A FEW weeks ago I read an article on the ouster of rulers. I have always been of the view that removing an unwanted ruler by killing him is a bad idea, for it is liable to generate protracted civil strife in the society concerned.

One may recall an event of this kind in early Muslim history: In 656, a group of rebels, dissatisfied with the third pious caliph’s management of public affairs, murdered him. Their action led to civil war and divided the Muslim community for generations to come. I do not wish to discuss this event today; instead, I propose to go 1,000 years down in history and look at the events that culminated in the trial and execution of King Charles I (r.1625-1649) of England.Charles had grown up to be a deeply religious, self-righteous, opinionated and stubborn man. Unlike his father, he was innocent of politics and, worse still, he believed in the divine right of kings, convinced that “they are not bound to give an account of their actions but to God alone.”

His religious policy alienated a growing number of influential persons in the realm, including members of parliament. England was officially Protestant, but its version of the faith (known as the Church of England or Anglicanism) retained some of the Catholic pageantry, ritual and ceremonial. Other Protestant denominations, particularly the Puritans and the Scottish Presbyterians, opposed these remnants of the Roman Church. Many members of parliament and notables outside had the same objection.

Charles married a French princess, Henrietta Maria, a Catholic, overriding the objections of parliament, which was concerned that under the young queen’s influence he might make life easier for the British Catholics by lifting the restriction which preceding governments had imposed upon them. He did not do this formally, but he did develop a certain amount of sympathy for them.

He appointed to the high office of Archbishop of Canterbury a clergyman of the name of William Laud, who favoured the old-fashioned ritual and ceremonial both in the church establishment and services. Laud, with the king’s approval, proceeded to enforce an approved Book of Common Prayer, which contained controversial material, in both English and Scottish churches. It led to two wars with the Scottish Presbyterians (known as the “Bishops’ Wars”), both of which his side lost.

His other main difficulty arose from his levying of unauthorised taxes and raising money through forced loans. He needed money for the wars with the Scottish bishops, and for one he had initiated with Spain in 1627. Unenthusiastic about his war with Spain, parliament allowed him merely 140,000 pounds that would in no way suffice. It also limited his authority to collect customs duties to one year. Not only did he continue to collect these duties, he imposed new ones and revived some of the medieval taxes, which had been discontinued long ago. Parliament criticised the war’s conduct by his commander, the Duke of Buckingham, and he dismissed it. The war was not won; it ended as a misadventure from which the country gained nothing.

In January 1629, he re-called parliament. It criticised his levying of duties and confiscation of the merchandise of those who had not paid them. In March, he ordered parliament to be adjourned. But before adjourning, it adopted a resolution, saying that those who paid the duties it had not authorised were “betrayers” and enemies of the liberties of England. The king dissolved parliament the same day. He ruled without parliament for the next 11 years, which came to be known as a period of his “personal rule” or tyranny. Not only parliament but many among the country’s propertied classes resented the king’s fund-raising devices.

Conflict with the Puritans escalated during the period of personal rule. Archbishop Laud closed down their organisations. Dissidents were hauled up before an obnoxious tribunal, the Court of Star Chamber, which proceeded without the due process of law and put the accused through severe torture to obtain self-incriminating confessions.

In 1640, his need for additional funds prompted Charles once again to call parliament. But instead of voting monies for him, it proceeded to discuss his abuses of power during the 11 years of personal rule. Within a month he dissolved it (April 1640). But six months later he summoned it again.

Elections were held and the Puritans dominated the new parliament. They intended to drive a hard bargain. In May 1641, they passed a bill, to which Charles had to assent, providing that parliament could not be dissolved except by its own consent. They wanted Archbishop Laud to be removed and he was executed. Certain taxes and forced loans were cancelled, and the Court of Star Chamber was shut down.

Rumours reached Charles that parliament intended to impeach his Catholic queen. In January 1642, he marched into the House of Commons with an armed force to arrest some of the more troublesome members, but they had slipped away. He asked the speaker where they were to which the latter replied that he could say nothing without the authorisation of the House whose servant he was.

This move proved to be politically disastrous; it led to the collapse of his authority and breakdown of his government. He left London and went north. Based in Oxford, he ruled areas to the north and west while parliament ruled London and areas to the south and east. Both sides raised armies.

