THIS may be a good time for a student and practitioner of development economics to enter the debate on constitutional reform in Pakistan. The debate is raging at the moment, fuelled by the government’s announcement of two packages of proposed constitutional changes.

General Pervez Musharraf addressed some of the questions that have been raised by the politicians and political analysts. This he did in a 70-minute speech carried by radio and television on July 12. His answers don’t seem to have satisfied most of his critics. The general covered three subjects in his long address to the nation: the state of the economy, the on-going war against international terrorism, and the new political structure he wants to build on the foundations laid by the Constitution of 1973.

Although President Musharraf did not link these three subjects, his decision to focus on them suggests that he recognizes that without a fully representative political system he cannot pull the economy out of the trough in which it has been languishing now for a dozen years. Also, a functioning economy supported by a political structure that has the confidence of the people are two of the several necessary conditions for bringing domestic terrorism under control in Pakistan.

As I have indicated in some of my previous contributions to this space, the Constitution of 1973 did not produce a political structure that could bring a vibrant economy back to the country. I continue to puzzle about the affection the country has for that flawed document. I am also not convinced that a fully representative mechanism established to go over some of the unresolved issues that have created a political impasse in the country will lead to opening up of a number of old wounds. It is claimed by the supporters of the 1973 Constitution that these wounds were healed by the agreement that was reached in 1973.

In a number of articles published in this space in March and April of this year I proposed that a representative constituent convention, convened to meet after the October elections, could help resolve a number of issues that have hindered Pakistan’s political development. These include the number of provinces in the Pakistani federation, the role of religion in economics and politics, the role of the military in politics, and strengthening the legislative and judicial systems. I don’t want to go over that ground again. This time around, I want to take stock of the current debate and relate its relevance not only to Pakistan’s political future but also to the health of the country’s economy.

The only time the country enjoyed rapid economic growth, improvement in income distribution and some reduction in the incidence of poverty was in the periods when the military was in charge. In 1958-69 as well as 1977-88, Pakistan’s GDP grew at more than six per cent per annum, and the per capita income of the population increased by 3.2 per cent a year. In other words, during each of these two eleven-year periods of rapid economic growth, GDP almost doubled in size and income per head of the population increased by 41 per cent.

The economy performed poorly when the political structure embedded in the 1973 Constitution was in place. In 1972-77 and again in 1988-89, Pakistan had low rates of economic growth, considerable worsening in the distribution of national income and a sharp increase in the incidence of poverty.

Coincidentally, the longest period of control of the country by elected politicians also lasted for 11 years. During this time, GDP increased at the annual rate of 3.8 per cent and income per head by a paltry 1.2 per cent a year. The GDP expanded by only 50 per cent and income per capita by only 14 per cent. This sharp slowdown in the economy contributed to a significant increase in the incidence of poverty. According to one count, the number of people living in poverty has increased to 50 million with five million people being added to the pool of poverty every year.

Clearly democracy as practised in Pakistan was not good for economic development. This should not lead to the conclusion that in Pakistan democracy creates economic problems or that we should opt for an authoritarian system in order to produce a healthy rate of economic growth. Even the East Asian countries that once espoused strong governments, with “strong” equated with authoritarianism, have now accepted the importance of democracy to restore health to their economic systems.

There is now agreement in East Asia that the ravages of the 1997-99 could have been avoided had greater amount of participation been allowed in the political system to all segments of the population. It is clear from the experience in Pakistan that it is not democracy that created a problem for the country’s economy but the way it was practised. There were problems not with the principles of democracy but in the way they were applied.

From the perspective of economics, why is democracy a better system of governance than various forms of autocracy? There are four reasons for that. Democracy gives voice to all segments of society not only at the time of elections but at all times. Second, it creates mechanisms — “checks and balances” in the language of American politics — that ensure that power will not get concentrated in the hands of one individual or in the hands of a group of individuals. In the American system the legislative and the executive check and balance each other’s power. The judiciary keeps a watch on both, brought into action when some aggrieved party seeks its assistance. Third, democratic institutions also work in a transparent way, allowing people a good view of the process of decision making in the various branches of government.

