February 8, 2004

From the Basic Democracy of Ayub to the civil martial law of Bhutto and on to the militarized democracy of Musharraf, the country seems to have done enough experimentation to be designated as the world’s first Political Science lab

WITH the recent deal over the LFO, yet another political arrangement is being experimented with in the country. Taking a broader view of what has gone on earlier in our chequered history, it is fair to say that Pakistan has failed to evolve a political formula that can stabilize the reproduction of the polity according to institutionalized norms, practices and procedures enjoying popular legitimacy. Positive political stability is based on a consensus on national identity, state ideology and institutions.

Here, we will only examine the domestic sphere — leaving out the external factors — in search for an explanation as to why Pakistan is unable to establish a resilient and coherent political system. Let’s begin with a brief historical sketch before attempting an explanation.

The death of Jinnah just 13 months after independence was a major setback to polity-building. Although Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan tried to furnish continuity by formally subscribing to the multi-party parliamentary system, he actually ruled through a one-party authoritarian system. Liaquat was assassinated in 1951, and a crisis of leadership occurred. The civil bureaucracy asserted its paramount position as the de facto ruling authority in national politics and has since remained along with the military the real ruling oligarchy in Pakistan.

The Objectives Resolution adopted by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on March 7, 1949 talked about Pakistan becoming a democracy in consonance with Islam. It proclaimed that sovereignty over the entire universe belonged to God. Democracy was to be practised within Islamic limits. The minorities were assured that their legitimate interests would be safeguarded and that provisions would be made for them in accordance with Islam freely to profess and practise their religions and cultures.

In 1956 the Pakistan Constituent Assembly adopted the first constitution which declared Pakistan an Islamic republic. As far as the Islamic part is concerned, it was laid down that all laws will be brought in conformity with the Quran and the Sunnah, and the head of the state had to be a Muslim. However, no elections were held and the constitution was never promulgated. That phase ended with the military takeover by General (later Field Marshal) Ayub Khan in October 1958. Subsequently, Ayub decided to switch over to a civilian role but one based on the US presidential system. He gave the nation a new constitution. The president was to be elected indirectly by an 80,000 directly-elected Basic Democrats. Though the constitution initially referred only to the ‘Republic of Pakistan’ (changed to Islamic Republic by the first amendment), the commitment to bring all laws in conformity with the Quran and the Sunnah was reiterated.

The adoption of the presidential system was justified in terms of its alleged proximity to the classic caliphate model of Islamic state. Ayub fell from power in 1969 as a result of protracted popular protests and agitations, and a caretaker military government under General Yahya Khan took over. It restored the parliamentary system and the first ever free and fair national elections were held in December 1970.

The East Pakistan-based Awami League contested the elections on a programme that virtually aimed at converting Pakistan into a confederation, or a very weak federation. It swept the polls in that province and alone won a majority of 161 seats in a 300-member National Assembly. Such an outcome proved too radical for the essentially West Pakistan-based ruling circles.

Negotiations between the Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the military and the main winner in West Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, failed to find a power-sharing formula acceptable to all sides. On March 25, 1971 the Pakistan Army decided to crack down with a heavy hand on a growing rebellion.

Thereafter, for several months a civil war raged in East Pakistan. The loss of life has been estimated to be at least 1.5 million. Some 10 million Bengalis sought refuge in India. The Indian Army intervened in that conflict on behalf of the Bengalis and on December 17 the Pakistan Army surrendered to it. The original Pakistan ceased to exist, as East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh.

Power in the truncated West Pakistan was handed over to Bhutto, who undertook various agrarian and industrial reforms. Simultaneously he resorted to various populist measures to win support from traditionalist sections of society. Thus, the third constitution adopted by the National Assembly in 1973 not only required the president but also the prime minister to be a Muslim. In 1974 the National Assembly declared the followers of the Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslims.

On July 5, 1977 General Muhammad Ziaul Haq overthrew Bhutto and established military rule. Zia experimented with a fundamentalist Islamic system whose main distinguishing feature was the imposition of reactionary laws, separate electorates and various obscurantist cultural changes.