Civil war started on October 23, 1642, and went on for nearly four years. The parliament’s forces won a decisive victory in April 1646 and took Oxford. Charles fled, took refuge with the Scots, who delivered him to the parliament’s agents a year later. He escaped from captivity. Located on an offshore island, he engineered a second civil war in July 1648. His forces were again defeated, he was captured, and this time placed in secure detention, put on trial and executed on January 30, 1649.

Political forces in the country generally disapproved of Charles’s style, but note that they were not all in favour of his ouster. There were the “royalists” who fought on his side. Many even in parliament were willing to keep him as king if he would accept some limitation of his power (which he didn’t). It was not so much the politicians as the army officers, most of them Puritans and led by Oliver Cromwell, who wanted the king’s trial.

They purged parliament of the king’s supporters and moderates in December 1648, leaving only a “Rump”. Army officers stopped members from entering the House except those who were trusted by Cromwell. According to one account, only 46 were allowed in on the day the question of putting Charles on trial was to be voted. And not all of them voted for it. It was this “Rump Parliament” that embarked upon a course of action that had never been adopted in their history. Kings had been deposed and sent away but none had ever been put on trial.

Parliament, “cleansed” of those sympathetic to Charles, created a “High Court of Justice,” consisting of 135 members, to try him on a charge of “high treason.” But only 68 of them actually turned up and not all of them took part in the proceedings. None of them wanted to be the “chief justice,” and the man who was finally persuaded to accept the position feared for his life. Soldiers filled the courtroom to protect the judges. Only 35 of them signed the king’s death warrant on January 29, 1649.

At the trial, true to his belief in the “divine right of lings,” Charles denied that any court could have jurisdiction over monarchs, and maintained that while his own authority had come from God, that of this “court” came from the barrel of a gun, He did not enter a plea, did not bring witnesses in his behalf, did not cross-examine his accusers. He maintained a posture of impressive personal dignity throughout the proceedings.

He was led to the scaffold, which had been built across from the Palace of Whitehall, shortly after 2:00 pm on January 30, 1649. He spoke a few words to the assembled crowd, said a prayer, placed his head on the block, signalled the executioner, who chopped his head with one clean stroke. A loud moan arose from the crowd. Some men rushed to the king’s body and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood. And thus the cult of the “Martyr King” started, which kept the royalist case alive for years to come.

Following Charles’s execution, monarchy was abolished and England became a commonwealth (republic) ruled by a council headed by Cromwell who assumed the title of “Lord Protector.” He disbanded parliament a few years later (1653). His rule was just as harsh, arbitrary, and intolerant of dissidents (religious and political) as that of Charles had been. He died in 1658 and was succeeded by his son, Richard, who proved to be incompetent.

Parliament was reinstituted in 1659, but it dissolved itself and held an election in 1660. The new parliament abolished the republic and invited Charles’s son, Charles II, to take the throne. Those who had signed his father’s death warrant or had otherwise supported his trial — such of them as were still living — were tried and put to death. His remains were removed to another site, where a mausoleum was built, and where wreaths of remembrance are placed on his death anniversary even now.

In conclusion it may be said that a ruler’s lawless quest for unbounded power, fierce religious militancy in segments of society, and the military officers’ political ambitions (ingredients of our own current politics) combined to bring forth political instability, polarisation, extended civil war and disruption of established institutions in 17th century England.

There are more recent cases of trial and execution of rulers, such as those of Adnan Menderes, prime minister of Turkey (1950-60), and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, which I hope to present later.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.
Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

GEN Pervez Musharraf is an unusual president. Equally unusual are the happenings of his time. He came to power by staging a coup but did not proclaim martial law or suspend the Constitution.

He was content with the modest, commercial-sounding title of chief executive. In the course of time, however, he has gathered more authority in civil life than any his three military predecessors — Ayub, Yahya and Ziaul Haq.

Musharraf went to the Supreme Court seeking legal sanction for his extra constitutional takeover. He returned not with that alone but also an unsought overwhelming mandate to amend the Constitution “for the attainment of his declared objectives” before holding elections three years later. A deal that he later struck with the religious parliamentary parties enabled him to keep the army command alongside the presidency beyond that period.

A bizarre turn of events has now pitched Musharraf against the judiciary (which had provided his government constitutional cover) and also against those very religious parties that had helped him tighten his grip on power. The campaign of the lawyers against him, unprecedented in its duration and intensity, centres around a judge, one among the 11 who had validated his regime and later sworn allegiance to the new legal order. He is now the Chief Justice but restrained by Musharraf from functioning.

