| 04 December 2004 | Saturday | 21 Shawwal 1425 |
All for extra premium
Role of America's Muslim allies
As nations go, Pakistan can claim to have a record in constitution-making that is unequalled by any other state. We have had not one, not two, not three, but four constitutions - in 1956, in 1962, in 1965 and finally in 1973.
Moreover, this experience with multi-constitutionalism has whetted the national appetite for further experimentation, with the result that the 1973 Constitution has, according to the preface in a definitive work on it, "been amended so often that only with some difficulty can one now keep count of the number of changes enacted in it.
Many an important article has been altered, omitted or rewritten and quite a few additions have been made. Reading the current version a student of the Constitution may legitimately ask whether it is an evoluted form of the basic law or whether somewhere along the line there has been a break in legal continuity."
Thus, preserving the sanctity of the Constitution is not a priority in the Pakistani scheme of things. It has been changed, chopped, restructured and adapted to accommodate any unconstitutional policy imperative for which the ruling entity, whether military or civil, has required a fig leaf.
All such imperatives being necessitated, according to the perpetrators, by reasons of national security. Thus, expediency, flexibility and pragmatism - thanks to the judicially sanctified infamous doctrine of necessity - have become the catchwords of our real politik.
All these developments have been the inevitable outcome of the historical progression of the state of Pakistan. And what an ignominious progression it has been, overseen most of the time by our self-appointed military godfathers.
So many memories assail the senses, including the unsolved assassination of the first prime minister; the questionable hanging of another prime minister; four military governments; several suspensions of the Constitution; the break-up of the country triggered by the army sponsored genocide unleashed on the East wing; three may be four self-defeating wars with India.
There had been two attempts at civilian dictatorship, four abortive attempts at parliamentary democracy by the two leading parties successively interchanging roles as government and opposition at the behest of the military godfathers; a chief of army staff aspiring for the presidency while retaining his military uniform mirror-imaging an elected head of state who reinforced his position by becoming chief martial law administrator and the imposition of the National Security Council as the crowning glory of the parliamentary hierarchy.
The truth is that the importance of the Constitution as a national framework for governance was knocked aside by two events of even greater significance than the recurring martial law incursions which most people regard as the principal cause of the failure of constitutionalism.
The first blow, which was struck with the emergence of Bangladesh from the ashes of East Pakistan, brought about the unravelling of the two-nation theory, long regarded as the raison d'etre for the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
The second blow was struck by the recasting of the secular state structure envisaged by Mr. jinnah into the misbegotten theocratic mould midwifed by religious rightists, promoted by Ziaul Haq.
Despite the implications of these events for the viability of the state, the vested interests group representing "the landed, tribal and religious feudals, established political families, major commercial interests, senior-level bureaucracy, the military, Islamic hard liners, localized ethnic mafias, powerful law-breakers and related anti-social elements" continued with business as usual since group interests were not overly affected by the changed circumstances.
Even the palpable risk to national security engendered by these knocks was viewed by group members as a mere passing phenomenon since they regard the security of Pakistan as their private preserve.
Certain political analysts have described the interrelationship between the members of the vested interests group as representing a consensus between the military on the one hand and the non-military members of the group, on the other.
Such consensus, if indeed there is one, is akin to a social contract, on power sharing, retention of authority based on shared values and interests, continuance of authoritarian rule, and when necessary, induction of constitutional variations to perpetuate entrenched privileges.
Whether or not one agrees with this view, there is evidently less conflict between the interests of the military and of informed civil society, and more so between the interests of the consenting elites and the common mna, who, by not being part of the contract, falls, on the downside of the elite-commoner fault line.
Be that as it may, the Pakistani experience with constitutionalism, whether considered at the institutional or the individual behavioural level, reveals aberrations that give grounds for despair.
The success of our system which provides more or less for a parliamentary form of governance based on democratic norms, has been undermined from the outset not only by the recurring martial law dispensations but also by repeated abuses of the democratic process.
These included rigging elections, suppressing the opposition, splintering or cobbling together of majorities, shortening legislative procedure to enact defective laws, perpetuating human rights violations by discrediting moves to curb honour killings or to rationalize Hudood, honour killing and blasphemy laws, manipulating the democratic system to substitute democracy for extremist theocracies espoused by an obscurantist minority.
In contrast to these displays of anarchy and unbridled fascism, constitutionalism calls for: first, normative progression such as the systemic application of the criteria of governance in compliance with the requirements of due process; secondly, adherence to the letter and spirit of the ordained code such as adopting behavioural mores prescribed for the conduct of parliamentary proceedings; and thirdly, meticulous maintenance of the components of the constitutional mechanism to ensure the effectiveness of checks and balances such as giving due credence to the opposition in a multi-party legislature in accordance with the ideals of democratic practice.