The fourth attribute of a democratic system is only indirectly related to its formal construct. Since democracy is based on openness in the political system, it creates an environment in which independent media flourishes and citizens are able to organize themselves into groupings that come under the description of civil society. Media — the press, radio and television — and civil society organizations also keep a watchful eye on the functioning of the government. This is an additional check which is not formally incorporated in the democratic constitutions that provide the framework within which governments perform their designated functions.

These four attributes of democracy — full representation to all people, checks and balances among different branches of government, transparency in the conduct of business, and freedom of speech — are good for the market-place where individuals interact with one another on economic matters. No democratic system in the world is perfect. The oldest of them — the one in the United States — now and then runs into serious problems. For a long time, the dominant forces in the country were able to deny the African-American population full political participation. It took President Lyndon Johnson and his ability to work with a number of powerful groups in the US Congress to pass a legislation that made denying people the right to vote a criminal offence.

More recently, the practice of allowing people, lobby groups and corporations to make hefty contributions to the election funds of candidates at various levels of government has reduced the voice of the ordinary citizen in the American system. And, even more recently, the string of stories about corporate wrongdoing has exposed the amount of corruption the political system has tolerated in the business world. But the American system has the ability to correct its faults, to get back on the course once the deviations became pronounced and noticeable. As this is being written, the American Congress is drafting tough legislation to increase the government’s oversight over the workings of publicly listed companies.

There can be no doubt that the American political system has contributed enormously to the country’s extraordinary economic progress. Nearer home, democracy in India is also helping its economic recovery. The Indian system has matured to the extent that strong vested interests are no longer able to block needed reforms, the voices of the disadvantaged people can be heard, and the courts are able to exercise checks and balances on the executive and the legislature. The judiciary in India has taken upon itself the task of protecting people’s welfare even without being petitioned by the public. This is an interesting development worth being taken cognizance of by Pakistan’s courts.

Why has democracy, as practised in the past, not served the Pakistani people? Among most politicians and several political analysts, the responsibility for the failure of democracy in Pakistan is placed at the door of what Benazir Bhutto once called the “Islamabad establishment.” According to her, this is made up of the senior officers of the military and the civil service and is supported by some segments of the business and industrial community. According to this interpretation of the Pakistani history, each time democracy was ready to strike roots in Pakistan’s political soil, the establishment pulled out what was still a tender plant. In the 1990s, this happened four times. No wonder, democracy never took a firm hold.

This is a self-serving explanation. Democracy in Pakistan failed not because of the Islamabad establishment but because of the people who were given the responsibility of protecting and nourishing it. Politicians did not work the system to serve the people. Leaders make systems; in Pakistan, however, none of the four leaders who had the opportunity to get the political structure to work was interested in its effectiveness, efficiency or longevity.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father of the 1973 Constitution, started subverting it from the day it became operational. He was not interested in allowing the Constitution to constraint him in exercising absolute power. General Ziaul Haq had an entirely cynical approach towards managing a political system with the help of a basic law. He wanted to be an absolute ruler and if things stood in his way, he was happy to cast them aside.

Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif also failed spectacularly. Four general elections in the 1990s brought them twice each to power in Islamabad. They did not seem interested in developing the political structure. Neither respected constraints on the use of power. Both operated freely without checks and balances. Their behaviour brought ruin to the economy. It also brought the military back to power. This time the military is struggling hard to leave in place a durable and representative political system and to provide the country with a functioning economy. Will the military succeed? I will return to this question in this space tomorrow.

WITH the formal election of Avul Pakir Jainulabedeen Abdul Kalam as the president of India, both India and Pakistan predictably for the next five years are likely to share something in common — each shall have a Muslim as a president, praying in a westward direction to the same target — Makkah.

While in Pakistan, anyone who is not a Muslim — even if locally born — cannot aspire to become its president, the presidency of India is still an open goal, accessible to every Indian, regardless of creed. Although India has already had a number of Hindus, at least two Muslims (both of whom died in office) and a Sikh as its president, it has yet to honour a Parsi or a Harijan.

