RECENT developments in Bangladesh offer much food for thought to students of politics, especially those who are still not prepared to abandon the democratic system. Not even in South Asia.

The melodrama scripted by the self-perpetuating caretaker regime, when it condemned two former primer ministers and leaders of the two largest parties to exile, was based on an illegality of a most bizarre variety and was bound to end in a farce. Apart from the fact that the begums were awarded a punishment without a judicial verdict against them, no law allowed the regime authority to banish a citizen or to disallow one’s return to one’s home country. Forcing a citizen into exile is just not possible, except for legally sustainable extradition to face criminal charges abroad.

Reliance on ‘precedents’ from the history of Pakistan was futile. The Pakistan regimes of 1958 and 1999 had no legal authority to exile Iskander Mirza and the Sharif family. The former was dethroned by his erstwhile protégé and fellow conspirator and, preferring discretion over valour, he accepted banishment instead of suffering under his supplanter.

Likewise, the Sharifs could not be sent into exile under any normal law. They were dispatched to Saudi Arabia under an extra-constitutional bargain. The Saudis’ plea for clemency to the ousted prime minister was accepted subject to their readiness to provide him and family lodging and board. Even otherwise it is difficult to prove their exile is involuntary, although attempts by the regime to show that the Sharifs agreed to banishment have not been conclusive. The government may indeed have chosen to keep an unlawful deal under wraps.

If the quick about-turn by the Bangladesh military puts an end to the theory that political rivals can be thrown aside by summarily exiling them, some good may again have resulted from evil. The episode will, however, be remembered – firstly, as yet another manifestation of military establishments’ boundless arrogance if they are offered evidence of public approval of their unlawful edicts, secondly, it offers hope to politicians who do not wholly alienate their people.

But the Dhaka regime’s operation ‘Exile the Women’ is only a minor sub-plot in the main play that has for its theme democracy’s ills and the various prescriptions for its recovery. These ills have bedevilled almost all countries that emerged from colonial subjugation after the Second World War, but at the moment we are concerned only with South Asia.

A brief review of South Asia’s history over the past six decades would suggest that the democratic system accepted as an accompaniment to independence has faced the following problems:

* The founding fathers of the new South Asian states adopted a narrow definition of democracy, choosing to govern in the name of the people without involving them in the process of governance. That undermined the rulers’ capacity to meet the challenges of diversity, except to some extent in the case of India, though there too without empowering the masses. There the dominant elite that had led the fight for independence remained united and thus saved the democratic edifice from collapsing. Elsewhere, the comparable elites split and the states chose to rely on extra-democratic props, such as belief (e.g., Pakistan and Sri Lanka) or authoritarianism (e.g., Pakistan and, later on, Bangladesh).

* Bad governance quickly eroded the political goodwill gathered by parties/leaders during the freedom struggle. Their alienation from the people was aggravated by their tendency to invoke undemocratic means, such as poll-rigging or constitutional immunity to beat off the challengers, and to suppress political opposition mostly by foul means, and their indulgence in visible corruption. The masses, who in any case had experienced little of democracy, were frustrated to such an extent that they could be persuaded to hail any destroyer of the democratic system if elementary conditions of law and order were secured. (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and to some extent Sri Lanka).

Political parties / leaders forced out of office before completing their term became impatient to make up their losses (caused by ouster from power) and were more intolerant of political dissent, thus generating a cycle of changes through extra-constitutional means. In Pakistan, all parties in power have given priority to the decimation of the opposition. In Bangladesh the last BNP government had so huge a majority that it could, in the words of a perceptive journalist, afford to be democratic. But it made as much a mess as a Pakistan government had made of its heavy mandate.* Political parties/leaders who found themselves unequal to the demands of multiparty democracy sought refuge in theories of one-party rule and, in the process, rendered their own parties redundant. No political apparatus could qualify as democratic in the absence of dynamic political parties. (Pakistan and Bangladesh in the seventies)

The consensus that the democratic system has not worked, at least not as well as the people expected, has led to several curative proposals. These have included: preparation of devices to bring governance in harmony with the genius and culture of the people; open military rule; military rule under a civilian mask; installation of caretaker regimes to hold fair elections and ensure smooth transition from one elected government to another; and legislation to make political parties democratic and responsible. None of these recipes has been fully effective.

