General and the ulema

The MMA made life considerably easier for General Musharraf by accepting a slightly amended version of the LFO as part of the Constitution, and by ending their prolonged questioning of his legitimacy. Some observers believe he will continue to need its support to remain secure in his office, and that he will therefore have to accommodate their preferences on major policy issues.

This interpretation is not plausible. In accepting the LFO as a valid constitutional instrument, the MMA leaders did the general no favour. They accepted it for want of an option. Their agitating had failed to make him let go of it. The man on the street remained singularly unreceptive to calls for a revolt against the general and those who stood by him.

In return for their "flexibility," they are said to have received the assurance that their hold on power in the NWFP and Balochistan would not be disturbed. If true, this promise can be kept: there is no compelling reason for dislodging the MMA in these provinces. On the other hand, it should be noted that the MMA remains free to oppose the government whenever it deems fit.

It did not support General Musharraf's bid for a vote of confidence from the presidential electoral college. In other words, a specific and limited deal was made which has been implemented and done with. The parties owe nothing to each other any more.

The MMA's position concerning Pakistan's relationship with the United States, terrorism, "jihad," Taliban and Al Qaeda is quite different from that of the general. The same holds for the country's relations with India and its evolving stance on the subject of Kashmir. The differences between them on further Islamization of the polity and society will become volatile when the MMA chooses to underscore that issue.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain's assertion, made repeatedly and vociferously until a few months ago, that the present government and the MMA are "natural allies" is opportunistic gibberish. Governments in Pakistan, military as well as civilian, have done no more than made temporary arrangements with the ulema in which each side tried to use the other for its own purposes. This is true even of Ziaul Haq's transactions with them.

The proposition that General Musharraf needs the MMA's continuing support is not credible. The questioning of his legitimacy has abated. Noise making in parliament has stopped. Mr Jamali's government commands majority support in the National Assembly. The danger that its supporters will defect to the MMA is virtually non-existent. There is little likelihood of an effective mass movement against the government being put together. There is then no apparent reason for the general to be overly solicitous of the MMA's sensibilities.

Sensitive issues will arise which the MMA can exploit to embarrass the present government. Some of our scientists, including the "father" of our nuclear programme, have confessed, under sustained interrogation, that they did transfer secret information and technology to certain foreign governments. Dr. A.Q. Khan says that in making these transfers he and some of his colleagues acted without the government's knowledge. He has also urged that the issue not be "politicized." His advice may not be taken. The genuineness of the scientists' confessions will be doubted.

The MMA leaders are already saying that in subjecting these scientists to detention and interrogation (under foreign pressure) the government has heaped gross humiliation upon the nation.

It is generally conceded that the Kashmir issue cannot be resolved on the basis of either party's previously stated terms. That means departing from their original positions. But if and when the government of Pakistan makes the needed departures it will be accused of betraying the national interest and selling the Kashmiris down the river.

Then there is the ever-lurking issue of Islamization. Numerous Islamic injunctions have been written into law without having brought about any visible improvement in our individual morals or civic virtue. The Constitution of 1973, as amended, lays down that any Muslim wishing to be a member of the National Assembly must be one who has adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings, follows Islamic injunctions, performs the obligatory duties, and "abstains from major sins." In addition, he should be "sagacious, righteous, non-profligate, honest, and "ameen" (Article 62). One may be sure that no more than a handful of our MNAs will answer this description.

What do the ulema have in mind when they demand further extension of Islamization? We may find an extended statement of their thinking in a historic document prepared by the Jamaat-i-Islami in January 1970 and presented to the people as its election manifesto. It was said to represent a broad consensus of the ulema on the subjects covered. This was admittedly a long time ago, but they would probably not disown any part of it even now.

The party's economic platform promised all kinds of good things to its audience, but for reasons of space we shall limit ourselves to only a few aspects of its outlook. It was more friendly towards landowners than it was towards industrialists and businessmen. Beyond a single one-time reform to remove the "disharmonies" the previous rulers had created in Pakistan, it would place no limit on the amount of land an individual could own. But it would limit corporate profits and also the amount of stock an individual could own in a corporation.

It would reduce the disparity between the incomes of executives and workers to a ratio of twenty to one and eventually to that of ten to one. It would also prescribe a minimum wage for workers. But if offered the small peasant and tenant nothing specific beyond the general undertaking to protect him from the landlord's oppression and exploitation. It did not, for instance, indicate the tenant's share of the yield from the land he tilled.