The closest the latter caste got to the presidency was Jagjivan Ram, whose ambitions were scotched by the Brahmin Mrs Indira Gandhi. From Dr Rajendra Prasad, its first president, down to Dr K. R. Narayan, the outgoing president, even with the most questionable of political appointees, the Indian presidency has been acknowledged as a recognition for services to his country, a reward not booty.

The career of each has been like a tributary, feeding the Ganges of India’s intellectual, political, social and now technological flow as a nation, and in no case is this more apparent than in the life and contribution of its latest president-elect, Dr Abdul Kalam. Out of almost a billion Indians, no other could have been selected in these first years of the new millennium as a more apposite symbol of the ambitions and goals India has set itself for the next thousand years. His opponent Laskhmi Sehgal, revered as she was, belonged to the freedom movement of the 1940s; Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is India’s trajectory into the future.

Much will be made during Dr Kalam’s tenure of his minuscule but dignified Tamil origins from the island town of Rameswaran in Chennai (Madras) state, of how his sister Zohara had to mortgage her gold bangles and chain to enable him to pay for admission into the Madras Institute of Technology (India’s home-grown MIT), and how he dedicated his life to India’s missile programme, which culminated in the successful launch of the Rohini Satellite Launch Vehicle in 1980 (for which he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981), and the Prithvi missiles in February 1988 and the improved Agni in May 1989 (after which he received the Padma Vibhushan). If one was to search for an acorn in his youth that reveals what made him the man he is today, one could quote an incident he himself narrated in his memoirs: “When I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher came to our class one day. I used to wear a cap which marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore a sacred thread. The new teacher could not comprehend a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha Sastry. He looked utterly downcast as I shifted my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping when I shifted to the last row made a lasting impression on me.”

That single incident does much to explain his subsequent religious bilingualism. The mixed pantheon of his mentors — Iyadurai Solomon, Rev Father Sequeira, the Jain Dr Vikram Sarabhai, Dr Brahm Prakash and his devout Muslim father Jainulabedeen — goes far to explain Dr Kalam’s multi-religious, radiant humanism, grouted at its depth in his own religion Islam.

If Dr Kalam’s personal faith has been a factor in his selection by a BJP government that wishes to neutralize its saffron flushes or in the alacrity with which President Musharraf dispatched his message of congratulations to a fellow Muslim, it is unlikely to wash with Dr Kalam. He carries his beliefs as John F. Kennedy wore his Roman Catholicism. ‘I am not a Roman Catholic president’, Kennedy maintained. ‘I am the president of the United States who happens to be a Roman Catholic’.

As a President of India who happens to be Muslim, Dr Kalam knows that he has as many Muslims to defend now within India as he had Pakistani Muslims within his sights when he was head of India’s missile programme.

For many Pakistanis, the inevitable question will be: Can they derive any comfort from his new role as president of a secular but bellicose India? Has Dr Kalam’s finger shifted from the trigger of India’s weaponry to its safety catch?

An answer can be found in his more recent thinking. Technology, he explained, goes through “first the creative phase, with the blueprint of a feasible idea. This is made real by its practical application, finally ending in its diffusion through society.” And to those privileged to hear him speak at the Confederation of Indian Industry National Conference and Annual Session, held in New Delhi in April 1999, he revealed his concern for the wider, saner applications of technology.

During the forty-five minutes allotted to him (like his missiles, he took off on time and ended exactly as scheduled), he spent the first fifteen minutes describing India’s missile and satellite programmes and the remaining thirty minutes explaining to an audience of Indian industrialists the research he and other Indian scientists were conducting to develop economically cheap and efficient fuel for rural housewives. And to those who look for a precursor to his remarks after his nomination about nuclear war between India and Pakistan having been prevented, they need to refer only to his biography. He wrote: “Technology includes techniques as well as the machines that may or may not be necessary to apply them. It includes ways to make chemical reactions occur, ways to breed fish, eradicate weeds, light theatres, treat patients, teach history, fight wars, or even prevent them.”

Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of Dr Kalam’s heroes was Dr Wernher von Braun, the German scientist who designed the devastating V-2 rockets for Hitler and then after the Second World War was over, the benign Jupiter moon rocket for the US space programme. He asked von Braun what it was like working with the Americans. “America is a country of great possibilities; but they look upon everything non-American with suspicion and contempt,” von Braun told Kalam. “They suffer from a deep-rooted NIH — Not-Invented Here — complex and look down on alien technology. If you want to do anything in rocketry, do it yourself.”

