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| November 11, 2007 | Sunday | Shawwal 29, 1428 |
A pernicious idea
Protests on Lahore campuses
Left with an alternative
OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press
THE Indian Left is much larger than its most visible face, the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It is split three ways, each currently pointing in three directions.
A NUMBER of lawyers and a couple of trade unionists have been charged with sedition for protesting against the imposition of emergency. This is reprehensible enough. But even more alarming is the arrest of two Baloch politicians — Mir Hasil Bizenjo and Mr Yusuf Mastikhan — on charges of treason. Their crime? They were also protesting against the proclamation of the Provisional Constitution Order at the Karachi Press Club. Balochistan does have an ‘elected’ chief minister. But it’s not a secret who in reality is running the province. Such a mindless decision that saw politicians, including a former parliamentarian, charged with treason could not have been taken by a civilian government no matter how shaky its democratic credentials on account of its support for its masters in far-flung Rawalpindi. Only someone completely intoxicated on power who did not care for the consequences would have taken this ill-advised step.
Those who choose to explain the military’s hardline stance on the province say that hostile countries such as India are pumping huge resources into Balochistan to foment unrest. We have no means of confirming or debunking this allegation. What we can say is that measures such as the action taken against the Baloch politicians can only strengthen the case of those who feel so betrayed by the centre that they’d rather plot an independent course for themselves. This is most deplorable, to say the least. If the Baloch politicians came to the Karachi Press Club to share their thoughts on the emergency with the media, surely they didn’t belong to the ilk of separatists who believe dialogue of any sort is a pointless exercise. And to single them out for such treatment is shameless as it is counter-productive. Other leading politicians have been justifiably harsher in their reaction to the imposition of the emergency. Some have been detained under maintenance of public order laws and some held and released without a single law being cited. Why the notable exceptions: the two Baloch politicians? This, as if enough damage has not been done already by riding roughshod over dissent in the province. One can only express a hope that nearly 36 years after the separation of East Pakistan better sense will prevail and the macho men running Balochistan will stop short of creating another Bangladesh.
LET us hope no one in the establishment entertains the pernicious idea that President Pervez Musharraf’s tenure as army chief should be extended. With the election schedule yet to be announced, speculation is rife about the political measures under consideration. Talking to Dawn, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum and retired Justice Wajihuddin expressed different views on the subject of the president shedding his uniform to become a civilian head of state. The Attorney General’s opinion centred on procedural matters such as appointment of more judges to the Supreme Court to enhance the strength of the bench to the pre-emergency level and the hearing of the case all over again. Mr Wajihuddin’s approach was direct and simple. He said he would not pursue the case in the newly constituted Supreme Court. He would read out his petition but would not offer any arguments, for that would amount to recognising the ‘new entity’. Thereafter the government would obtain a waiver to the stay order on notifying the results of the Oct 6 presidential election and President Musharraf would then doff his uniform.
Under the changed circumstances, with the higher judiciary reconstituted, the country under emergency rule, and the media’s freedom curtailed, Mr Wajihuddin’s conjecture appears logical and true to the grand design. However, the history of Pakistan shows that, often at critical junctures, rulers’ decisions have been most unpredictable as they seek to pursue personal and oligarchic interests. Unconfirmed reports have already begun to appear to the effect that plans are afoot to extend the president’s tenure as army chief. We hope the reports are unfounded, because they imply the repudiation by the president of the written pledge made to the Supreme Court on Sept 18 by Mr Sharifuddin Pirzada, the senior counsel for the government, that Gen Musharraf would quit the army post before taking his oath of office as president ‘if elected’. Any other course will mean that Gen Musharraf would be reneging on the uniform issue for the second time. This nation will simply not tolerate this breach of faith, for all opposition parties, civil society, the media and the world at large view the president’s dual office issue to be at the centre of the mayhem in Pakistan today.
We appeal to the legal minds dealing with the dual office case to expedite it and end the debilitating crisis that has persisted in the country since March 9. The nation is crying for a return to the rule of law, sick as it is of the baton charges, tear gassing and mass arrests as seen once again in Islamabad on Friday to prevent Benazir Bhutto from addressing a public meeting. No date has as yet been announced for a general election, nor a time-frame given for lifting the emergency. Giving a date for both will serve to assuage the doubts the nation still has about the government’s future intentions with regard to a transparent general election.