Pakistan began by abandoning democracy as generally understood in favour of a democracy conditioned by belief when it adopted the Objectives Resolution. In Bangladesh a similar deviation, though not grounded in belief, took the form of BAKSAL.

Both experiments are taking their toll of democratic norms, to a hugely greater degree in Pakistan than in Bangladesh. In both countries however, the military has been assuming the role of superior political theorists, authors of constitutions, and the final arbiters of what is in the national interest and what is not. Military interventions have thoroughly muddied the democratic stream in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The first military ruler of Pakistan was the last man in uniform to realise the danger of the military’s involvement with politics. He quickly gave his regime a civilian face and tried to be a new father of the nation with a new gospel of basic democracy. He failed on all counts.

The second military ruler was too busy in planning for East Bengal’s independence to alter his predecessor’s scheme of controlled democracy.

Realising that military rule was subject to the law of diminishing returns, Pakistan’s third military ruler increased the military’s role in governance besides suppressing political parties and uplifting the religio-political groups. The last military ruler further reduced the civilian-political role in governance. Similar graphs can be drawn for Bangladesh under its two long-serving military rulers.

These military interventions have pushed Pakistan and Bangladesh much farther away from democracy than could be accomplished by all the politicians put together, including those who merely provided the entrenched establishment a short-life facade. No elaborate discussion is needed to prove that military or military-led rules have not succeed in restoring a sick democracy to health and the alternative models of governance advanced by them do not deserve the label of palatable alternatives.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have emphasised the role of caretaker regimes for holding elections. Such regimes set up in Pakistan in 1990, 1993 and 1996 were not accepted as completely non-partisan. And the latest phase of Bangladesh’s travail began when a determined effort was made to manipulate the installation of a regime’s favourites as neutral caretakers. The principal lesson from these experiments is that a constitutional provision for elections under a neutral authority alone cannot guarantee fair polls unless the establishment can be persuaded to allow the first step towards democracy to be taken without its interference.

The contribution towards democratic governance made by Pakistan’s Political Parties Order is notional. What can be gained by asking political parties to draft their constitutions, hold elections and render accounts if they are not allowed to conduct political activity? What platform a political party should carve for itself, what should bind the followers of a party together, and how a party can retain its following during inter-election periods cannot be regulated by law. This can only be achieved through regular political work.

If the remedies prescribed by three generations of healers have not enabled a large part of South Asia’s population to taste democracy, what can be done? The only points of consensus are : (i) that there is no point in wasting time on efforts to find alternative models; and (ii) that corruption in politics cannot be dealt with through deviations from democratic functioning.

Besides, governance has suffered as a result of depoliticisation of society. There are no quick-fix solutions. The Bangladesh polity is young and normal politics could enable it to regain its balance within a short period. Pakistan is a chronic patient of the disease of authoritarianism and its recovery will take longer.

The essential ingredients of an effective mixture for it include: commitment to democracy as it is understood in the world, free political activity, promotion of a revolution in political parties from below, a consensus to shut the back door to power, respect for the principle of division of power, and institutionalised framework for civil society’s interaction with the state. All these are raw ideas and practice alone will season them and reveal their genuineness and efficacy.

AT a time when after decades of unremitting hostility between them, both Pakistan and India have resolved to improve their relations and their efforts are expected to yield positive results, the immature statement by Indira Gandhi’s grandson, Rahul Gandhi, crediting his family for dismembering Pakistan, was highly regrettable and could impair the peace process which is now in full swing.

