believe that the political attitudes of the educated and uneducated, old and young, urban and rural , men and women have not changed over the five decades of independence. The idea that the public in Pakistan has not been exposed to influences from millions of migrant workers and professionals, from BBC, CNN, Star TV and the media explosion in general, and from mass mobilization during the 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997 elections is untenable and unconvincing.

It is true that Pakistan does not have a robust civil society comparable to established democracies. However, there are a quarter of a million graduates and a hundred thousand middle class professionals and intellectuals, scores of functioning institutions such as higher courts, bar associations, universities and colleges, trade unions, student organizations, NGOs, engineers corps, medical associations and the like. To put all of them at the receiving end of the one-way flow of information is a futile effort. The vote under pressure is no vote at all. On the referendum day, the ‘real’ voters were only those who could not afford to say no. They included government servants, inhabitants of squatter settlements, illegal immigrants and prisoners. Others were families, friends, supporters and clients of district and local councillors and nazims.

In textbooks, local government is understood as democracy at the grassroots level. In contrast, local government institutions in Pakistan have been typically used by military governments to subvert representative institutions and political parties operating at the national and provincial levels. Why should a military government cherish local bodies but despise elected assemblies at higher levels? The answer lies in the fact that local governments depend on transferred funds and written manuals. On the other hand, elected governments at higher levels tend to control both purse and policy, including the power of raising revenue and allocating resources. This explains promotion of the former, which does not involve transfer of power, and contempt for the latter which does.

The official classes at the moment are hoping that the damage is temporary, not permanent. In economic terms, the referendum has given a wrong signal that Pakistani politics continues to be in a mess. That unfortunately means that no direct foreign investment would be forthcoming. Diplomatically, the continuing civil-military conflict can encourage the US to slamp out Al Qaeda, stabilize Afghanistan and get out of Pakistan. The scenario of 1988-89 is at work again. The EU and Commonwealth find dealings with Pakistan a messy business. The election observers in October would now be looking for unfairness rather than fairness to begin with.

The damage in strategic terms is no less significant. The Pakistan lobby in the US, instead of feeling strong after the referendum, is somewhat embarrassed and therefore weakened. It needs to gather extra moral courage to stick its neck out to try to protect what is considered to be a faulty system of government. Even as the old bogey man, the USSR, has been replaced by the new bogey man, Al Qaeda, this lobby may not be able to serve the military government all the way and not unquestioningly any way. While India, backed by its democratic credentials, continues to operate in wider circles of public opinion outside the western state systems, the referendum has confined Pakistan to foreign policy establishments.

Pragmatists believe that it was not the ballot of illiterate masses but the reform agenda of President Musharraf that really mattered, and that referendum was merely a legal formality. Similarly, according to the corporate management vision of (macro) economists, what is important is output in the form of economic performance, not input in the form of legitimacy. They tend to disregard a ‘minor’ deviation from legal morality in the ‘national interest’.

At the other end, there are benumbed moralists who had believed in the official propaganda about the evil nature of politicians but who have been stung by the referendum. For them, the question is: why go through an expensive exercise to win legitimacy if it does not bring real legitimacy.

For political analysts, the situation is akin to the 1980s. For eight long years, Zia pursued policies of Islamization. People at home and abroad believed that this was finally the destiny of the nation. However, people voted for only 9 out of 207 MNAs belonging to Islamic parties after the 1985 elections.

The message of the April referendum is that people are firmly with political parties. The government has suffered a twin setback — in terms of its belief in its own popularity and its capacity to create a semblance of popularity for itself through a referendum. It is not possible to go the political way by alienating the political community. Nor is it possible to go the legal way in the teeth of opposition from the legal community. Nor indeed is it possible to go the judicial way after undermining the credibility of the judicial community.

IT has not mattered to the BJP’s allies in the National Democratic Alliance. But the Gujarat carnage has pricked the conscience of high-ups in the government. One of them is India’s Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee. He looks like quitting his post. He is unhappy over the centre’s lack of action on what has happened in the state.

But his real annoyance is with the home ministry, which has not even acknowledged his letter that drew the attention of the government to a two-page pamphlet. The pamphlet, issued by a functionary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in the state, appealed to the ‘conscience’ of Hindus and asked them “to save the country by boycotting Muslims economically and socially.” The pamphlet also said: “You are a very important and responsible citizen of this country. But you and your family are in danger and there is a threat to your life. I have come to warn you about this.”

