PAKISTAN is about to witness once again the ‘dawn of democracy’ just as it had in the past at intervals of ten years or so only to make way for longer dictatorships. Sixty years of independence thus stand divided, almost equally, between the two.

Which of the two periods — elective or authoritarian — was more caring or less troublesome? On this point, in the historical perspective, people’s opinion remains divided just as was the loyalty of their leaders at the relevant time.

It is however there for all to see and muse that some of the latter-day vocal and virulent democrats made their debuts in dictatorships or were groomed by military rulers. Among them is Nawaz Sharif, today’s most unforgiving opponent of the army’s presence in politics, and also Raja Zafarul Haq, the Islamic ideologue of his party who was also the ‘opening batsman’ in Gen Ziaul Haq’s excruciatingly long innings. Now both of them would not be content with anything less than the impeachment of President Musharraf who by general reckoning is much less wily or wicked — at least he did not hang Nawaz as Zia did Bhutto.

This is not to detract from the contribution these two gentlemen from the PML-N have now made to public awakening. The point is that while the military rulers were hailed on advent by some and reviled by others, they all left a deep imprint on national politics and some of their protégés are now national leaders.

But when it comes to choosing a form of government it is hard to disagree with Winston Churchill that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. And Pakistan has tried quite a few. The military author of each brand harangued the people that his was the real and best democracy for them.

The story of changing regimes and constitutions is too familiar to be recounted here but let it be said that every government whether it was headed by a military commander or an elected politician was, in essence, autocratic. Only the degree and values varied. And every military commander was not necessarily more autocratic than the civilian he dislodged. Surely, Musharraf even in his heyday was not as imperious as was Nawaz Sharif.

Whether it was a chief martial law administrator or a prime minister, in exercising his authority or in dispensing patronage he relied more on his friends, cronies, selected bureaucrats or commanders — in that order — and less on the institutions of the state.

Again, whether it was important legislation or the routine appointment of an official, the intention mostly was to demonstrate personal authority or favour someone rather than to benefit the people within the safeguards the system provided.

It was such an urge that impelled Nawaz Sharif to appoint a columnist with no knowledge of diplomacy or language as ambassador to a Scandinavian country and also persuaded Musharraf to appoint an oil company official working in the UAE as Pakistan’s ambassador in that very country.

Such instances can be recounted ad infinitum but imagine Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, by Musharraf’s indulgence, holding the office once held by Liaquat Ali Khan and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy — and Pervaiz Elahi standing next in line till fate intervened.Every transition from civilian to military rule and back diminished the institutions of the state and left a trail of bitterness but never as fateful as is being experienced now. Yahya Khan’s follies broke the country yet he was allowed to wither away in his penury for, all said and done, he was an honest man and bequeathed no heir to the halved country.

After all the indignity that was heaped on him, Ayub Khan leisurely walked the streets of Islamabad assuredly drawing satisfaction from the tribute that wagon drivers paid to him by displaying his portrait on the rear of their vehicles — teri yaad aayi teray janay ke baad — in essence meaning ‘we miss you’.

Ziaul Haq imprisoned, tortured and then hanged Bhutto after what is widely believed to be a manipulated trial. Benazir became prime minister riding the crest of an unprecedented popular wave but sought no revenge nor interfered with the enormous wealth that Zia left behind in which his progeny revels. Army and caste connections have enabled his son Ejazul Haq to carve out for himself a place both in national politics and the clerical order.

Pursuing his whims and to entrench himself in power, Musharraf has destroyed centuries-old administrative structures; concentrated all power at the centre, i.e. in his person in the name of empowering the people at the grassroots; obtained an order from the Supreme Court to rule by amending the constitution as he liked; and had Nawaz Sharif sentenced and then bargained to send him into exile. The litany is agonisingly long.