It is interesting that India’s first rocket, launched on November 21, 1963, should have been assembled by Dr Kalam and his team from US-supplied components and that too, in a presumably deconsecrated Christian church in Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram (formerly Trivandrum).

Dr Kalam’s other hero is an unusually surprising choice. Yet that perhaps should not be so, for he too like Dr Kalam was a completely homegrown local. Walking one day through the US Wallops Flight Facility in Maryland, Virginia, Dr Kalam noticed in a mural depicting a battle scene some dark skinned soldiers firing rockets. He learned that they were the Jourks or rocket men of South Indian leader Tipu Sultan.

Later he researched further and discovered that when Tipu Sultan was defeated by the British in 1799, the British captured “700 rockets and subsystems of 900 rockets”, which they then took back with them to England and had replicated through reverse engineering. With the death of Tipu, “Indian rocketry also met its demise — at least for 150 years”, Dr Kalam wrote revealingly.

Today, a number of Pakistanis who admire Tipu Sultan’s fight against the foreign threat of invasion and applaud Dr Kalam’s inventiveness as a scientist, now also congratulate him on his elevation to the highest position in his country.

It can be of scant comfort to them, though, to know that the rockets designed in the 1790s by one South Indian Muslim had been the inspiration two hundred years later for another South Indian Muslim in the 1990s, and that it is these modern successors of that earlier weaponry that are now aimed at other Muslims on the Pakistani side of the border.

FOR half a century and some years, Pakistan and India have lived as hostile neighbours, the hostility passing from one generation to another, so that, it has become a sort of legacy.

Those who lived through the traumatic events, the subcontinent’s own Holocaust that preceded and immediately proceeded the end of British rule, are now old men and women, many, if not most, having passed away, do not feel the same passion about this hostility as does the present generation. Instead, they see in it their own failure.

What couldn’t we, in the subcontinent, not have become but for this hostility which has become a sort of curse? The people of both countries have remained desperately poor and there is no end in sight to this grinding, measureless and demeaning poverty. It is against this backdrop that the present state of affairs should be examined, starting with the raw fact that the armies of the two countries are massed on the border, eyeball to eyeball, both countries are nuclear powers invested with the capability to blow the subcontinent to kingdom come.

The rhetoric we are getting from India’s leaders, notably from Mr L.K. Advani, makes Ariel Sharon seem like a man of peace. His latest, to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state, could have been dismissed as the rantings of some demented war monger, were it not for the fact that Advani is India’s deputy prime minister and for all practical purposes, the man whose finger is on the nuclear button. Advani has to be taken seriously. The killing of 28, poor, low caste, slum dwellers in Jammu has been laid at Pakistan’s door.

There has been a slight shift in emphasis. The assailants are no longer Pakistan-based but in the words of India’s Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, “Pakistan-inspired.” No one has any idea of what “Pakistan-inspired” means, least of all Mr Sinha, but it has the ring of condemnation. Exasperated by this Paki-bashing, Mr Shivraj Patil, a lawmaker from the main opposition Congress Party has said: “In order to hide your own weakness in fighting terrorism, you have been blaming Pakistan, every now and ten complaining to the world powers.” Did he let the cat out of the bag in view of Colin Powell’s forthcoming visit?

Colin Powell (and Jack Straw) one hopes will ask Mr Advani this simple question: What did Pakistan have to gain by gunning down poor, low caste, slum dwellers in Jammu? It was a senseless act of killing people who are not part of the political equation. It is time to stop molly-coddling India and start asking some hard questions. That is the least that Colin Powell (and Jack Straw) owe to Pakistan. One of the hard questions should be about the systematic killing of Muslims in Gujarat and the complicity of the chief minister, Modi, in this planned carnage.

