"I assure you when it comes to choosing between the constitution and the country I will choose the country." Gen Ayub Khan-1958

"Constitution is meaningless if God forbid Pakistan does not exist." Gen Pervez Musharraf-2000

FOR all their loud patriotism - worn for the most part on the outer side of their sleeves - Pakistan's military saviours have never had much faith in their country's inherent strength. Only this can account for their fervent belief that but for their timely interventions in the political sphere the country would have gone to the dogs or ceased to exist.

As the above quotes demonstrate, these saviours have also tended to look darkly at the constitution as if constitutionalism left unchecked - that is, not tempered by the benign influence of militarism - posed a threat to national integrity. This theory of politics is pretty self-serving. It also reveals a primitive state of mind.

To state the obvious, a constitution, or indeed any system of laws, is not a divine covenant. It is a distillation of human experience meant to create (1)a framework for the orderly conduct of politics and (2) checks and balances against arbitrary or wilful behaviour. The caesar who chafes at such restraint is in fact saying that above all mortals he knows best what is good for the nation and in the exercise of this function let no man dare question him.

The wonder is that military saviours should at all seek the mantle of legitimacy from judicial hands. They would save themselves much effort, and the judiciary much embarrassment, if they were to remember that a coup d'etat's claim to legitimacy rests on its achievements. If it secures the public good it needs no seal of approval from any quarter. If it adds to the misery of a people nothing can save it from the condemnation of history.

If there had been anything remotely resonant about the Musharraf regime, nothing would have been heard, at least not for some time, about the need to restore democracy. But in five months time its lackadaisical performance has led even the greatest enthusiasts of military rule to a more sober assessment of its capabilities. No one is expecting miracles anymore. A lessening of the prevailing confusion would do but even that is not forthcoming.

As time passes less and less is being heard of General Musharraf's initial seven-point agenda. What has happened to the removal of inter-provincial disharmony, for instance, about which there was such a great fuss in the beginning? Other items, like devolution of power to the districts, are being flogged to death without realizing that a military set-up and devolution of any sort is a contradiction in terms. Ideas, in any case, seem not to be this dispensation's strongest point. Which is why the nation, helpless as always, is being treated to a course in elementary civics.

Whether in the fullness of time some crumbs are devolved to the districts or not, the army monitoring teams have already managed another kind of devolution: in the cities and towns where they are stationed they have looked at everything through the prism of municipal and sanitary administration. The great charge against General Zia was that he had depoliticized the nation. General Musharraf might yet succeed in municipalizing whatever passes for national discourse in Pakistan. The National Security Council is a redundant body, the cabinet a lack-lustre affair. It is a measure of the excitement these two bodies are generating that newspaper-reading has become a chore in this fourth military republic.

In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, this regime is beginning to look like a carbon copy of its three predecessors. Naturally, the dramatis personae are different. But the play is the same. Even the lines are the same. Imagine the growing disenchantment of the champions of military rule. They had welcomed the military takeover on October 12 thinking that a new beginning - nay, the long-awaited moment of redemption - was finally at hand. Much of that revolutionary fervour has since subsided as it has become increasingly clear that it is not so much a brave new world we are entering as seeing a repeat performance. If, as a consequence, a feeling of dejection is taking hold, it is scarcely surprising.

There is also a theoretical problem which dogs this regime. The case for its existence is built on a single premise: that in his attempt to dismiss General Musharraf, and appoint Lt-Gen Ziauddin Butt in his place, Nawaz Sharif committed the cardinal sin of playing politics with the unity of the army command. All the evidence we have reinforces this charge. Sharif showed the army a red rag and the army reacted like an enraged bull.

In other words, Sharif forced the issue and his removal from power was therefore justified. So far so good but what about the train of events following his dismissal? If Sharif deserved what he got, what has the nation done to deserve the bitter and unwanted medicine being pushed down its throat? Suspending the Constitution and the assemblies, vilifying the political process, dealing harshly with selected political figures and drawing a self-serving distinction between 'real' and 'sham' democracy: there is no inevitable link between these steps, which affect the nation as a whole, and Sharif's offence which was his alone or that of his closest advisers.

Politicians may be bad and indeed since 1985 they have not given a good account of themselves. Through a transparent and honest process let those who have sinned the most be punished. But why should

the nation as a whole be made to suffer for their faults? General Musharraf and his colleagues are under the impression that the masses are rooting for them. They are mistaken. The masses want change but having been through these experiments before, they are also coming round to the realization that the answer to their dreams does not lie in the rhetoric and brave postures currently on offer.

Thanks to military rule, Pakistan is marking time. It needs to move forward. It needs some dynamism in its affairs. Its people need hope and a sense of confidence about the future. This is not a nation without talent or promise. But it needs a sense of direction which military rule, even with the best intentions in the world, and especially of the kind that periodically rears its head in Pakistan, cannot give.

Here mention might be made of a strange argument that has acquired currency among the drawing room classes (people in the streets having a better appreciation of political realities). Confronted with the pitfalls of military rule, they respond with the retort: do you want the return of Nawaz Sharif? As if the only choice before the hapless people of this land was between two pieces of real estate: Raiwind and GHQ. If Nawaz Sharif was a disaster, and there is little question that he was, there is no law which says that the nation should plunge immediately into another disaster.

National life may have been derailed on October 12 but it should not mean that it remains derailed forever. We need a grand meeting of minds between soldiers and politicians so that the country, as quickly as possible and without incurring any more international odium, can be returned to the democratic path.

An arbitrary list (an adjective used advisedly) of the corrupt names in politics can be drawn up so that these grandees are debarred from politics. My schoolmate Lt-Gen Amjad of NAB should become subject specialist of wars of attrition in the National Defence College and should have nothing to do with the preparation of this list because at his pace even the turtles will want to go home. Lt-Gen Aziz can head a permanent committee on Kashmir affairs. (Benazir Bhutto's one stroke of genius during her two terms as prime minister was to make Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan chairman of the Kashmir committee, a task which, besides advancing the national interest, kept the venerable Nawabzada busy.) The Chilean model, whereby General Augusto Pinochet was made Senator for Life when Chile was returned to democracy, can also be studied for its application to our circumstances.

In short, anything that will get us out fast from the bleak and lonely woods in which, for want of a guiding star, we are rapidly losing our way.