The pamphlet, as Soli Sorabjee has pointed out in his letter to the ministry, violated sections 153A and 153B of the Indian Penal Code. The two sections relate to punishment for spreading disaffection against a particular community. In this case, it is the Muslims. Since the BJP is prejudiced against them, the ministry has preferred to stay mum. It has not given any explanation.

The commitment of Home Minister L.K. Advani to the Sangh parivar and the line it advocates is too well known. But what he forgets is that he is not the parivar’s home minister but India’s. Whatever his personal inclination, the position puts certain responsibilities on him, which he must carry out.

It is an open secret that the VHP played havoc in Gujarat. Most of the killings and looting has been done by it. In fact, a top state VHP leader has gone on record spelling out how they made plans to kill, burn and loot. Ironically, he was once a top literary figure of Gujarat. He should have been arrested by this time and the VHP, which is only a band of religious terrorists, should have been punished.

Even otherwise, they qualify for punishment under the world-wide resolve to suppress terrorism after the September 11 incidents in New York and Washington. The absence of action against the VHP will only impair the image of the Vajpayee government, which is already hobbling. Advani may be singled out one day for the blame because his ministry looks like shielding the VHP and the like.

The tragedy in Jammu is another act of terrorism, which has killed the innocent. It is reprehensible and the guilty must not go scot-free. In Gujarat, the state’s complicity is proven and in Jammu, the military government’s from across the border. Both want to tear apart the multi-religious fabric of India. Neither should go unpunished.

Military rulers can manipulate the laws. But the rule of law in a democratic set-up cannot become a question mark. Crime cannot be condoned in any way. When the prosecution of those who kill, burn or rape, is not automatic, then the fear of punishment goes. People go wild. It happened in Delhi in 1984; in Mumbai in 1992 and in Gujarat now — not to recall scores of other places where riots took place.

Situations of mass murder and violence are a challenge to our legal system and social conscience. That they happen is bad enough. But the fact that the perpetrators go scot-free is a shame for the nation. The instigation of communal frenzy and the commission of mass murder cannot be spared or excused. Those who engineer the events must be punished.

There cannot be any compromise on that.

But this happened in 1980 when Mrs Indira Gandhi came back to power. All those who were named by the Shah Commission for having indulged in excesses were not touched. Even cases against them were withdrawn. In fact, those in the police who did act against the accused were punished. One police officer, N.K. Singh, had to run for his life.

The efficacy of this system of accountability has a direct bearing on the health of our democratic institutions. If the mechanisms that ensure this accountability to the law weaken or fail, democratic governance will be replaced by despotic and arbitrary rule, gravely endangering the fundamental rights of India’s citizens.

But then the BJP tends to act too late. There are authentic reports that the Sangh parivar has now decided to get rid of Narendra Modi and appoint a new chief minister in the state. This may happen by the time this column appears or soon after. In fact, this step should have been taken long ago. The conflagration in Gujarat would have ended automatically on his removal.

The entire anger was against him and his exit would have mollified high tempers in no time. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee disclosed in parliament that the decision to remove Modi was taken before he went to Goa. But then the decision was not implemented because the repercussions were considered too dangerous to face. This is not convincing. What seems to have happened is that the RSS threatened Vajpayee and he, as usual, caved in meekly.

The argument by the BJP leadership is that it did not want to give the impression that it was acting under pressure and hence Modi’s removal had to be delayed. Even now this feeling would be difficult to stall. The BJP may have avoided the embarrassment of not facing the parliament by ousting him after the end of its session. But the matter is not so simple. Every day people were being butchered. Was this orgy allowed to continue just because the BJP did not want to lose face? If that is the case, it is all the more reprehensible.

It is obvious that Modi has been asked to go when the cry for his removal is at the lowest. There is something diabolical about this logic. What do people do? If there is no protest, nobody even notices the resentment. But if there is protest, the government becomes mulish and says that it will not yield. Whatever the BJP may say, the contemplated exit of Modi is, indeed, because of the hue and cry raised within India and abroad. The BJP made it unnecessarily a point of prestige and shattered its image beyond repair. The point at issue was the ethnic cleansing which did not seem to stop so long as Modi headed the state government. He represented all that was bad. He had to quit.

Even now, Advani says that they had won on Gujarat. Yes, they have. They and their power-hungry allies had the numbers in the Lok Sabha. Is governance only a matter of proving numbers? Parliament and such other institutions are a means to an end, not the end in itself. The end is the people; their sense of security and their feeling that there is the rule of law.

And what about something called morality? Once Advani used to give lectures on that. But he seems to be convinced now that a victory in parliament is adequate to cover up any act of shame. Many more Soli Sorabjees must quit to prove to the government that human blood is not so cheap. The issue is not a party matter; it is a challenge to man’s conscience.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.

THERE is something rotten in society when more than 100 doctors are murdered in broad daylight by unidentified assassins who disappear never to be found again. Something rotten again when distinguished people like Hakim Saeed, Shaukat Rizvi and Dr Ghulam Murtaza are gunned down by the members of the invisible killing brigade.

Other phantom killers have added to the state of putrefaction by the massacre of the Bahawalpur Christians and the church slayings in the Islamabad diplomatic enclave. Then of course, there is the recent bomb blast by a suicide bomber which apart from killing several Frenchman and some Pakistanis, has probably seriously damaged Musharraf’s economic revival programme.

The confusion is compounded by the variety of players on the scene. We have the president-general flush with the pyrrhic victory of the referendum believing what his handlers are telling him about his popularity. We have the out-of-favour political parties coalescing uneasily for a prospective election the prognosis of which is, at best, murky. We have the in-favour political hopefuls waiting in the wings for the final selection of the favourites. We have diverse religio-political elements, each brandishing its own version of Islam.

We have the armed forces in defensive mode at the border facing the offensive posturing of their Indian counterparts; and the anti-terrorist coalition forces at the porous Pakistan-Afghan border chasing Al Qaeda/ Taliban stragglers escaping to safe havens. We have hordes of incompetent government functionaries and growing ranks of local nazims as yet undecided on their loyalty to the party or the state, both at loggerheads with each other, and both entrusted with running the day-to-day affairs of the country. In sum, we have a right royal mess in the making and a hobbled leadership to show us the way out.

The perception was quite different eight months ago. There was an assertive leadership then and prescribed objectives, some controversial, some poorly conceived, some clearly warranted, but all characterized by an enlightened pragmatism which best reflected the ethos of a moderate Islamic society interested in getting on with the rest of the world. The helmsman of the day, General Musharraf, was more a creature of circumstance than a dedicated revolutionary like Chairman Mao or a goal-oriented visionary like Mr Jinnah.

His credentials too were somewhat suspect since his post 9/11 policy switchover was preceded by an earlier switchover from the liberal image (displayed in the TV newscast of his garden walkabout as head of state with spouse and canines) to a governance smacking of pseudo-fundamentalism devised by various praetorian agencies operating as self-appointed guardians of the nation.

Despite such doubts however, most people believed him when he proclaimed the post 9/11 switchover, loud and clear. This view was reinforced by the swift changes of the office holders in the chain of command of hallowed institutions like the defence establishment and the policy-oriented intelligence agencies. Such moves signified the general’s readiness to face the fundamentalist lobby within the power structure. Not for long though. Within the last few months the initial resolve has given way to an increasing flexibility on the fundamentalist front matched by mounting rhetoric at the federal and provincial levels listing the multifarious measures introduced for curbing extremism. Whatever the truth about the existence or effectiveness of these measures, the sense of insecurity in civil society is greater today than ever before in the Musharraf era.

The critics of Musharraf claim that what the government says and does are two different things and its proclaimed achievements are more fictitious than factual. Such criticism is partly occasioned by the rancour aroused at being denied a role in the political process.

Neutral observers are of the view that there have been some positive, some negative, and some questionable developments, but that there is substance in what Musharraf stands for, a discernible honesty of purpose and a track record of incorruptible governance. By all reckoning, however, it is premature to assess the performance of the government at this stage.

What is clear is that notwithstanding the prevailing sense of insecurity, the prospect today is far preferable to what would have befallen us if, pursuant to the 15th constitutional amendment, Nawaz Sharif had attained the status of Amir-ul-Momineen and the even more dreaded intelligence agencies orchestrating the affairs of the state to the tune of the twin menaces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

What then are we to make of all this? To begin with we must restore law and order to the level appropriate for pursuing our declared socio-economic objectives without which we may well perish. This is desired by everybody except those who foster disorder for promoting extremist agendas. Given these circumstances, it is clear that amongst the players on the scene, the only one having the wherewithal to address the law and order issues is the Musharraf government.

It is also clear that for regaining its lost credibility, the Musharraf government must implement the restorative measures effectively, for which it has to rely on the efficiency of the bureaucracy and the efficacy of the implementation machinery. And there’s the rub, for the Musharraf team’s greatest challenges arise in this context.

The initial problem is the apparent incompetence of the law and order forces in crime investigation and in curbing lawlessness and the self-defeating nature of judicial processes in trials of anti-state elements, as borne out, on the one hand, by the appalling failure to track down the perpetrators of the aforesaid phantom killings, and on the other, by the fiasco of the Hakim Saeed trial. The second problem, linked to the previous one, is the failure of the dealing authorities to enforce the writ of the state in matters such as control of madressahs, deweaponization, sectarian terrorism, infiltration of foreign militants, religio-political jihad programmes, anti-state uprisings in FATA, Malakand and other NWFP districts, or any situation involving a face-off with extremism.

The third problem arises from the conviction that there is a ‘hidden hand’ — represented by the praetorian guardians of the nation or the dreaded intelligence agencies, or whatever — operative in the affairs of the state, which has a final say in all policy matters including law and order. established in the early stages of the ascendancy of the army in state affairs for assisting the government-military axis in the task of governance, the agencies have in time evolved into independent power sources accountable only to the dominant ideologues among their members at any given time.

By reputation they are ranked among the foremost intelligence organizations currently operating, reportedly capable of solving the phantom killings, or of suppressing their solution, depending on their agenda imperatives. It is further claimed, that they are also capable of initiating such events when warranted by their agenda.

The post 9/11 scenario has been inimical to the agencies enforcing revision of the pro-Taliban agenda, but this has not precluded them from leaning on the government to promote other rightist causes characterized by recent official counterbalancing moves between liberalism. Furthermore, Musharraf also has a personal dilemma in this context attributable to his association necessitated by virtue of his military status with these agencies. The problem is further aggravated by the preference of the agencies for Islamic programmes of the Deobandi, Wahabi, Salafi or related radical modes, which taken together, have a minority Sunni following, and do not represent the modes of religious practice of Pakistan’s Muslim majority.

The writer is a Barrister-at-Law and lecturer in legal studies.

THE referendum is behind us. Every military ruler needs legitimacy. People remember the farce of Ziaul Haq referendum. The similarities are obvious. But far more important are the differences, in the light of social impact, between Pervez Musharraf’s referendum and that of his predecessor.

Internal liberal democratic opinion, backed by the anti-terrorist coalition, forced the regime to distance itself from the Taliban and from extremism. It was not an easy decision.

The Musharraf government deserves credit for its thorough-going home work that enabled it to adjust to a radically changed scenario. The regime has also learnt how to uphold its interests in a liberal democratic playing field. It has been expanding its base in civil society.

However, the regime insists that the civil society has a subordinate status. It calls the people, supposed to be supreme, the silent majority. Direct military rule being unrealistic, it has settled for a silent, passive electorate. Since the 8th Amendment is no longer available, a National Security Council is envisaged to overlook future elected governments. The strange philosophy of ‘power brokers’ has replaced the three pillars of the state, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

The ARD has articulated the aspirations of the people for winning back the supremacy of a representative government. While its focus is on the constitutionality and supremacy of legislature, it has to link the issues of different segments of society with the struggle for restoration of democracy.

The referendum may or may not have strengthened the president. But its constitutionality is suspect. All the king’s men could not make an impressive impact. The famous U-turn does not depend on whether one particular individual is around or not, but on the strength of the democratic forces. Moreover,the elements patronized by the army in yesteryear have not vanished. The law and order situation, the specific field of the law enforcement agencies has not significantly improved.

The terrorists are hitting targets at will. Still freaks are known to history. If working class parties in Russia and China can preside over the ushering in of private industry, a military government may be known in history as pioneering a liberal, democratic and secular Pakistan. The political parties, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan and especially, the PPP and the PML(N) are the conscience of the people. It is their responsibility to provide continuity and consolidate the democratic gains of the people and send the armed forces to the place where they belong — THE BARRACKS.