THE political conflict that has engulfed our country has been characterised by some as a personality conflict between two individuals — deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and President (formerly General) Pervez Musharraf. There have been supporters and detractors of both individuals, with some claiming the greatness and good deeds of Musharraf and deriding the actions of Chaudhry Iftikhar, and others applauding and upholding the stands taken by the judge against the actions of the president.

However, if we examine the issues that have arisen in the wake of this confrontation, we can surmise that it is not a question of whether Mr Musharraf and Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry are good or bad persons. The struggle that we have witnessed since March 9 at the highest levels of authority is one between two systems that represent two different ways of thinking.

The antagonists in this struggle represent world views that have been diametrically opposed and irreconcilable throughout history.

The conflict is between the belief that one individual has the right to wield absolute power without any constraints arising from rules and regulations, and the competing view that all individuals, irrespective of who they are, should be subject to laws and procedures devised by common agreement in a society.

The first view, the one based on absolute power is historically a fairly old one. It derives its premises from the idea that some men have the right to rule over others who are presumed to be lesser mortals. One-man rule has been observed from ancient times in the form of kings, chiefs, princes, sultans and emperors. This form of rule was generally hereditary and based on the notion of the divine right of one man to have absolute sway over his subjects.

More recent manifestations of absolute rule have been recorded in the form of dictators among whom some of the most famous are Stalin (USSR), Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Somoza (Nicaragua), and so on. These dictators did not derive their power from the idea of divine right. They based their absolute power on some legitimising ideology be it religion, communism, modernity or capitalism.

What was common in the case of both absolute monarchs and absolute dictators was that one man’s word was law. No person could challenge his authority or question his actions.

While the kings ruled until death through hereditary mechanisms (or were deposed in succession wars), absolute dictators ruled with an iron hand by monopolising all power and the means and methods of repression. All opponents were systematically destroyed or eliminated.

Most dictators do not believe in the restraints and constraints imposed upon individuals through laws and rules as the latter are made by themselves and flow from them — the dictator himself is the law. He therefore is above the law as he becomes the source of law and cannot be challenged in any court or public forum. A tendency to believe that he is always right about everything develops in time and is exacerbated by the coterie of flatterers and sycophants that surround him.

Usually, dictators do not find it hard to find collaborators who are willing to gain power and privilege by associating themselves with him. They play the key role of providing legitimacy to his rule and in prolonging it.

Opposed to the world view of divinely ordained kingships and lifelong dictatorships is the philosophy that many are better than one. This contrasting view maintains that the concentration of all powers in one single person is dangerous. History has witnessed the terrifying misuse of absolute power by one person and its horrific consequences.

The pogroms of the Stalin era, the millions killed by Pinochet in Chile and Pol Pot in Cambodia, the concentration camps devised by Hitler in Germany and other horror stories of history have taught the world of today that power must be shared and divided and should not reside in the person of the ruler but in institutions.

Each institution should keep a check on others as institutions are run by individuals and are only as good as the individuals that constitute them.

The contemporary response to totalitarian power has been the emphasis on representative and responsive government elected freely by a people and answerable to them. The powers of making laws, executing them and interpreting them have been separated consecutively into the legislature, executive and judiciary.

The judiciary is especially tasked with ensuring that the basic social contract — the fundamental law of the land — is protected and its rules and principles followed.

One can easily understand why the independence of this institution is particularly important as it cannot keep a check on others if it is subordinated and made subservient to any of the other institutions.

Most countries have devised methods of creating an independent judiciary that ensures that laws are made in conformity with the letter and spirit of the constitution and that the executive branch does not trample upon law or peoples’ rights.

Other countries have also devised legal and defensible means of ensuring that the judiciary performs its functions within the parameters of the constitution and the methods of removing judges are based on sound legal principles, not the whims of the executive branch.

It is considered the duty of the judges to intervene when they find that a violation of the constitution is being committed. Judges are somewhat like referees in a football game, and if they find that a particular player is not playing by the rules they can show him a card and direct him to leave the field. But no player can throw the referee out no matter how senior or good he might be in the game. The referee similarly cannot make exceptions in favour of or against a particular player for any reason — he cannot bend the rules to suit an obstinate player’s whims.

Systems and institutions are designed to check the exercise of arbitrary and absolute power. They typically outlast individual players and are considered above them. When a player begins to deem himself indispensable and superior, and imagines himself to be higher than principles, he can trample upon and destroy institutions that take centuries to build. Laws, rules and institutions must necessarily be depersonalised and not tailored to one individual’s whims and fancies.