Conservative estimates put the number of Muslims killed at over 1,000 and thousands more were homeless. Forensic evidence has now established that the ill-fated carriage was torched from the inside. This opens up endless possibilities, one of which is whether the Gujarat riots were pre-planned and the 59 Hindu pilgrims who died were a kind of sacrificial offering. Mr Advani has not been too forthcoming on the still on-going killing of Muslims despite the fact that he is India’s Home Minister, besides being the de facto Prime Minister.

Mr Advani has a one-point agenda and that is to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state and he is fixated on it and it has made him a monomaniac. He has been administered a stinging rebuke by the Bush administration. Far from declaring Pakistan a terrorist state, the Bush administration sees Pakistan as an “indispensable and very stalwart ally” in the war against terrorism.

Pakistan itself has been a victim of terrorism and though it has become fashionable to blame extremist militant groups for this terrorism, we cannot be entirely certain whether other “enemies of Pakistan” are involved in these terrorist acts. It is not unknown for agents to infiltrate militant groups. During the McCarthy years in the United States, it used to be said that the membership of the Communist Party in the United States would be halved if the FBI under-cover agents left it.

It is for us to be vigilant but it is for the Indian people to work out for themselves who benefits from the killing of slum dwellers in Jammu. The Indian people (and media) must apply the skills of commonsense and themselves ask questions of their government about the Jammu killings and they must not be swept away by the hysteria that is being generated by self-seeking politicians fuelling Pak-phobia.

Let me return from where I started. Half a century and some years, is a long time to remain hostile neighbours and an even longer time for the people of both countries to remain chained to poverty. Kashmir is a carry-over from partition and remains unfinished business. The fate of Kashmir is far from settled and it is for the Kashmiri people to decide their future. This was agreed to by both India and Pakistan. This was a pledge that has yet to be honoured. It is no longer possible to enslave a people by force of arms.

“LIVING for the Constitution is not slavery but salvation,” a truth recognized by Aristotle (384-322 BC) but one that has not yet found its way to the interpolators of the Constitution of Pakistan.

Constitutional permanence is the bedrock of stability. Aristotle, the precursor of political science, extended the concept of such desirable durability to laws as well. “Law has no strength regarding obedience apart from habit, but this does not occur unless there is an extent of time, so that the easy change from existing laws to other new laws weakens the power of the law”.

Professor Fred D. Miller in his landmark study of Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ and ‘Ethics’ states that, Aristotle’s observations continue to be relevant today as, “borne out in many misguided political experiments of the twentieth century” (‘Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics’).

The history of constitutional development in the country is a poor one: the absence of a constitution till 1956, and then the failure to abide by the ones we got. The 1973 Constitution is the first Basic Law having the requisite moral force and authority, being anchored in the will and expectations of the people.

The 1973 Constitution is the only one which was unanimously adopted by the representatives of the people who were directly elected, and one, which was adopted by all those who constitute today’s Pakistan. The 1973 document is a miracle unlikely to be repeated. It is therefore in the national interest to preserve it. This Constitution may not be the best constitution, it certainly is not the worst, but it is all that we will ever get with a modicum of credibility, legitimacy, legality and durability. Every substitute will be mere words on paper.

Aristotle had gathered detailed descriptions of 158 constitutions in the Lyceum. He also studied the vast range of regimes of the ancient Greek world. What he learnt was that “those who have authority over arms also have authority over whether or not the constitution will last”. This truth is repeatedly confirmed in the case of Pakistan.

In 1985 General Zia held the muzzle to the nation’s head, tilted it back and poured down its gullet a torrent of amendments to the 1973 Constitution. The vile potion was prepared with the help of deviant lawyers. We are now told that all these proved insufficient and another bash at constitutional restructuring is about to begin. Before embarking on this perilous path a little accountability of those who had, at best, misled the nation in the past may have been appropriate.

Only fourteen years after Zia’s mangling of the Constitution, the National Reconstruction Bureau, a new wing of the army, set about making major changes in the Constitution. The proposed changes are contained in two lots — ‘Package-I’ and ‘Package II’. The bureau took over 900 days to prepare these euphemistic packages and magnanimously grants 34 and 16 days respectively ‘for public comment’ thereon.