For many people in Pakistan, India’s role in the break-up of the country in 1971 still remains an open sore and the memory of that tragic event continues to haunt them. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi’s ill-advised remarks have irked them. They should, however, give credit to him for publicly admitting, for the first time, the role played by his ancestors in the division of a sovereign state. His grandmother, Indira Gandhi, was the prime minister of India in 1971.

It may be mentioned that India has officially maintained that its military intervention in East Pakistan was in self-defence. This was, however, a weak and unconvincing explanation. The fact of the matter is that Indira Gandhi, wanting in her heart of hearts to reunite the subcontinent, had been making clandestine efforts in this regard and had fully exploited the mindless military action by the ruling junta in Pakistan against the people of the eastern wing.

Regrettably, Pakistani politicians and military leaders who were primarily responsible for causing the dismemberment of Pakistan did their best to conceal their failure to keep the country united and remained unrepentant despite their proven guilt. They enjoyed total immunity notwithstanding the fact that the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, appointed by the government on December 26, 1971, to inquire into the circumstances that led to the East Pakistan debacle and the surrender of Pakistan army, had identified and condemned those who were found responsible for the debacle and were, therefore, liable for prosecution.

It is rather astonishing that Rahul Gandhi’s uncharitable remarks about Pakistan did not deter Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from portraying him as the future national leader of India. Dr Manmohan Singh being convinced that both Pakistan and India have a long-run stake in the regional stability has taken an unusual interest in pursuing the peace process between the two countries. He should have, therefore, avoided making obsequious overtures to a person whose political ideology is based on anti-Pakistan feelings

It is Pakistan’s desire to normalise relations with India by addressing the underlying causes of conflict which drew the two countries into confrontation since independence in 1947. Pakistan strongly feels that an open-ended estrangement between the two neighbouring countries is detrimental to their long-term interests. It is, therefore, pursuing the composite dialogue with India despite many odds, hoping that the process will, sooner or later, culminate in a permanent peace between the two countries.

The composite dialogue provides political space to both parties and is likely to be an effective precursor to good relations between Pakistan and India. However, in view of the longstanding enmity between the two countries, it is equally important to refrain from making irresponsible statements, like the one made by Rahul Gandhi, as they are provocative and far from constructive and could prove counter-productive. It is, indeed, a matter of satisfaction that Rahul Gandhi’s remarks about his family’s role in the division of Pakistan have been criticised by a large number of Indians and the country’s media.

During his election campaign to enlist the support of Muslim voters, Rahul Gandhi also addressed Muslim scholars and students at a madressah in Deoband. In his speech he claimed that the Babri mosque would not have been demolished in December 1992 if members of his family had been in power at that time. It may be recalled that a veteran Congress leader, P.V Narsimha Rao was the prime minister of India when the Babri mosque was demolished. It seems that Rahul Gandhi is either unaware of the role his father Rajiv Gandhi played in 1986 when he was the prime minister of India (a role which ultimately led to the demolition of the mosque in question by Hindu zealots) or was economical with the truth on this issue

The belief that the Babri mosque was constructed at the site where Ram was born did not stand historical and archaeological scrutiny. Yet, in February 1986, the Babri mosque, which had remained locked and closed to the Muslims since December 1949 was reopened and, in full glare of the media it was handed over to the Hindu community after a district judge’s (K.M Pandey) verdict in its favour.

It is a well known fact that Pandey’s verdict came as a result of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s personal intervention as he desperately needed Hindu votes. In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi also allowed the foundation stone to be laid for the construction of a Hindu temple near the Babri mosque. Legal experts and political analysts are of the view that, if realising the sensitive nature of the matter, Rajiv Gandhi had handled it with prudence the demolition of the Babri mosque would not have taken place.

While reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s crude remarks about the dismemberment of Pakistan, Islamabad has adopted a restrained approach which is a move in the right direction and shows wisdom on the part of the policymakers. An angry reaction to Rahul Gandhi’s controversial remarks would have only served to unnecessarily heighten the tension between Pakistan and India on this subject when, according to the Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri, the peace negotiations between the two countries are believed to be at an important juncture.

The writer is a former ambassador.