The party would support democracy and protect fundamental rights, but it also said that it would reorder the polity on the model of the pious caliphate (632-661). It would enact Islamic principles and injunctions into law. It would forthwith prohibit extra-marital sex, drinking, gambling, and obscenity. It would halt family planning, repeal the existing law relating to inheritance and lift the constraints placed on polygamy and divorce.

It would adopt all possible means of encouraging prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage to Makkah. It would reorganize education to ensure that Islamic outlook permeated all fields and levels of study. Those opposed to the "ideology of Pakistan" (presumably meaning the party's manifesto) would not be hired as teachers. Co-education would be abolished and separate institutions of higher education established for women according to their needs. Men and women would not be placed together in work places.

The ulema's professed commitment to democracy can be very tricky. Placed alongside the resolve to revive the pious caliphate, it would lend itself to several interpretations, some of which might even be mutually exclusive. We all know that the pious caliphate was basically a system of one-man rule with some input from the people, more likely notables, whom the caliph might consult, and whose advice he might take or disregard as he saw fit.

We know also that this consultative process, called the "shura," was never institutionalized: its membership, authority, rules and procedures, were never settled. We have only to recall the appointed "shura" Ziaul Haq had constituted to be wary of it. Given free rein, the ulema will want to give us, at best, an aristocracy of the pious. It is hard to know where they will find the requisite number of pious folks to do the governing.

Even their best friends will not claim that Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Qazi Hussain Ahmad are to be compared with Abu Bakr and Umar bin Khattab (may Allah be pleased with them) in terms of self-denial, wisdom, statesmanship, and generosity of spirit. Those who promise us the pious caliphate will actually deliver a tyranny of the few, who claim to be pious, over all the rest of us whom they will denounce as profligate.

Their professed intention to "encourage" us to pray and fast will readily change into a resolve to use the police power of the state to compel us. They will declare most of us unfit to run for elective public office (as the "Council of Guardians" is doing in Iran) and may even deprive us of the right to vote.

The medieval ulema who interpreted Islam were not politicians. The ulema in Pakistan have been practising the craft for a long time. One may assume that, like other professional politicians, they are quite capable of ignoring the promises they had made before coming to power. They will have no difficulty in finding "Islamic" justifications for their change of stance.

Given the MMA's long-term objectives, how should Gen Musharraf respond to the demands it may address to him? It is probably no exaggeration to say that the land of the MMA's dreams will not be a place where most Pakistanis will enjoy living. Nor is that the country our founding fathers had envisaged. Moreover, it will not come about without a great deal of ferocious and destructive civil strife.

It may then be said that Gen Musharraf owes it to the people of Pakistan to ignore, and resist if necessary, the MMA's pressure for extending its brand of Islamization. Its pressure should be resisted also if it stands in the way of a settlement with India, or in that of curbing extremist violence.

The general's professed goal of helping us become a modern, progressive, democratic, and moderate people (all of which is eminently Islamic) is worthy of being pursued. Those who reject it should be asked to take their case to the National Assembly or, if that resort is unavailing, to the people at the next election. If they are rebuffed there as well, they should have the decency to hold their peace.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

Nuclear debate in parliament

How Pakistan's enormous national pride in its nuclear power has degenerated into a national shame of greater proportion is a question which could be fully answered only after more facts come to light beyond the confessional statement of Dr A.Q. Khan. At present, one could profitably look at the national ethos which made it all happen.

It is a natural instinct, or urge, of our people to rely on men rather than on systems or institutions to perform and deliver. A halo is then built around the men thus chosen, or thrust upon the people, without measuring their capabilities and by overlooking their weaknesses. Looked at are their family background or folklore, physical appearance or demagoguery and their pretensions to patriotism and piety with ideology thrown in.

Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya, Zulfikar and Benazir Bhutto, Ziaul Haq, Nawaz Sharif all fall in this category for possessing all or some of these attributes. The outstanding exception that remains is of Jinnah who won the hearts and minds of the people through the strength of his character and total commitment to their cause.

Led by such leaders, most people or at least the politically conscious and gullible among them are made to stretch their imagination and aspiration to achieve that which is beyond their modest capabilities and means. That is how Pakistan has come to consider itself as a fortress of Islam which is also destined to lead the Muslim world back to a pristine Islamic order. Nearer home, the spirit to wrest Kashmir from seven-time larger India by force fails to die despite aborted costly attempts of the past.

The official obsession for secrecy or, more plainly put, hiding the truth from the people forms yet another part of the ethos which has persisted since the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case of early years through the midway separation of East Pakistan and has now resulted in nuclear theft and its consequent humiliation. The course of half a century is dotted with many more disasters of which the people bore the brunt but were never told why it all happened only to hide the stupidity or corruption of the rulers of the time.