Our failure to live up to these ideals is reflected not only in our parliamentary shenanigans to date but also in our daily dealings which range from a general intolerance of opposing views, to treating women as second class citizens, to the violence perpetrated by extremists of one religious sect on members of other religious sects. Such a state of affairs is scarcely conducive to constitutionalism.
Even if we were to take the trappings of elections, parliament and representative government seriously, the real success of a constitutional system could only be gauged by the extent to which constitutionalism permeates the national ethos.
This will only happen when sufficient segments of the populace internalize constitutionalism by adopting it as a way of life and conduct much the same way as a Muslim is expected to conduct his life in accordance with prescribed Islamic norms.
Having said that, it becomes necessary to point out that appreciation of the rules of constitutional correctness or even the prescribed Islamic norms presupposes a level of enlightenment that is not readily discernible in the common man, thus begging the question: are the masses sufficiently informed to comply with the requirements of constitutional correctness in general, and the norms of democratic behaviour in particular? There can be but one answer to this question.
Given these limitations of the common man, if constitutionalism is to prevail in Pakistan, the impetus must come from members of the vested interests group. However, since the power of the nation is held by the military which has acquired a monopolistic corporate interest in the structure of the state, the non-acquired military elitists must convince the military of the overriding benefits of constitutional correctness for securing its commitment to the cause.
Yet, even if such a salutary development were to take place, the doctrinal dilemma of assimilating democracy with Islam would continue to remain unresolved. Democracy is a humanist development rooted in the reality of this world, predicated on the notion that ultimate sovereignty lies with the people, whereas in Islam, Allah is the ultimate sovereign. While democracy provides for the making of laws affecting all aspects of life, including those concerning beliefs and practices.
An ideological class between these two poles may of course be averted at any given time by skilful policymakers but it would at all times remain theoretically possible and the contradiction would in any case be manifest in the constitution.
To avoid such an eventuality while also maintaining constitutional correctness, there must be provision either for the separation of the church from the state within the format of a conventional constitution or for an alternative constitutional arrangement based on a theocratic order which should accommodate the view of all Islamic schools of thought, and indeed of all other religious orders existing in the state that are not incompatible with Islamic laws.
All for extra premium
I still believe that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will turn out to be another Lal Bahadur Shastri, hiding his light under a bushel. A clean and honest person like him is expected to assert to retrieve the value system in the country. However, the re-induction of Shibu Soren as cabinet minister makes me wonder. It smacks of politics.
Soren had to quit the government four months ago after a Jharkhand court issued a non-bailable warrant against him in a 20-year-old massacre case. He is on bail. I cannot prejudge the massacre issue but Soren's corruption is proven. The bribe deposited in a bank was recovered to the last penny to suggest his involvement.
Granted, Soren is a tribal leader and commands a solid support of the adivasis in Jharkhand. Granted, the Congress needs his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha on its side for the state election two months hence. But this should not be the basis to condone corruption and to give him a place in the cabinet. The party should have learnt some lesson in the wilderness. People threw it out because they found the Congress leaders and ministers taking money.
At least, Manmohan Singh should not have allowed his image to be sullied. Was it necessary for him to acquire the taint when Congress president Sonia Gandhi was doing the stitching job behind the scenes? By absenting from the oath-taking ceremony, she did not absolve herself of the blame of bringing Soren to the central cabinet.
The problem with Sonia Gandhi is that she sees nothing wrong in employing any method which brings her success. The example of Laloo Prasad Yadav and his colleagues is already there.
She had to accommodate them in the government because the Congress could not reach the magic figure of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha without Laloo Yadav's 26 members. Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, with 34 seats in the Lok Sabha, would have been better.
The Congress cannot go on compromising on values and still expect other political parties to behave differently. Mahatma Gandhi, who infused life in the Congress, has said that if the means are tainted, the ends are bound to be tainted. He had a different way to assess honesty.
He might be considered a stickler today, but morality demanded uncompromising attitude. "The question is moral, not legal," said Gandhi. He was replying to Sardul Singh Keveshwar's plea that a sum of Rs 500 he had borrowed was "time barred."
He was included in the Congress Working Committee. But Gandhi put a question mark against his name following a complaint from the creditor. Gandhi did not clear Keveshwar.
I wonder how far the Congress, not to speak of other political parties, follows the norms set by Gandhi. Maybe, this is because there is no leader of his stature to evoke respect.