Modern bureaucracies, civil and military, are premised on the idea that the state is impartial and neutral. Hence they are kept away from politics which is based primarily on being partisan. Similarly the office of the president is deemed to be neutral and impartial as in a parliamentary democracy he represents the federation. When a Grade-22 military or civil official begins to participate in elections to hold political offices, the seeds of trouble are sown. It compromises state neutrality and the distance between the state as the embodiment of the aspirations of all.

The 2007 conflict is essentially a struggle between the supremacy of the system and the supremacy of one individual. Irrespective of who or which person is involved, systems and institutions need to be independent of the whims of any individual. Individuals must necessarily be irrelevant when it comes to applying the principles of justice and fair play.

LAST week I spoke about the three parts in which the electorate can be divided: those who had benefited from the robust performance of the economy in the last few years, those who were on the verge of drawing some benefits when the political system went into a tailspin, and those who were altogether bypassed by the economic system.

I estimated the total size of the electorate at 80 million or 48 per cent of the population of 165 million. Of these, 10 million probably belong to the class that has benefited from economic growth and restructuring, 25 million who would have entered the system had it not been disrupted and 45 million who were completely ignored.

The last two classes account for 88 percent of the population, the same proportion of the electorate, but 96 per cent of those most likely to vote. It is this large segment of the population the political parties will have to reach to gain political ground for themselves. The group that benefited most from the economic policies of the government led by General Pervez Musharraf was present mostly in the country’s large cities.

While the economy expanded by about 50 per cent between 1999 and 2007, a significant amount of this expansion benefited central and northern Punjab and such large cities as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad and Gujranwala.

It is hard to determine whether the regime was aware that its policies led to an enormous increase in the wealth of a few groups, not reaching the majority of the population. Any suggestion that that this was the case was not well received by Islamabad.

Had it been more receptive, it could have done a great deal to spread more evenly the rewards of the growth it managed to produce in the economy. The other two groups did not see any palpable improvement in their economic situation. They matter the most in electoral politics.

One of these could have benefited had the institutions on which its members depended not been attacked by the regime. The reference here is to the legal system that was rapidly gaining in strength and which provided opportunities for economic and social advancement to tens of thousands of lawyers spread across the land. It included the electronic media and the press which had also begun to attract thousands of professionals.

It also included the sector of education that had attracted private entrepreneurs who had opened the field to a large number of teachers and other functionaries. Had these institutions been allowed to grow and flourish, they would have given gainful employment to tens of thousands of people.

Then there is a group that was completely bypassed. Those who belong to this large group are not evenly spread in the country. They are mostly in the countryside — in the villages of Sindh, Balochistan and the North-West Frontier and some in the southern districts of the Punjab.

They are also in most of the large cities, living in hundreds of katchi abadis that have sprung up all over the urban world.

What can the aspiring leaders and parties promise to attract the members of the two groups that were not benefited by the expansion in the economy in the last few years? They will need to do two things.

They will need to present a strategy that promises to have the economy grow in a way that can spread the benefits of development much more widely in the country. And they will need to come up with an approach that brings into the fold of the expanding economy all segments of the population. Such an approach should have at least four components.

First, it must aim to create productive jobs for millions of people who have been poorly served by the economy. Almost five million new workers are entering the workforce every year; of these one-half get jobs that pay poorly. Creating productive employment for these people can be done by promoting the development of value-added agriculture, processing of agricultural products, creation of physical infrastructure aimed at marketing and distributing the surplus output of the agricultural sector, development of small and medium enterprises, particularly those producing machinery parts and components and consumer electronics.

Second, it must focus on the provision of services in the country’s many urban areas. Like most of the developing world, Pakistan is currently going through a phase of rapid urban expansion. However, unlike what happened in the past, most of the increase in the urban population will not take place in large cities.

It will happen in medium-sized cities and towns all over the country. Public policy aimed at catering to the urban population needs to have two components.

The first component is the provision of services to those who live in large cities. This can only be done well by the public sector or by a partnership of the state with the private sector. For these services to be delivered, the state will need resources far beyond those that are currently available.

To raise additional resources, the government will need to give greater financial autonomy to the cities than is allowed at this time.

The second component will need to address the need for productive jobs in the medium-sized cities and towns. This can be facilitated by giving attention to the development of such labour-intensive activities as agricultural processing and small engineering.

Third, in formulating economic-growth strategies, political aspirants must draw the maximum amount of advantage from private entrepreneurship while using state regulatory systems to ensure that the private sector does not work against the larger social good.

This balance is not easy to find but it is essential for ensuring that the benefits of economic growth become available to all sections of the population.