His preference for Sunni-Deobandi type of Islam made the Sunni-Barelvi majority apprehensive and the minority Ithna Ashari Shias, Ismailis, Bhoras and indeed the Ahmadis greatly insecure. Also, Christians and Hindus felt greater alienation from the nation during that period. Zia subsequently perished in a plane crash in August 1988.

His departure opened the way for new elections. The Pakistan People’s Party won the majority of seats and formed a coalition government under Benazir Bhutto. A two-party system began to evolve during that time with her PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif being the main actors along with various smaller parties.

However, the military-bureaucratic oligarchy did not hesitate to dismiss both Benazir and, later, Sharif on allegations of corruption even when they enjoyed a majority in the house. On the other hand, both Benazir and Shairf did nothing to withdraw the dogmatic Islamic laws of the Zia period.

On October 12, 1999 General Pervez Musharraf staged a coup and came to power. Sharif was imprisoned and later sent into exile. Benazir has also been living in exile since many years. The recent elections of 2002 officially prohibited Benazir and Sharif from contesting the elections.

The government itself facilitated the election of ‘yes’ men assembled under the PML-Q. An alliance of fundamentalist parties won handsomely in the NWFP and Balochistan where they now rule. Thus, currently Pakistan is ruled in accordance with a modified and heavily amended 1973 constitution. A parliamentary system of government of the King’s Party is in power, but the real power still lies somewhere else.

We shall attempt an explanation of this chequered political history of unsuccessful system-building under three heads, national identity, state ideology and institutions.

NATIONAL IDENTITY: The Pakistan Movement was based on a negative unity of various sections of the Muslim community of India against the Indian National Congress coming into power in a united India. What sort of state Pakistan would be, was never clearly spelled out. Thus, the Punjab Governor, Sir Evan Jenkins, met the visiting All-India Muslim League leader Khawaja Nazimuddin on February 18, 1947 in Lahore to find out what type of state Pakistan would be. He recorded in his fortnightly report to the viceroy:

“In our first meeting Khawaja Nazimuddin admitted candidly that he did not know what Pakistan means, and that nobody in the ML knew, so it was difficult for the League to carry on long-term negotiations with the minorities. (Records of the Political and Secret Department: L /P & J /5/250, p. 3/79).

Maintaining ambiguity about the purpose of Pakistan helped the League achieve negative unity amongst the various Muslims sects on the basis of a common Islamic identity against Congress rule in a united country, but translating the same into a binding factor amongst Sunnis, Shias, Wahabis, Ahmadis, Ismailis, Bohras and other Muslims has not been possible. Rather experience tells that the greater one tries to elaborate Islamic identity in political terms, the wider grow the cleavages among the disparate Muslim sects.

THE PROBLEM OF IDEOLOGY: The problem of identity is compounded by the more complex problem of ideology. Identity is nebulous, but ideology refers to concrete societal goals and objectives associated with the notion of a good society. Amongst the Muslim League leaders at least three different perceptions of Pakistan prevailed:

* Among the modern-educated Muslim gentry, consisting of constitutional lawyers, writers, academics and others who constituted a majority of the higher and middle-rank leadership of the Muslim League, an idealized version of progressive Islam had been cultivated since at least the time of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in the second half of the 19th century.

However, under the influence of Allama Iqbal, an intellectual movement began to evolve that sought to synthesize dogmatic Shariah and modern ideas about democracy. Consequently, he proposed ‘spiritual democracy’ instead of secular democracy as the proper ideology for a Muslim state. Therefore, once the initial euphoria of founding a state was over and Jinnah was no more and a search for a framework for national identity and state-building began — one that would distinguish it sharply from Hindu-majority secular India — it was rather natural that the modernist leadership would seek to combine Islam and democracy. After all, Pakistan had been won in the name of Muslim nationalism and hundreds of thousands of Muslims had been massacred (as indeed were Hindus and Sikhs) in the communal riots.

To Muslims who had gone through the convulsions and trauma of Partition riots, it was quite clear that Pakistan was going to be their special state.