Also, the politicians of today do not want to listen to such leaders who are themselves wanting in integrity. Who can show the mirror to who is the problem? Had the pre-independence standard been maintained, India would probably have found missionaries to lead the country to prosperity. But the spirit of sacrifice evaporated even before the last British soldier left.
Once India got freedom, the Congress Party members became a new set of masters who wanted reward for the sufferings they had undergone in the national struggle. Almost overnight the party became a squabbling crowd of white-clad, self-seekers, jostling one another for power and pelf. Gandhi had prescribed simple living and high thinking. He had himself discarded all clothes except a loincloth to represent the common man, poor and hardly covered.
Still the Congress ministers wear silk khadi, occupy big houses, ride in sleek limousines and lead such an ostentatious life that the emphasis is on extravagance, not on saving. People who once felt proud in living in small houses to show kinship with the poor and hungry masses now want sprawling bungalows.
India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru tried to enforce the norms of integrity. He made his petroleum minister K.D. Malaviya quit the government because he could not account for the contribution he had received from a private firm for election.
Again, Nehru was the one who set up an inquiry commission to look into allegations of corruption against his favourite Punjab chief minister Pratap Singh Kairon and his family members. In contrast, the scandal surrounding the Rs 64 crore kickbacks on the purchase of Bofors guns by the Rajiv Gandhi government remains unsolved even after two decades.
The deal has been so well wrapped in technicalities that, if pursued, it would turn out to be a long-drawn legal battle. With the Congress government back in power, the deal may be given a decent burial. Sadly, corruption has so permeated the country that politics has become synonymous with dishonesty.
Manmohan Singh could have stalled Soren's appointment by recalling what Shastri did. He made finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari resign from the cabinet when an inquiry commission found him guilty for the way in which the government used proxies.
TTK had told a life insurance company to vote in favour of a private party, Mundhra. TTK was close to then Congress president, K. Kamaraj, but Shastri did not bother to consult him. When Manmohan Singh tries to make compromises because of impending elections, he shocks a host of people who have faith in his integrity.
I am drawing attention to yet another case. It is not related to bribery but to pressure that worked in the re-induction of Soren in the cabinet. The case in point is the act which gives people the right to know.
Home ministry's parliamentary committee passed it more than three years ago when I was the Rajya Sabha member. A diluted form of the bill was accepted so that some kind of right to seek information from the government would be established. Parliament passed the bill last year. Still the notification has not been issued and without that the act cannot come into operation.
The bureaucracy is up in arms because it cannot brook the idea that ordinary citizen can ask why the government decided a particular matter in the way it did. "Democratic accountability," as some concerned citizens have pointed out to the prime minister in a letter, is not to the liking of public servants. Aruna Roy, a social activist, won the right to know in Rajasthan after years of struggle. Still the arrangement suffers because of bureaucratic delays.
The non-operation of the information act was brought to the notice of Sonia Gandhi's public advisory council. I thought that would be the end of the matter. But she did not turn out to be that powerful.
The law ministry favoured several amendments. True, the act is full of holes. But something is better than nothing. The diluted version could have been put into operation till the amended bill got parliament's sanction. But the bureaucracy continues to have its way.
That Sonia Gandhi has not been successful in putting into operation the information act indicates how powerful the bureaucracy has grown. If all impediments in the way of Soren's cabinet induction can be removed, why not the ones in the case of the information act? True, the latter does not give any political dividends.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
Role of America's Muslim allies
The killing of more than 100,000 civilians - many in cold blood - by the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan has hardly evoked any visible condemnation from most of the leaders of the Islamic world. Monarchs from Morocco to Brunei and autocrats from Libya to Pakistan have chosen to remain mostly silent on this ghastly tragedy.
While the overwhelming majority of the 1.2 billion Muslims remain opposed to American policies, their leaders have thrived on support from America in return for keeping their eyes and mouths shut. This may be the most shameful period of the entire Islamic history.
During the three years of Yasser Arafat's virtual house arrest by the Israelis, hardly any Muslim leader had the courage to speak against the criminal treatment meted out to the democratically elected leader of 10 million Palestinians.
While the Bush administration refused to talk to Arafat and Israel continued its atrocities in the occupied territories, America's Muslim allies kept mum and looked the other way.
Nobody dared to speak when America violated all principles of human rights as it tortured Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. With the exception of President Bashar of Syria, the Iranian leadership and Mahathir Mohamad hardly any other Muslim leader stood up to America.
It is true that in today's world opposing America or criticizing its policies needs exceptional courage. The economic interests of most countries are linked directly or indirectly to the only superpower in the world.
America is a major trading partner of most developed countries and provides aid to them. It also exercises tremendous influence over international financial institutions which provide loan to the poor countries.
Even opposition by major powers like Germany, France and China to American aggression in Iraq has been muted and is a glaring example of the importance of economics and the politics of expediency.
Among the Muslim allies of America, the Saudis, possibly because of 9/11 and to protect their investment portfolio of more than $500 billion in America, have gone out of their way to appease the Americans.
Most of their overtures to improve their image in America have fallen flat as the powerful Jewish lobby and the Christian right continue to blame them for financing the madressahs of the world which have produced Jew-haters and America-haters by the millions.
In Egypt, President Mubarak has been able to consolidate his rule with full support from America and has refused to democratize the Egyptian society. While welcoming thousands of Israeli tourists every year, Mubarak has failed to tell the Israelis to adopt a reasonable approach towards Palestine and to stop killing the Palestinians.
No one among America's Muslim allies has had the courage to point out to America that the Muslim view of the war against "terrorism" is totally different from theirs, that terrorism is not a movement but a tactic and can never be defeated.
Two articles in recent months published in the western press by Muslim leaders reflect very clearly the mindset of these leaders and have attracted attention for their almost apologetic presentation of the Muslim point of view.
President Musharraf in his article published in the American press and intended for American opinion makers blamed Muslim extremists for the world's troubles and lectured them to follow the path of the still unexplained philosophy of "enlightened moderation".
In a half-hearted manner, he urged the west to resolve the political issues which have caused so much unrest in the Middle East. He failed to mention - or blame - the Israeli occupation of Arab land as the primary cause of the trouble.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, like his father, is America's man. For decades the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has survived and thrived on American largesse. With very little to support its economy, Jordan has received billions of dollars in US aid and has towed the American line for more than three decades after having lost East Jerusalem and West Bank to Israel in 1967.
King Abdullah has also recently written an article in the American press which is distinguishable for its docile explanation of the harsh realities of the Middle East.
While supporting America in its war against terrorism and saying that the Palestinian problem is urgent, he has carefully avoided blaming Israel for its intransigence. The monarch and the military ruler remain steadfast allies of America and pillars of American support in the Muslim world.
The greatest killer of modern times, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, responsible for the genocide of more than 200,000 Muslims and others in Bosnia and Croatia roams freely in Europe while the Americans and Europeans have sent thousands of troops to Afghanistan to look for Osama bin Laden.
America's Muslim allies appear to have forgotten who Dr Karadzic is. They also seem to have ignored the stifling of the Bosnian urge for freedom and sovereignty.
The Americans, under pressure from the Europeans, managed to bamboozle the Bosnians into accepting a union that prevented the creation of the first Muslim state in Europe.
The Bosnians failed to find any strong supporters in the Muslim world for their freedom and sovereignty as America's Muslim allies watched the Dayton Accords kill the hopes of a Muslim nation.
The Americans appointment of a CIA agent as prime minister of occupied Iraq is a continuation of the game they have been playing in the Muslim world for a long time. Allawi has been accepted by America's Muslim allies as they turn their eyes away from his vicious vendetta against the Iraqi populace opposed to American occupation.
The club of America's Muslim allies was further strengthened as an unknown employee of an American firm, Unocal, was picked up from Quetta and made the new president of Afghanistan.
Both Karzai and Allawi were given the honour of addressing joint sessions of the Congress plus a standing ovation, an experience overwhelming enough to buy a lifetime of subservience.
To legitimize Karzai, presidential elections in Afghanistan were stage-managed by the Americans and a victory was assured in the absence of any credible threat for the person still known as the mayor of Kabul for his writ does not extend much beyond.
For more than three decades, Colonel Qadhafi of Libya had been a symbol of Muslim opposition to the West. During the process he also became one of the most isolated leaders of the world shutting off Libya and its people from the economic benefits which its oil could have brought about.
Qadhafi detested America's Muslim allies more than anything else and rarely lost an opportunity to criticize them. His disgust with Arab and other Muslim leadership was obvious as he slowly started abandoning his dream of creating a powerful pan-Muslim rival to America and the West. Qadhafi has now compromised. His revolutionary fervour is no longer his partner and he now talks very little of Muslim causes.
As America unfreezes billions of dollars of Libyan assets held in the US, in return for disclosure and inspection of Libya's strategic assets, Qadhafi may soon find himself standing in line with the Muslim allies of America.
In our own country the winds of change have started blowing again and the main opposition parties led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are not expected to deviate from the line adopted by President Musharraf were they to come to power.
They have both sought American support for their governments before and will almost certainly maintain the status quo. With Mahathir gone, only Iran and Syria remain firmly opposed to American policies. As America plans action against these two Muslim states it would be justified in expecting support or neutrality from its Muslim allies.