Fourth, and finally, the proposed strategy must provide for the development of Pakistan’s large human resource in such a way that it begins to work for economic growth and social advancement and modernisation. There was some impressive work initiated by the Musharraf regime in this area. It developed institutional mechanisms for human development at the grass-roots level and also for improving the quality and quantity of higher education. These initiatives should be preserved and expanded.

At the same time the state, working in association with the private sector, needs to improve the technological base of the economy. This will require concerted effort in the development of infrastructure required for research and for the application of research for improving productivity.

This strategy must clearly indicate what part of the approach followed by the Musharraf regime will be continued, what will be changed, and what new approaches will be adopted. In presenting the strategy for growth and broad development, our leaders must also clearly state how they expect its benefits to reach all segments of the population and all parts of the country. There is, in other words, still a great deal of work to be done by the political parties to gain broad political support.

AMONGST the other things that the erstwhile General Musharraf will have to answer for in the wake of Nov 3, is the little matter of having turned perfectly reasonable citizens — myself included — into paranoid androids with delusions of grandeur.

This is in addition, of course, to having plunged us into a collective, national depression. Various medical associations recently stated that the incidence of such cases has risen since the emergency was imposed and people are increasingly feeling hopeless, alienated and frustrated. A brief survey around some Karachi drug stores indicated that the sales of tranquillisers, particularly the ‘soft’ ones sold without prescriptions, have also gone up.

In addition to having subjected us to a constitutional and political crisis with clear long-term implications, the reluctant president has also put us through an emotional wringer from which we may never recover.

Consider, for example, a recent meeting between people committed to protesting against the 2007 Provisional Constitution Order. The phone of one of the participants rang and the ensuing conversation was quite clearly choppy.

The gentleman, a young lawyer, had to keep repeating his words. Noticing this, one of the older men started making shush-shush noises and warned the lawyer that his phone was tapped. “But how can my phone be tapped?” asked the lawyer in some bewilderment. “These GSM phones aren’t on the airwaves, conversations can’t just be intercepted.”

“Ah,” said the sage wisely. “Of course not, but this is Pakistan and all it takes is some pressure on the cell phone provider.”

“That’s true,” said another attendee. “The other day I heard strange short clicks during a conversation and that’s a clear sign that your phone is tapped.”

“Really?” asked someone else. “My phone has developed a sort of hollow sound quality since I joined the protests, they’re probably watching me too.”

Everybody drew a little closer together as though expecting a plainclothesman to jump up from their midst, shouting “Gotcha!” and brandishing handcuffs.

The lawyer made a last attempt at reason: “But we’re hardly important enough for the agencies to be watching us,” he pointed out. This invoked immediate outcry: “What are you talking about, you’re a lawyer, enemy number one,” and “There are journalists, civil society leaders and activists here, who do you think are the greatest threat to the government?”

A clear case of paranoia with delusions of grandeur!

Just over a month ago, when the television screen went blank one simply cursed the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and assumed that the cable provider’s electricity had been temporarily suspended.

No more. When that happens now, people look at each other in consternation. “It’s another coup,” says one. “Can’t be, we’ve just had one, it’ll be the counter-coup,” mutters another. “Maybe there’s been a terrorist strike or an invasion,” shivers someone. “Nah, there’s been a split amongst the Unmentionables,” somebody else puts in.

As one, everybody reaches for their phone to check who else has lost transmission, and whether there’s TV in other parts of the country.

The worst, however, is when you turn on PTV and, by some coincidence, nationalistic songs are being aired. That brings to the fore all the paranoia instilled during the Zia years and later, when PTV had a special milli naghma tape that was broadcast at the first hint of any sort of administrative or other shake-up. (By the way, the existence of this tape has been confirmed by sources within the channel.)

Back then, an endless stream of ‘Jeeway Pakistan’ and ‘Sohni dharti’ was clear indication that the next day’s papers would announce a crisis of no little proportions. So for all of us who remember those days, having PTV air four milli naghmas in succession means — regardless of any private channels — that it’s a coup, a counter-coup, the dismissal of a government or, shiver me timbers, the mango crate.

Our leader has also subverted the meaning of the starched white shalwar kurta, once associated with the innocent pleasures of Eid, Friday prayers and weddings. Since Nov 3, any man so attired can only be — to my paranoid, cowardly mind — an intelligence man in plainclothes. His appearance in any crowd warns of an imminent baton-charge and mass arrests. And because there are many men in white amongst the large crowds in Anarkali, Saddar or Sidco centre, I haven’t yet managed to finish the shopping!