THERE seems to be a lot of political excitement on the campuses of some of the private universities and colleges in Lahore. For almost a week, students of some private universities have gathered in large numbers within their institutions, marching, raising slogans and refusing to accept the imposition of emergency and suspension of the constitution. In fact, some of them have gone to the extent of joining lawyers and civil society activists in their protest rallies and processions. Apparently triggered by the arrest of some faculty members of LUMS during the first two days of the emergency, these protests are expected to bring in many more students from other academic institutions including the Punjab University. Some political leaders — Imran Khan being the most important one among them — sense this may be the beginning of something extraordinary in the political arena and are already talking about a student rebellion on the lines of the 1968 movement against Ayub Khan. This, however, may or may not materialise due to a number of factors including the appearance of, or more exactly the absence of, a political leader capable of turning it into a popular movement for the restoration of democracy and rule of law and constitution.
Apart from what future does this student protest have, it’s remarkable for another extremely important reason. Poster-children of Pervez Musharraf’s enlightened moderation and economic upswing that he claims to have ushered in, the students of these elite institutions were least expected to speak up against his policies. Now that they have done so, catching the analysts and media on the wrong foot, they show how widespread the anger against Musharraf is.
Seen from another point of view, are these student protests pointers to the things to come as they have been in history with those leading the students ultimately ending up on the national stage? With nobody knowing who is leading the current agitation, signs are these protests will peter out when the emergency is lifted or for a lack of organisational structure before that. But they at least indicate that the youth of Pakistan howsoever depoliticised they may have become over the years can still be mobilised into a potentially strong force in national life.
The CPM, CPI and their smaller partners represent the institutional-democratic element. The Naxalites, or Maoists, are the unstructured, undemocratic but increasingly potent dimension.
The recognised parties are restricted to one large, one medium and one small state. There is reasonable dispute over the true strength of the Naxalites. Some argue that many state governments are too eager to declare some of their districts Naxalite-infested because this translates into non-budgetary assistance from the centre to curb the ‘Naxalite menace’ in the name of that variable virtue called ‘law and order’.
But even if the Naxalites are not as powerful in the claimed 170 districts, there is no doubt about their influence in over 80 districts — sufficient to direct the course of the vote if they choose to do so. The Naxalites do not have a coordinated view on important issues, but it may be relevant to note that they were the first political force in the broad opposition spectrum to take an unambiguous view of the Indo-US nuclear deal. They rejected it comprehensively. We do not know if this will be reflected in the elections within those 80-odd constituencies, but it might if, as seems likely, the nuclear deal becomes a central focus of the next general elections.
A third aspect of the Left base goes largely unrecognised because it is not obvious. This is the vote that would have gone to the Left, if the Left had existed on the electoral map of that region. This is the ‘poor’ or ‘garibi’ vote that once automatically went to the Nehru-Indira Gandhi Congress, but which no longer recognises the party. Congress sensitivity is so heavily magnetised by the Sensex that it has no space for any parallel reality. This vote has switched twice, in the north, to regional parties. The first time it did so was in 1967; the second time was after 1989. The patterns in the south followed a different course, but there too the vote has shifted or swung between the Congress and regional parties.
The latest beneficiary of this phenomenon has been Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. There are two reasons why the BSP could break out from the limits of provincial success. Its core base, the Dalit, is spread across the country. The Dalits and Muslims constitute the only powerful nationwide vote blocs. Other vote blocs may be national in their sentiment, but they are not nationwide in their presence. There is also great overlap between the Dalit, Muslim and ‘poverty’ identities. If Mayawati can harmonise and then mobilise these identities, she can extend her UP numbers into a much larger calculus.
Mayawati is essentially occupying the space left vacant by an absent Left. This is why she cannot make much headway in the states where the Left is entrenched. Alternatively, she succeeds handsomely where the Congress has ebbed.
What are the chances of a Left crumble, if not collapse, in the next general elections?
Kerala is a seesaw, so the Marxists cannot hope to repeat their success of 2004. They will succeed, however, in tiny Tripura, because they have delivered on the two basics of good governance: distributive economic growth and social harmony.
Uncharacteristically, the CPM has fumbled on both counts in the critical state of Bengal. While Nandigram may continue to dominate the headlines, Bengal’s Marxists should be equally worried by the riots against ration shops in their heartland constituencies, like Birbhum. Food riots destroyed the Congress before 1967, and they will eat into Marxist margins in 2008.
One of the curious myths, sponsored by the current mania within the upwardly mobile middle class, is that the underprivileged are either unreasonable in their demand for exclusive attention, or, worse, simply unworthy of too much attention since they are a drag factor on economic growth. It is obvious that such self-comforting panaceas have infected Bengal’s Marxists.