Comments that are being sought are not to be part of any interactive process to enable one to move to a better perception and understanding of the problem, and formulating and offering informed suggestions for improvements in these packages. We are not even told whom to contact at the bureau in this regard or to whom should the public forward their ‘comments’. There is no constitutional commission to hear parties and collate the outcome of the public debate.

The mechanism, if any, which will act as a funnel to capture public sentiment has not been identified. Every legitimate participatory and inclusive process clearly establishes conduits to facilitate interaction between the government and the public, the sharing of input received and comments offered and the capacity to evolve together — all of which are completely absent in the present case. The very short period available for public comment and the absence of any structure to facilitate debate, and to learn therefrom, further negates the legitimacy of the packages.

The packages do not name their authors except that they are the brain child of the NRB. Whenever a new constitutional regime is proposed it is important to know who its framers are. Very few among the people will understand the implications of the constitutional changes that are envisaged, in a given situation, but they know whom to trust and whom not to. My father, Qazi Mohammed Isa, once narrated that when the Quaid-i-Azam addressed a public meeting in Quetta, during a pause in his speech he asked a poor old illiterate Pathan, who could only understand Pushto, why he clapped when he did not understand English. The response came promptly: “He is an honest and intelligent man and will never betray us. Therefore, I support whatever he says”.

Let us see whether the test of the old Pathan is met by the constitutional experts, who have put together the packages in question.

The fact that not a single professor or academic from a Pakistani university or law college has acknowledged his or her involvement in formulating the packages suggests that there has not been any from this source. No bar association of the country was consulted. No lawyer, politician or man of letters has admitted his or her association with the process. The NRB tells us that a Canadian gentleman, Ronald Watts, was consulted in formulating the amendment proposals.

Can one imagine that in a country of 140 million the NRB could not find a single person fit to be consulted on constitutional issues at hand and had to avail itself of the services of a foreign expert. To a proud and independent people this is wholly unacceptable and in itself sufficient ground for rejection of the packages. But let’s persevere for a moment longer and examine what is planned. What is sought is to rework the entire Constitution.

A constitution is something special — it is not just another law; it lays down certain basic principles and parameters within which laws have to be made and the manner in which the country is to be governed. The less a constitution is altered the greater is the credibility it carries and the stronger the sense of obedience it evokes. “Even minor changes can tend to erode the psychological foundations of the constitution” (Miller, F.D.). The first question that must be asked is whether the arbitrarily prepared packages will strengthen or destroy the sanctity of the Constitution. The answer is evident from the overwhelmingly negative comments and reaction that the proposed amendments have elicited from most political parties and sections of opinion.

In defence the government may say that it has been granted the power by the Supreme Court to amend the Constitution. Even if for arguments’ sake this is accepted, it does not follow that it has been given the right to virtually rewrite the Constitution as the plethora of proposed amendments clearly suggest. The Constitution can only be amended in the manner set out in the Constitution itself and no one can override this.

The power to amend the Constitution as set out in the Constitution is derided by the government and frequent mention is made of a constitutional amendment enacted in fifteen minutes under the Nawaz Sharif government. This is no reflection on the Constitution but on the propensities of the then government and parliamentarians. These are the same kind of men and women who abandoned their former benefactors without compunction once they were dislodged from power and switched loyalties in two minutes.

If the government abhors such conduct it may want to demonstrate its displeasure by distancing itself from them. Unfortunately, the hypocrites who make personal advancement and survival into a fine art are the preferred choice of every government, including the present one.

The point to stress is that if the Constitution is burdened by the two heavy packages in question it may just buckle under. What failed the country was not the 1973 Constitution but the large-scale amendments made to it in 1985. A bold and courageous step would be to restore the much ravaged Basic Law to its original form as far as possible, rather than stumbling along the ruts left behind by General Zia’s boots.

Aristotle presents a telling analogy between noses and constitutions. “Just as a nose deviating from the most beautiful straightness towards being hooked or snubbed is still beautiful and agreeable to the eye, yet if one increases it further it will not even appear to be a nose ... so this also happens concerning constitutions.” The nation’s nose is in the firm grip of the National Reconstruction Bureau, which has equipped itself with a borrowed Canadian scalpel. To smite one’s own nose is bad enough; to have it smitten by an outsider is an abominable shame.