AT times even when a thing is patently bad its badness remains hidden. But a time comes when it begins to look, feel and smell bad. This is about the stage we have happily arrived at in Pakistan: the wages of one-man rule apparent in all their glory even to the blinkered eye.
TV shots of president-in-uniform presiding over meetings of Q League politicos used to inspire laughter. Now they don’t even elicit a yawn. You watch and you switch to another channel.
It’s no longer the army or General Headquarters presiding over the nation’s imprisoned fortunes. The army should not be tarred by this brush because if you sniff around you’ll soon get the feeling that even the army is embarrassed by what’s going on. As if all-round American lackeydom wasn’t bad enough — and there’s no shortage of men in high rank chafing at this lackeydom — we now have to contend with the spectacle of the president-in-uniform putting all his eggs in the Gujrat basket.
When Lt-Gen Amjad was NAB chief, more than one corps commander, aware of the financial shenanigans of the political class, strongly argued that the Gujratias should not escape the accountability net. But someone saved them. Legend has it my friend Tariq Aziz — for better or worse, General Musharraf’s ‘Henry Kissinger’ — did the saving. Seeing his boundaries thus circumscribed, Amjad, an upright man, washed his hands off the whole business of accountability.
No wonder, Gujrat now is threatening to become what Larkana used to be in the time of the Bhuttos, and what Gawalmandi, Lahore, briefly was in the time of the Sharifs. Only difference is that the army wasn’t behind the glorification of Larkana.
Know what the toughest wages of one-man rule are? An entire institution blamed and its image besmirched because of the political necessities of one man. We have fallen into the habit of blaming the entire army for the present state of affairs. This is unfair. There have been corps commanders trying to swim against the current, voicing their opinions forcefully even when they knew it wouldn’t make a difference.
One of the biggest misconceptions nurtured since September 11 is that the corps commanders as a whole were behind the fatal U-turn which saw Pakistan clambering aboard America’s wagon and participating, even if indirectly, in the slaughter and destruction of Afghanistan.
To begin with, the decision to succumb to American pressure was taken not by the corps commanders as a whole but by the president-in-uniform and two, three, at the most four of his closest aides.
The pro-American lobby may have carried the day but the fact remains that senior officers, risking the displeasure of their chief, did the honourable thing by speaking what was on their minds.
Another myth assiduously propagated by circles close to the presidency is that all the senior generals supported the presidential referendum of April 2002. This is incorrect because there were many generals who said that it was the wrong thing to do and would make the army look bad.
Indeed, the discussion on this issue began in the morning and lasted all day without any consensus being arrived at. Close to maghreb prayers the meeting was adjourned with the president saying that the discussion had been inconclusive and would be taken up again. But later that evening, without any subsequent taking place, the decision about holding the referendum was announced.
Now matters are slightly different in that all the corps commanders are much too junior to Gen Musharraf. He is from 29th PMA long course. One or two of the corps commanders are from 48th. With such a gap existing, speaking up is not easy.
I am not saying there are no yes-men in senior positions. All too dismayingly, there are. Rebels and Bolsheviks, after all, dont usually make it to higher positions in the army. At the same time, however, the perception that corps commanders all the time behave like robots, wagging their tails to whatever the chief says, is incorrect.
As I have tried to point out, regarding two important, indeed seminal, decisions, there were strong dissenting views among the senior generals.
The culture of endless perks and privileges, the culture spawned by lavish housing societies, may be far advanced. And it may have corrupted the fighting spirit of the army. But it would be wrong to think that the army’s higher echelons are totally oblivious to public sentiment or totally unconcerned about (1) the alien war the army is having to fight in Waziristan, (2) the conflict in Balochistan and (3) the shady political manoeuvring already underway to give a further extension to the present order.
Given the pervasive hold of American lackeydom, national feeling may have a hard time surviving but it has yet to be snuffed out completely.
Trouble, however, is that little of the anxiety troubling the national mood is finding expression in the political arena. The political parties, big and small, are making noises but still failing to fire the public mood. The ‘charter of democracy’ the PPP and PML-N are signing is, in effect, preparing for the last war. A code of political conduct while useful will be relevant only when both parties are within striking distance of power, a somewhat remote prospect at the moment.
The more pressing issue is to be clear about the forthcoming elections. Whenever they take place, this year, next year, whenever, they will be meaningless, amounting to a mockery of democracy, if held under the shadow of the president’s uniform. The opposition parties should have nothing to do with such an exercise.
Situations differ. The opposition boycott of the 1985 elections was disastrous. An opposition participation in any uniform-tainted elections will be suicidal, giving the opposition parties little advantage while conferring legitimacy on the elections.
The same holds true of the presidential election. The opposition parties should take part in such an election only if it is in accordance with articles 41 and 63 of the Constitution. Otherwise, they should have no truck with it. If the general wants to march in solitary splendour accompanied by the Q League and the MQM, so be it. The opposition parties should not shoot themselves in the foot by lending him company.
But what will the MMA do? That’s the big question. Will the holy fathers take a democratic stand, which in the circumstances means an anti-uniform stand, or, as in 2002, will they give Gen Musharraf a free ride by allowing petty advantage to override principle? The holy fathers have to do some serious thinking.
The coming elections, both presidential and general, are not for the general to win. They are for the opposition to lose. If the opposition parties put their faith in the people of Pakistan they can have future in their hands. But if they look to America to bring them to power — as both the PPP and PML-N are doing to varying degrees — they run the risk of squandering this opportunity and giving another extension to a system proving to be a heavy burden on the people of Pakistan.
TAILPIECE: What’s the animus against Khawaja Saad Rafiq, PML-N MNA, who was bailed out by the Lahore high court but immediately re-arrested by the Punjab government on another trumped-up charge? Does the government’s image as much good as the continued detention of Javed Hashmi and Yousaf Raza Gillani.