The more I read about the goings-on in Islamabad, the more I feel like reaching for my pistol. What has all the hot air swirling around there got to do with real conditions in the country?
There is no water in the Chakwal District Hospital and the atmosphere inside is foetid. The last time I visited a patient there I could hardly stay inside for more than five minutes. Not that I have a sensitive nose. The drains outside my house are open. It's just that with little water available the hospital is too much to stand, especially in this sultry weather.
The Highway Department has been busy this past month and a half sacrificing crores of rupees in the name of road re-carpeting. The old macadam is not being dug up as it should be. Instead another layer of crushed stone and tar is being added to the old surfaces. This makes for flimsy work. But who is bothered by such niceties? Or by such daylight plunder?
The nation's leadership is busy in constructing another democratic edifice. We must be the greatest democracy-builders in the world. Every few years we tear down the old structures and start building anew. No other country can match our zeal.
When I was an MPA under the great dispensation of the Sharifs we had a weak and pliant scoundrel as Superintendent of Police (SP) in Chakwal. His name was Saleem Asghar and he owed his posting to that great tribune of the people, General (rtd) Majeed Malik, whose orders whether right or wrong this SP would obey. On more than one occasion I told the then gauleiter of Punjab, Shahabaz Sharif, about the real worth of this ornament to the police force. Punjab's strongman would hem and haw because I was a freshman MPA and Majeed Malik a bigwig in the Muslim League. When the Sharifs fell Malik lost no time in moving over to the King's Party then being formed under the tutelage of the ISI, Pakistan's longest-running institution of higher political learning. I wonder how Shahbaz Sharif feels about Malik now.
Whatever else the military government may or may not have done, it rid the country of the curse of political interference in the working of the police soon after it seized power. For the chattering classes it is hard to realize that ordinary people are less concerned about who the chief of the army staff is than about their local Station House Officer (SHO). And whether good SHOs are chosen or bad ones depends ultimately upon the kind of person the district SP is.
The grassroots are not where the seminar halls of Islamabad or the marble chambers of the National Reconstruction Bureau are situated. There are two Pakistans: that of the privileged and the discarded and between the two the distance is huge. From December '99--that is, soon after the Musharraf coup--right down to the present, Chakwal has had a succession of three good SPs. The last two, Rao Sardar and Saad Bharwana (whom I am naming because the good must get their due) were particularly outstanding because they kept their doors open to all comers, were firm in resisting political interference and were good at their jobs. What more can anyone want from a district police chief?
Yet for all their qualities these two officers have been posted out of Chakwal within a space of four months simply because they refused to play the role of political lackeys. What message does this send to their colleagues? That better not stand up to political interference.
There are many ills in the police department and often while looking at its working the impression is unmistakable that some of the country's biggest dacoits walk about in uniform. And yet despite all the deterioration, we have seen over the years good people are still to be found in its ranks. Such people make a difference. They are also remembered for any good that they do.
Back in the nineties there was an SP in Chakwal, Khalid Qureshi, who was very good at his work and listened to all comers but who took no nonsense from any minister or legislator. Hard as it may be to believe, from and to Chakwal his family travelled by public transport. That's what the trade-off usually is. In order to be firm you have to be straight. It is difficult for a crook to withstand pressure. Qureshi I haven't met or even spoken to since but he is still remembered as an upright and firm officer.
Tastes differ but still the question is worth asking. What rings louder - ill-gotten wealth or a fair name?
The common people of Pakistan stopped expecting miracles long ago. All they seek now from their rulers or officials is a bare minimum of sharafat and good behaviour. When they fail to get even that, can anyone blame them for being cynical and disbelieving?
Please bear in mind the thought that the key to good government is not the judiciary or anything else. It is the police force which is the everyday coercive and law-enforcing power at the disposal of every government under the sun. If that force is corrupt and not doing the job for which it is meant, nothing else will work. What is the foundation of the rule of law? Law enforcement. If there is something wrong with that, every other pious intention falls flat.
By far the worst feature of the 'democratic' decade of the nineties was not so much high-level corruption, although that was bad enough, as the criminalization and politicization of the police force, alternately at the hands of the PPP and the Nawaz League. When the PPP was in power its legislators--ministers, MNAs, MPAs--wanted their own favourites posted as SPs, DSPs and SHOs. When it was Nawaz Sharif in power his men wanted their favourites. Who got kicked around in this process was the sovereign awam.
One of the unsung achievements of the Musharraf regime was an end to this kind of political interference. Nawaz Sharif's ouster was hailed by many people across the country not because Nawaz Sharif himself was unpopular - although he had made his mistakes - as because people were sick and tired of his legislators strutting around like peacocks. The end of democracy was positively welcomed because democracy had come to be identified with four-wheel drive vehicles and unbridled arrogance.
A fact most urbanites don't realize is that the excesses of feudalism and that of democracy rest upon the misuse and manipulation of the police force. Only by controlling the police can a feudal or a politician exercise local influence. Or so at least most members of this tribe - of which I too am a part-time leaseholder - tend to think.
This has been the predicament of the district nazims ever since they were foisted upon an unwilling country. As executive heads of their districts they have a lot of power at their disposal. But there is a canker in their souls because the police are not under them. They can't have their favourites installed as SHOs and thana moharrars (the moharrar being the thana adjutant), at least not in those Punjab districts where there are strong SPs. That is why the district nazims have not stopped whining about their impotence vis-a-vis the police.
What after all is political chaudrahat (overlordship) worth in Pakistan if you don't have your minions in thanas favouring your supporters even if they break the law and harassing your opponents even when they have done nothing?
When the military government was strong it had no time for such whining. The nazims were obliged to keep their discontent to themselves. But with the government becoming a hostage to the necessity of the forthcoming elections, it is being obliged to listen to the rattling of the nazims who are amongst its leading allies. The government is expecting the nazims and the Quisling League to deliver the vote. The nazims are saying that they are being hampered by obstreperous police officers. That is why the purge in such places as Chakwal. Electoral necessity is gradually overtaking the requirements of administrative justice.
It is useless expecting the senior police leadership to show any spine. It never has in the past, it won't do so now. But the provincial governors might spare a thought for the people - the dumb cattle in their charge. Let the governors pursue their political agenda because that is what they are there for. Some of them performed as political clowns during the referendum. They can do so again. But let them spare the few good police officers who remain on the ground. The military government has done well in some areas. As it starts to panic at the prospect of the coming elections, let it not be said that it has done ill in everything.