Such thinking unmistakably prevailed in the language and message of the Objectives Resolution, which talked about Pakistan becoming a democracy in consonance with Islam. However, if we look at the historical sketch given above, we notice that the Islamic democracy gradually and incrementally moved towards greater compliance with dogmatic Shariah and, therefore, it is difficult to establish equilibrium between political Islam and democracy

• The most intriguing part of the Pakistan story is the fact that the main fundamentalist Islamic groups opposed its creation and it was the westernized members of the gentry who spearheaded the movement for its creation. How could the former gain control over the state and impose their rigid and repressive version of Islam on Pakistan? This has been a difficult puzzle to solve for some scholars and observers specializing on Pakistan.

Usually, such writers concentrate upon the constitutional aspects of the evolution of the Pakistan demand. They neglect or trivialize the actual ways and tactics that the Muslim League employed when it launched a mass movement from the end of 1945 onwards. Fanatical and extremist slogans and the mobilization of clerics transformed the nature of the Pakistan demand and consequently a constituency for an Islamic state based on classic Shariah did exist at various levels of the Muslim League even though the top leadership generally held liberal views. This is clearly stated in the fortnightly confidential report of February 22, 1946 sent to Viceroy Wavell by Punjab Governor Sir Bertrand Glancy:

“The ML (Muslim League) orators are becoming increasingly fanatical in their speeches. Maulvis (clerics) and Pirs (spiritual masters) and students travel all round the Province and preach that those who fail to vote for the League candidates will cease to be Muslims; their marriages will no longer be valid and they will be entirely excommunicated ... It is not easy to foresee what the results of the elections will be. But there seems little doubt the Muslim League, thanks to the ruthless methods by which they have pursued their campaign of ‘Islam in danger’ will considerably increase the number of their seats and unionist representatives will correspondingly decline. (Records of the Political and Secret Department: L/P & J /5/249, p. 155).

Indeed the League swept the elections in Punjab. It also applied the same tactics in Sindh and the NWFP, and the Muslim voters of Sindh elected all the League candidates, while the gains in the NWFP were also impressive.

Consequently, substantial popular support was achieved by mobilizing Islamist sections of society. The Islamist legacy is also intrinsic to the Pakistan movement and it was gradually given recognition by the various constitutions of Pakistan. Under Ziaul Haq it gained open patronage. Such a development served to sharpen sectarian differences as well as create a militant type of jihadi movement which was active in Afghanistan and is currently believed to be active in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

• Secularist ideas held an appeal for highly educated individuals among politicians and bureaucrats, but they constituted a small group. In subsequent years, marginalized leftists, oppressed minorities, retired bureaucrats and some intellectuals from time to time refer to the August 11, 1947 speech of Jinnah in which he unequivocally advocated a secular-liberal democracy for Pakistan. Among them, the most famous was the former chief justice of Pakistan Muhammad Munir.

In his book, From Jinnah to Zia (1978), Munir asserted that the reasons for the creation of Pakistan were social and economic. Pakistan was created to emancipate the Muslims from the socio-economic oppression of the Hindus and the Sikhs, and to free them from the shackles of the caste system. The secularists could not evolve any independent social or political base for their support in Pakistan and over time they have been marginalized from power and influence. However, their aspiration come closest to the vision of Pakistan spelled out by Jinnah on August 11, 1947.

INSTITUTIONAL IMBALANCE: The constant wrangling among the politicians during the early days of Pakistan almost by default facilitated the civil bureaucracy initially and, later, the military to assume the role of the custodians of the national interest. Thus, the bureaucratic vice-regal system inherited from the colonial period became entrenched, thereby establishing the superiority of the administrative branch of the state over the elected representatives of the people.

However, this can never be given de jure recognition because such a system has no legitimacy in either democratic or Islamic theory. Consequently, the actual practice of the government is very different from the professed high goals of making Pakistan Islamic and democratic. Most of the time, Pakistan is ruled on the basis of pragmatism and ad-hocism.

CONCLUSION: Pakistan needs to decide if its national identity as a Muslim state is going to be symbolic or substantive. As pointed out above, any attempt to use Islam in more than a symbolic sense is bound to prove divisive given the various sects and the sub-sects of Islam.

Perhaps, a territorial Pakistani identity needs to be cultivated that would include not only all types of Muslims, but also non-Muslim minorities into a grand Pakistani nation. Once that is done, building institutions commensurate with inclusive democracy would need to be given top priority. Most importantly, the civil servants and the military generals will have to hand over power in real terms to the genuine representatives of the people.

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