Then came the most unusual and tragic happening, not of his term alone but of all times. Musharraf is an acknowledged world leader in the war on terror. While he was fighting against the terrorists at the borders, a centre of terror more defiant and deadly was growing at his doorsteps tended by his own party chief and minister for religious affairs.

When he chose to intervene it was too late and the carnage that resulted will haunt people of all persuasions for generations. The consequences for his government are as yet unpredictable but likely to become adverse as time goes by.

It was the predicament of an authoritarian government caught in a whirlwind of angry lawyers, growling judges and armed clerics that encouraged Nawaz Sharif to convene a conference of elements opposed to Musharraf that he had been long contemplating at considerable expense and persuasion.

In this complicated background of diverse forces at work, political pundits and the people are left wondering whether the country is heading towards free polls or reinvigorated military rule. The reason for this dilemma is simple: whether it is a campaign by the lawyers, defiance by the clerics or the convening of an assembly of politicians in London, the characters involved in all three are driven by conflicting personal motivations and not by the collective welfare of the people.Some lessons must be drawn from each of these troubling and tragic events — continuing street agitation by the lawyers, defiance to death by the clerics, conference of opposition parties in London and mishandling of all three by the government and its agents — to check the creeping brutalisation of Pakistan’s traditionally gentle society.

First, the lawyers because they are the custodians of the law should be the last to defy it or incite others to defy it. Lawyers resort to rhetoric when the argument is weak or lost but no lawyer should ever warn the Supreme Court of enraged people burning it down if the verdict does not come up to their expectations. It goes beyond usual contempt and it is more reprehensible when it comes from the president of the Supreme Court bar.

Munir Malik may have been arguing in court but he is mostly spouting vitriol at the head of noisy processions. He should be assured that his threats will neither make Musharraf flee in fright nor persuade the judges to hand down a verdict that saves them from being incinerated. It is the judges in the Supreme Court and later in the Supreme Judicial Council, and not the crowd on the streets, who will decide the fate of Gen Musharraf or Justice Chaudhry. Campaigning for the independence of the judiciary, Mr Malik should not been seen to be cowing it.

Second, the imams and teachers of mosques and madressahs must understand that their role is to produce scholars and not fighters or jihadis who in today’s world of secular governments are viewed as terrorists. Their motives or doings are viewed by the states in the light of their own values and interests. It is so borne out by the conflicts in Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya.

Pakistan’s safety and economy are both put to jeopardy when our seminarians are seen operating in neighbouring China and Central Asia. If our own government and communities are unable to restrict madressahs to peaceful scholastic pursuits, foreign agencies may take up this task as it was rumoured that China could punish Hafsa if the Pakistani authorities did not.

The London conference called to bring the opposition on one platform ended up dividing it further. The outcome of the conference has shown that forging a united front out of disparate and squabbling parties to topple a government by force, howsoever unrepresentative or oppressive, remains an exercise as elusive and futile as it has been in the past.

A more sensible and practical approach would be to form electoral alliances of like-minded parties to exert all the legal and moral pressure they can muster to prevent the party in power from tampering with the rolls or the ballot. The dissent at the London conference points towards this possibility. The chances of changing or moderating an authoritarian government this way would be much brighter than trying to drive it out through violence.

The conference undermined its own purpose by ostracising the MQM as a terrorist outfit and by shutting out the Sindh nationalists led by Mumtaz Bhutto. Though bitter rivals, it is not possible to administer the province peacefully without the participation of both. Imran Khan, who led the chorus against the MQM, has no voice or vote in Sindh, nor was the province adequately represented at the conference across its urban-rural spectrum.

Lastly, the lesson for the government should be short and blunt. Law and order problems must be tackled as soon as they arise and by professional administrators. Party bosses and ministers always have an axe to grind. The deputy commissioner of Islamabad should have acted the moment the Hafsa girls occupied the children’s library. The politicians nurtured the problems in Islamabad and earlier created them in Karachi on May 12. But the whole nation has to live with the grief and shame of it all.

A lesson common for all parties and leaders involved in the affrays of the past six months is that the people, long weighed down by poverty, disease, discrimination and injustice, will no longer be taken in by slogans. In the forthcoming election they will want commitments that are measurable and pledges that are bankable.