Pakistan's nuclear programme covertly started by Z.A. Bhutto in 1976 has been a victim of all the three elements recounted above constituting the national ethos: It was run by a hallowed expert, AQ Khan, and not by an institution, it was consecrated by an Islamic dimension and all along remained shrouded in secrecy.

Leave the people alone, even the cabinet or the legislature knew little about it. Though it was financed from the public revenues the people were not consulted, not even indirectly, about the desirability of the venture and the huge investment and risk it involved.

From the very beginning the men who knew better questioned the wisdom of vesting the total authority for developing nuclear weapons in one person. The first to show concern was the founder of atomic energy in the country, Dr I.H. Usmani. A more pointed and strident attack on the ability of Dr A.Q. Khan to manage the project and his conduct later came from Munir Ahmad Khan who had come from the International Atomic Energy Agency to head Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission for a number of years.

The diatribe of Dr Samar Mubarikmand, AEC's chief scientist, against AQK at the time the nuclear bomb was tested is too recent to be forgotten. What Dr Samar said in essence was that the successful test was made possible by a prolonged team effort coordinated by the AEC in which AQK was but a player and not its father as the press and the people were made to believe then and he is still being so described.

The authority that be, however, chose to ignore whatever these three eminent scientists - Usmani, Munir and Samar - had to say and many others agreed with them. An influential section of the press supported by the so-called ideologues of Pakistan persisted in giving all credit for the bomb to AQK. He relished the limelight while the other scientists squirmed in obscurity.

As the world went abuzz with rumours of proliferation by Pakistan, the authorities here remained smug and Sheikh Rashid, the spokesman of a civilian government which had no knowledge, nor say, in matters nuclear continued to assure the world ad nauseam that the country's nuclear technology and weapons were in safe and in responsible hands beyond pilferage.

The justification or need for a bomb itself was placed beyond criticism for it was meant not just to deter India from attacking Pakistan but for the defence of the Islamic ideology and territory everywhere. Ironically, it was two Muslim countries - Iran and Libya - reporting the closure of their nuclear weapons' programmes to the IAEA which firmly cast the world suspicion on Pakistan and our own investigations have brought out the darling scientist of the ideologues as the chief culprit. The doubts raised about Pakistan retaliating with nuclear missiles if India were to attack with conventional arms however have never been answered.

With the tradition of secrecy entrenched as ever, the people have no means to know whether the confession of Dr Khan accepting full responsibility for trading in nuclear secrets and materials and asking for mercy from the president and pardon from the people is voluntary or he has been coerced into making it. They are left to believe either President Musharraf and his cabinet or Qazi Husain Ahmad and his partymen. Some of AQK's devotees, or recipients of his free largesse, would like the people to believe that their hero had taken all the blame upon himself only to save the country from infamy and hardship of sanctions.

With the confession of Dr Khan and his pardon by the president and the people the sordid chapter of secrecy may close but a new one must open to ascertain full facts and expose all the culprits in full public view. The accusation by America's chief spy, George Tenet, that AQ Khan stood at the centre of the ring of international nuclear brokers which offered its wares in four continents (and a somewhat similar observation of Dr. ElBaradei, head of IAEA) is too serious and insulting to stand on the record only to return to haunt Pakistan when it no longer stands at the centre of war on terror.

The right forum for this exposure of facts and persons would be a joint committee of the Senate and National Assembly which should hear all those complaining or aggrieved or any other person or agency here or abroad who can facilitate its task. The enquiry would reinforce the public confidence and establish the supremacy of the parliament at the same time. A protest strike would do neither. It would also avert external intervention which is feared despite the President's emphatic no to it.

The parliament of Westminster which is a model for Pakistan is currently debating the Hutton enquiry report on the "sexing-up" of the intelligence reports by Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Labour Party's dossier on Iraq. The British parliament is also starting its own enquiry on the accuracy of intelligence reports which prompted Britain to join America in invading Iraq without finding weapons of mass destruction in nine months of occupation.

If the invasion of Iraq can be the subject of open enquiries and debates in the Westminster parliament, there can be little justification for Pakistan's less sensitive nuclear episode to be denied the same treatment here. The parliamentarians and the people then may also be in a position to determine whether nuclear weapons have indeed made Pakistan invincible or, to the contrary, more vulnerable to international blackmail. In a democracy there should be no secrets from the people. They have the right to know the truth and decide what to do to repair the damage.