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CURRENT times, when a change in the person who occupies one of the highest positions of authority is on everyone’s mind, provide good reason to mull over something that has become banal: that in a modern democracy, those who are employed by the state to serve the citizens are in the English language referred to as public, or civil, servants, or military servicemen (or women).
The routes through which these two categories of people are meant to secure ease, prosperity and peace for the citizenry are different, but the idea underpinning the nomenclature is the same: service in the benefit of both the people and the state. Time and overuse may have blunted the concept’s once remarkable edge, but it remains as vital to the functioning of a state as ever.
By the logic of the concept these terms indicate, the important part is the institution and the office. Or, to put it another way, individuals come and go, many subsequently relegated to the footnotes of history, a few remembered for their stellar virtues (or, as it may be, mischief-making propensities) — but it is the institution and the office that represents it that goes on forever.
So it is that in Pakistan’s history there are a few names that stand out for having been worthy of remark in their idea of what serving the public meant — Gen Ziaul Haq, for example. And they are generally the ones who misused the power granted to them by the seat they occupied to focus it on their persons.
Politicians’ power stems from their own persons and rhetoric.
There are many names that can be plucked from even the merely recent past of the country to illustrate this point. For instance, retired army chief Ashfaq Kayani and former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry were personalities who received a paycheque from the state so that they could carry out their tasks to serve the public within the capacity of their offices. Many would say that they did so, to the best of their abilities and according to their own understanding as to what this entailed.
Their decisions can be picked over for decades, but the point is this: ultimately, it was the institution they represented that mattered. This, despite the fact that these personalities, and several others like them, for a while appeared (indeed, were) all-powerful figures whose influence and reach would never diminish. Yet, for enduring relevance after leaving their posts, they would have had to look beyond the scope of civil or military service, as indeed Mr Chaudhry chose to do.
Contrast this with the power wielded by those of relevance to the public without necessarily being tied to any ideas of actually serving the public or keeping the citizenry’s good in mind: the political classes.
Unlike public servants, politicians aren’t committed to ‘service’ in the same sense because they are (somewhat) free to make whatever promises or projections of the future they want, good or bad — Donald Trump being a case in point. Their power stems largely from their own persons and rhetoric, and is linked to the people’s freedom to like the visions thus articulated, or loathe them, as they see fit.
Politicians don’t derive their relevance (or power) from an office or institution they have come to occupy. Indeed, for them, the opposite is true: they find themselves in office only if the personality they exude and the concepts of the future they articulate manage to win over enough people to get them elected — and after that, re-elected too.
Hardly curious, then, that neither retirement from office nor political marginalisation nor even death, in some cases, will necessarily rob a politician of his relevance or appeal (and thus power) as far as people are concerned. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir, for example, both in their graves still exert influence over millions. The power they and their name exudes varies, of course, but not yet can it be said that they are history’s footnotes.
Again, even recent political history provides no shortage of names that ride upon the back of personal power — Nawaz Sharif, exiled and forced into the political wilderness for years and then yet again elected to the highest seat of power, with still a chance at pulling it off in 2018; Imran Khan, derided and untested in political office yet riding upon a wave of popularity that has survived the electoral battle that he lost.
Beyond these figures that occupy the current political landscape lie others, good or bad, efficient or corrupt, but still enduringly part of the public lexicon, be they Akbar Bugti or Mahmood Khan Achakzai or Asfandyar Wali (or indeed Khan Abdul Wali Khan) or a host of others.
Might those chafing against the confines of public or military service find this galling? Perhaps that’s another lens through which to view the imbalances that plague Pakistan.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2016