The truth is that the poor are far more realistic than they are given credit for. They do not believe that there is some magic wand. They have more patience than the better off; not because they are more saintly, but because they have fewer options.
What the poor do possess, however, and have every right to retain, is a powerful sense of justice. They can read a signal, or detect a nuance quickly, for they do not have the luxury of complacence. The Bengal government has increasingly indicated that it prefers middle-class cosiness to street sensitivity. The manner in which, for instance, it has repeatedly snubbed Muslim sentiment is spectacular in its amateurishness.
How big a price will the party pay? The Marxists may still be rescued by the stand that the national leadership has taken against the proposed strategic alliance with the United States that constitutes the core of the so-called nuclear deal. In real terms, this strategic alliance means involvement in American conflicts in the Middle East.
The Muslims have a rather unique distinction: they are possibly the one Indian community with a foreign policy. They have no sympathy for George Bush, and there could be electoral rewards for the Marxists in Bengal and Kerala, if they retain the clarity to find it. This will compensate for some of the malfunctioning in governance.
But the true opportunity for the Indian Left lies in the phase or politics after the next general elections, between 2008 and 2012. And this opportunity will open up in the Hindi heartland. One can see the impetus that created the groundswell for regional parties (most of them splinters of the old socialist movement) beginning to fade. We might not see the explosive self-destruction of 1971, but it will be difficult for the regional parties to hold their own against the resurgent claimants of this space.
The Hindi heartland will probably return to one of the two mainline parties by 2012, either the Congress or the BJP, depending on which of them has managed to preserve its credibility. The outside option in this game is the BSP, but its rise will only be a consequence of Congress implosion, since their vote base is similar if not the same.
The only alternative to either the BJP or the Congress will be a Left front on the lines of the Bengal or Kerala model. The Kerala model, in fact, may be more relevant, but with a northern manifestation of the Muslim League thrown in. The ground for such a collision will have many seeds, from the old socialist movement of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia to the spadework being done by the Naxalites in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The Naxalite tactic of violence cannot be an end in itself; it must be the means towards a more sustainable political objective.
The future of the Left does not lie in the continuation of poverty. That is negative bias disguised with clever semantics. No one has a vested interest in poverty, least of all the Left. The future of the Left lies in justice, not poverty; in an economic programme that can create wealth without handing it over to a narrow apex.
That apex, however, is crowded by an orchestra of sirens. Can the Left leadership, as it negotiates its way through troubled waters in the next five years, resist the lure of those sirens?
The writer is editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, New Delhi.
Elections: a welcome announcement
President Musharraf has announced general elections in mid February. This is the first positive step after the imposition of emergency. The government, it seems, is not only trying to justify the emergency but is also taking steps to avert any reactions.
After the Security Council meeting and a telephonic conversation with US President Bush, opposition has been critical of the situation and had expressed much apprehension prior to the emergency. Lawyers and media persons, who were prime targets of this action, have launched protest movements across the country. Private news channels were taken off air and sitting judges of the apex court were sacked with the introduction of the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO).
Meanwhile, PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has threatened Musharraf with a long march, if he does not revoke the emergency. This is the first ever major political reaction.
History is witness to the fact that brute force and violence have seldom provided solutions, whereas dialogue has been the most effective tool of resolution. If there had been adequate constitutional, legal and democratic dispensation, such crises and tragedies would have been perfectly avoidable.
This country continues to be run on personal guarantees without any thought to the strengthening of a system.
The situation demands that not only our rulers but also members of the civil society play their roles with responsibility.—(Nov 9)
Rulers should avoid confrontation
Former Prime Minister Ms Benazir Bhutto has threatened to launch a long march if the constitution is not restored by Nov 13. She warned that martial law cannot continue as it is harmful for the country.
US President Bush spoke to President Musharraf and urged him to move towards general elections. But Musharraf says that he will not doff his uniform till his case is pending and neither will he issue an election schedule. Therefore, the state of emergency remains indefinite for now.
Following the imposition of emergency, judges of the apex and higher courts have been detained and countless lawyers and political activists have been arrested, giving rise to a wave of agitation.
Earlier, there was little participation by the political parties and only lawyers, journalists and members of civil society set out to register their protest and ire. But Benazir Bhutto’s ultimatum of a long march has been a serious catalyst. The political parties have begun to contribute to the movement as otherwise; Benazir would emerge as the sole winner in the game.
The Americans had reportedly said that Musharraf’s imposition of emergency was contrary to their suggestions. This is indeed worrisome. The government must avoid any confrontation, revoke the emergency and assure political parties of free and fair elections… for the sake of national stability. — (Nov 9)
––Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi