WITH the fleeing hordes from Delhi, which descended upon Karachi in 1947, came Herbert Feldman, a learned, perceptive Englishman wedded to a Muslim woman of Punjab, a woman to the manor born.

Feldman knew everyone worth knowing in Pakistan, from Mohammad Ali Jinnah downwards. Educated and sharp, he kept his eyes and ears open but seldom voiced `profound` statements. Over the years, he wrote three books (amongst many) on the evolution of Pakistan and its politics, books which were published by Oxford University Press and which are probably out of print. If they are, OUP would do well to reprint them because any student of Pakistan`s history will find them invaluable as will anyone who wants to know and understand what went right, and more evidently, what went wrong with Pakistan right from its beginnings.

The first book published in 1967 is Revolution in Pakistan, the second in 1972 From Crisis to Crisis - Pakistan 1967-1969, and the final in the trilogy published in 1976, The End and the Beginning. His second title is particularly apt to our history.

Feldman, a friend of Pakistan, was a tall man, wont to gaze over the heads of others at the distant horizon or the setting sun whilst murmuring, “The makers of law will for ever arrogate unto themselves the right to break their own laws. Fortunately, I will not be around to record `The Beginning of the End`.”

Law and order has never fully been with us. Laws we have galore, but they are mere decoration. The only era about which it is possible to say that the leaders did make an effort to impose law and order were the first few years of the Ayub Khan rule. Apart from that, there has been little or mostly no effort, and Jinnah`s words spoken to his legislators on Aug 11, 1947, were delivered in vain.

His mantra was that the first and foremost duty of any government was the imposition and maintenance of law and order. This has been repeated month after month, year after dreary year, but to no avail. Our leadership is immune to any good thoughts or good deeds.

Now what do we have on the ground contesting our next round of free, fair, transparent, peaceful elections scheduled in a week`s time? Men who preach democracy and one party whose `revenge` for the tragic death of its leader will be democracy. But, and a big but, are any of them aware of what democracy is, of what it denotes? As said Churchill, democracy is the worst form of governance apart from all other known forms. My favourite historian who has written much sense that is relevant to Pakistan today, Basil Henry Liddell Hart, in his Why Don`t We Learn from History? has it that

“We learn from history that democracy has commonly put a premium on conventionality. By its nature, it prefers those who keep step with the slowest march of thought and frowns on those who may disturb the `conspiracy for mutual inefficiency`. Thereby, this system of government tends to result in the triumph of mediocrity — and entails the exclusion of first-rate ability, if this is combined with honesty. But the alternative to it, despotism, almost always inevitably means the triumph of stupidity. And of the two evils, the former is the less.”

In our various democratic spasms, had we had leadership that could boast that it was a triumph of mediocrity we may now have not been in the state in which we find ourselves. But we never managed to find even mediocrity — whatever we have had has been deeply flawed.

The official leader of the Q party (President General Pervez Musharraf being its ultimate leader), the Gujrat chaudhry, Shujaat Hussain, has taken to having printed under his name `exclusive` writings in our press (well done, Mushahid Saheb!). Last week, the national press carried one masterpiece on democracy entitled `Spiritual democracy`, a new form never before tried out.

The inaudible, incoherent Chaudhry has written, “The Pakistan Muslim League during its five-year term has passed legislation and contributed to many of the commonly accepted principles of modernity. However, it is important that our definition of modernity should comply with our own spiritual values...the Pakistan Muslim League holds as its pivot not just the modern universal concept of democracy, but more importantly, a higher goal — Iqbal`s vision of `spiritual democracy` to our thinkers and politicians alike. While we resolve our internal tensions in this debate as Pakistanis, let the winds of innovation assist us...”

Another contestant threatening change is Asif Zardari, though he has not spelt out how the change will come about and just what it entails. With the results of the elections already predicted, after the pre-poll rigging has taken place, just how can a mishmash of a government even contemplate change when its entire concentration will be on maintaining itself in power and examining the remains in the national kitty?

The Mian of Lahore, Nawaz Sharif, is concentrating on the judiciary and on the `restoration` of the dismissed judges all of whom had taken the January 2002 PCO oath. His record when it comes to the judiciary is hardly shining — Benazir Bhutto`s record was as dismal as it was she who brought in a Chief Justice of her own choice, leapfrogging over those senior to him. Whatever has passed for democracy had certainly served our judiciary ill. Nawaz will never, whatever he may say or however he may protest, live down the physical storming of the Supreme Court by his underlings on Nov 28, 1997. It has been left to Musharraf to finish off the judiciary which he successfully did last year, starting on March 9 with the reference against the Chief Justice and culminating on Nov 3 with the imposition of the emergency.

For a run down of just how destructive has been the general`s exercise against the judiciary, concise, factual and totally objective, we can do no better than to refer to amicus curiae Qazi Faez Isa`s article on the May 12, 2007 case, `Can we ever forget?` printed on the front page of the Metropolitan section of this newspaper of record on Feb 5.

On May 12 last year in the streets of Karachi, 50 citizens lay dead, 234 were injured, 110 vehicles were burnt, four properties destroyed and the offices of an independent TV channel was attacked. The Sindh High Court constituted a seven-member bench to hear the case. They met and deliberated for almost six months. On Nov 3, President Gen Pervez Musharraf struck. The judges who did not take the fresh oath under the imposed emergency were dismissed. Five of the seven took the oath and two new judges who had been appointed joined them on the reconstituted bench. A judgment was delivered on Feb 4. Inter alia, it stated “Thus in our view this is not a fit case where the Court should extend interference...” End of story.

President General Musharraf, how low can your government sink? The dead will one day be heard.

arfc@cyber.net.pk