Starting on a high note of making Pakistan a secular society, he ended up by transforming it into a modern theocracy only to placate the fanatics whose goodwill he needed to keep the mainstream leaders on the run. He got away with it all until the public humiliation of the chief justice aroused the anger of the lawyers and sympathy of the masses. What has become the central issue now is not the fight to reduce poverty and end terror but independence of the judiciary. At stake however is the integrity of the country.

Is the campaign being carried too far? Indeed it is. Going back in time, not a mouse stirred in the Margalla mountains when Bhutto was hanged — a “judicial murder”, as Prime Minister Gilani described it in his maiden speech to parliament. (A judge on the bench whose vote made a difference between Bhutto’s life and death later confessed that he indeed had surrendered to Ziaul Haq’s blackmail.) And there was not a whimper of protest when a courageous dissenting judge, Safdar Shah, had to flee the country to escape the regime’s wrath.

Today’s deposed judges and irked lawyers have carried the day. Now they should stop when they stand at the threshold of politics. Justice Chaudhry condoling with Asif Zardari can also be seen as beseeching for his reinstatement.

The year-long struggle for greater independence of the judiciary must not, tragically, end in less of it.

SEEING civil society, jurists, legislators and politicians busy trying to repair tattered political institutions, one would also wish to witness the mending of the social fabric torn asunder by the obsolete and anachronistic forces which continue to scar rural society in Pakistan.

Disregarding the debate whether classical ‘feudalism’ based on the lord-vassal-fief relationship exists or not, it is time to focus on the reality of rural life. Or just ask these basic questions: Are the peasants and rural folk who comprise 60 per cent of the country’s population free to take their own political, economic and cultural decisions? Are their lives and properties safe? And are they treated, in practice, at par with their urban counterparts in the observance of human and fundamental rights?

Obviously the answers would be in the negative. Thanks to the recent resurgence of feudal power vis-à-vis the dwindling writ of the state, rural life is perennially afflicted with kidnappings, murder, trespassing, waylaying, honour killings, tribal feuds, political vendettas and so on. It’s time to rid society of these obsolete social relations by removing the very sources of power — land, patronage and insecurity — that sustain feudalism even in this postmodern information age.

Notwithstanding the law of inheritance and the two ‘land reforms’ introduced by Ayub and Bhutto that lowered the upper ceiling on landholding, a large amount of agricultural land is still ‘owned’ by a few hundred rural families. Moreover, thousands of acres of government-owned land in the kutchha (delta/riverine) areas has been conveniently occupied or ‘leased’ by these families. According to a report, 55,000 acres of government land has been occupied by local landlords in Thatta alone.

The same is true of many other parts of the country — Thal, Kaachho, Kach, Kohistan, Bailpat, Thar, Kacho, Cholistan — where public land has been trespassed with impunity. These kutchha lands not only produce bumper cash crops but also provide a safe haven to criminals and house private armies and jails. Indeed, these are no-go areas even for the police.

Ironically, unlike the militant Marxist peasants of Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar, Mizoram or Nepal who achieved their civil and political rights after waging an unrelenting struggle against the oppressive feudal and caste systems, our country folk lack an ideological party that will protect their interests. Whatever peasant-worker political struggle that took place between 1950 and 1980 dissipated after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Besides land, the other source of feudal power is the political patronage of undemocratic regimes. Historically, local governments have served as a quintessential vehicle of this patronage, with pro-establishment feudals becoming junior partners in the set-up run by the military and civil bureaucracies.

Under the current local government (LG) system, however, civil administration is no longer the province of an axis of power involving several actors. For the first time since the British devani system in Bengal, or the Mughal subedari system in northeast India, revenue, administrative, police and municipal powers have been concentrated in the hands of a single person: the district nazim.And which class do the nazims come from? Just look up, way up. More than 80 per cent of the nazims elected in the 2005 elections were feudals and sardars belonging to powerful tribes: Chandio, Jatoi, Mahar, Lund, Leghari, Chattha, Makhdoom, Kanju and so on. And about 77 per cent of all elected nazims were affiliated with the PML-Q.

The nazims enjoyed unchecked authority and financial powers. Billions of rupees were pumped into rural districts every year. In fact, LGs’ share in the provincial allocable pool of resources has ranged from 37 to 39 per cent. But except for a routine ‘audit’, no institutional check was placed to stop the misuse of funds.

As far as much of rural Sindh is concerned, neither physical infrastructure nor civic and social amenities saw any improvement commensurate with the large amount of funds ‘utilised’. Yes, a new breed of parvenu is surely visible on the shabby streets of small villages and towns.

Moreover, with the ascent of the feudal as a district nazim, through ‘apolitical’ but controversial elections conducted under a military dispensation, rural society has undergone further stratification along caste, clan and tribe lines, giving rise to a plague of politically motivated rivalries and tribal feuds.

According to a government report, 120 tribal clashes were reported in Sindh in 2006. In one district, Shikarpur, 139 tribal killings were reported.

As a result, besides the loss of precious lives caught up in these feuds, the agriculture sector — which contributes 23 per cent of GDP and employs 43 per cent of the total work force — is also suffering irreparable losses due to the insecurities faced by farmers and owners of medium-size holdings.

In the void left by weakened state structures, people have resorted to arming themselves and perforce joining the larger tribal folds. This has resulted in the emergence of tribal militias, which could prove extremely dangerous to rural habitat and agriculture.

Already, in much of Sindh tribal feuds have disrupted agriculture, forced people to migrate to overpopulated towns and cities and caused food shortages and unemployment.

Paradoxically, the third source of feudal power is this very culture of insecurity and terror that prevails in rural society where people abandoned by the state have no choice but to follow feudal norms and values. Surprisingly, the cultural trend in the urban areas is no different.

Be they industrialists, politicians, policemen, judges, bureaucrats or even corporate executives, all those who should shun and fight this repressive culture emulate if not adulate it. Like feudals, they display arms and employ bodyguards, maintain big mansions and farmhouses, and cultivate powerful connections for political patronage.

Only the multitudes of ‘ordinary’ people — all those who cannot acquire feudal trappings — are condemned to live in a state of alienation and shame. They are alienated from the state which has failed to guard their autonomy and basic rights. They feel ashamed because they are not ‘strong’ and ‘connected’.

Like Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky’s ill-fated hero in Crime and Punishment, one day alienation and shame could compel many of them to take up arms and resort to crime: arms to protect their life and honour, and crime to avenge a wrong or simply cater to their needs.

shahabusto@hotmail.com

ON March 20 I went to a conference on ‘internal threats to Pakistan’s security’ organised by the Punjab University political science department, guided by its eminent chairperson Dr Ambreen Javed with the help of her learned and very energetic colleagues (seven of whom happen to be women).

The conference went well. A good number of professors from all over the country discussed domestic trouble spots. But their presentations, laced with the technical language of modern political science and sounding erudite, did not in each case bring out the connection between the problem under discussion and national security.

I propose to present below my own reading of some of the troublesome situations we encounter in this country and their bearing on national security. Discussions of security may relate to individuals or collectivities such as the state. In the former case it means protection of the individual’s life, liberty and property, and in the latter the state’s survival in good order. In both cases, weakening can be a prelude to destruction.

A breakdown of law and order, making the individual vulnerable to killers and robbers, will bring about his loss of security. The resulting chaos will testify to the state’s weakening and the consequent ineffectiveness of its writ. A more direct threat to its survival may arise from rebellions mounted by dissident groups (to which we shall return shortly).

Want of legitimacy of the ruler or ruling group weakens the state and thus poses a threat to its security. Illegitimacy means that the ruler has taken power from a source, and in a manner, other than the relevant law or tradition having the force of law. In other words, the ruler is unlawful and his continuance in office constitutes an ongoing lawlessness. If it is all right for the man at the helm to be a lawbreaker, and still remain at the helm, the lower orders may conclude that it is likewise all right for them to ignore the law. This attitude of mind may then spread and lawlessness become part of the prevailing culture. The state in that event has become dysfunctional.

There is no need to dwell on the self-evident truth that extremism and terrorism can pose a serious threat to the security of the state concerned. But I do want to say a word about their meaning and import. Extremism is a state of mind in which its holder is certain that his understanding of truth is, to the exclusion of all others, correct. His version is not open to discussion, negotiation or compromise.

In the earlier stages of his career, Maulana Maududi maintained that the vast majority of Muslims (99 per cent or even more) should stop calling themselves Muslim because they practised Islam only partially and selectively. This, to my mind, was an extremist position. He stated it in his books and pamphlets and it was open to people to ignore it. That being the case, it didn’t hurt anyone.

Now consider Gen Ziaul Haq’s assertion, made in an address to the nation after he had seized the government, that secularists in Pakistan were “snakes in the grass” who must be crushed. This was extremism of another brand. He believed that those who did not think as he did deserved to be killed. Ziaul Haq was an extremist who came to the verge of being a terrorist.

Hijacking, kidnapping, indiscriminate killings (among other things) may be seen as acts of terrorism. Contrary to what the anti-terrorism law and courts in Pakistan may say, not every act of violence is a terrorist act. There are individuals and organised groups who despise Gen Musharraf’s regime. They have been bombing military installations, hijacking vehicles, kidnapping and killing military and paramilitary personnel. These actions need not be reckoned as terrorism; they are acts of war that opponents have been waging against Gen Musharraf’s government.

This is not to say that one of these two types of violence is more or less defensible than the other. I set them apart for the sake of clarity. Language has different words to denote different situations and there is no need to mix them up. War may include acts of terrorism as, for instance, when one side resorts to indiscriminate bombing of the other’s civilian residential districts. But not every act of war is an act of terrorism. It is terrorism, plain and simple, when a suicide bomber or one who engineers a blast chooses to target and kill uninvolved non-combatants.

There are two faces of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan which too should be distinguished. One of them has the objective mainly of forcing American withdrawal from Afghanistan and other places in the Muslim world. Then there is this other extremist-cum-terrorist, the ideological hardliner, who will continue his operation even if America and the other western powers go away and leave Muslims alone.

He has only one passion, which is to enforce his version of Islam on individuals and public authorities in everything they do plus their form, mission and modus operandi. He has no interest in the survival of Pakistan as such. In his thinking Pakistan is worth preserving only if it moves to Islamise its people and institutions truly and fully. If it doesn’t, the extremist will wage war against both its government and people. He feels that if the state of Pakistan perishes as a result of his campaign, so be it.

Since soon after its inception, the state of Pakistan has been creating or intensifying threats to its own security. It was to be a federation but those who manage it have consistently ignored this constitutional requirement and acted as if it were a highly centralised unitary state. Folks in its smaller provinces have been demanding provincial autonomy to assert the state’s federal character. They regard it as a contract that formed the basis of the state’s establishment. This contract has never been implemented. Dissidents in Balochistan have periodically risen in revolt to protest its ongoing violation. The most recent of these revolts has been going on for several years.

Not a day passes without a clash between Baloch nationalist groups and the central government’s agencies and forces. This state of war is moving the local elites to thoughts of separatism and secession. That will mean the state’s disintegration and eventual extinction. Yet its managers at the centre show no signs of readiness to alleviate the Baloch grievances. Their indifference should be treated as the gravest threat to the country’s security.

There are other internal threats such as neglect of nation building and national integration, military rule and denial of democracy, oppression of political opponents, economic policies that widen the gap between the rich and the poor and generate the latter’s alienation from the state. All of them deserve to be considered. Having run out of space, I will have to defer that task to another time.

The writer is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk