Dreaming of instant democracy

Dr Farrukh Saleem
The writer is an Islamabad-based
freelance columnist
farrukh15@hotmail.com

Fifty-four years of independent existence and we have already had three Constitutions, four Governor-Generals, five Martial Law Administrators, one Field Marshal, ten Presidents and 15 Prime Ministers. To be sure, no one left of his or her own sweat will. We have been through parliamentary as well presidential forms of governance. We have experimented with direct adult franchise, indirect elections and non-party elections and are yet to learn peaceful transfer of power.

Everyone, including our uniformed politicians, looks for instant democracy as a solution to all our problems. Democracy is not an event. It is an evolutionary process. The process, more often than not, begins with the buying and selling of votes and allocation of plots and contracts (this is how democracy got started in Britain as well). It surely doesn't end there. Democracy is a high-rise building. It has to be built brick by brick. It keeps on growing taller and never stops, ie, if given a chance. Democracy is not going to have a solution to every Pakistani problem but history stands witness that the building of democratic institutions promotes solutions to most problems. The other settled issue is that this country was created by politicians and not soldiers.

We continue to be a security state whereby the highest agenda is national defence. Democracy is fine as long as it conforms to the parameters dictated by the top priority. In 1953, Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin dared slashing the defence budget. General Ayub Khan and Iskander Mirza, the defence minister, had him dismissed. In 1989, thirty-six years down a similar road, Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi met in Islamabad. The two signed an agreement to end hostilities on the Siachin glacier that were costing Pakistan and India $1 million and $2 million a day, respectively. Rajiv-Benazir conversation was bugged and then leaked to Benazir's political opponents. Thirteen months after meeting Rajiv, Benazir was no more the prime minister.

In February 1999, after a ten-year lapse, came another window of opportunity the 'bus diplomacy' all the way to Minar-i-Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif embraced Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the historic city of Lahore. History has it that in exactly eight months Nawaz was prime minister no more. It is clear that our brethren in uniform do not trust civilians who display affection towards the Indians. For a Pakistani uniform to hug an Indian dhoti is apparently all right.

General Ziaul Haq, for instance, had been a regular visitor to New Delhi. On November 4, 1982, Zia met Indira Gandhi and they both decided to set up an Indo-Pakistani Joint Commission. On December 26, 1985, Zia met Rajiv and agreed not to attack each other's nuclear plants. In 1987, Ziaul Haq dashed to Jaipur on his own invitation to watch an India-Pakistan cricket match along with Rajiv Gandhi. It was termed 'cricket diplomacy'. To be sure, it was mostly cricket and little or no diplomacy.

To be certain, the civilian politicians are to be blamed and not their uniformed mentors. During election campaigns - either too timid, too foolish or both - our politicians stick to the warrior agenda. After getting elected they choke democratic institutions that could save them in times of trouble. While in power, first Benazir and then Nawaz, tried to sneak out of the national defence agenda that they had accepted during their election campaigns. With civil institutions already crippled they were check mated by the non-civil one. If a random survey were to be held asking Pakistanis to take their pick from a crate containing gainful employment, access to education, healthcare and Kashmir a majority is going to draw Kashmir the last.

If 'Destruction of democracy in Pakistan' were to be a movie the heroes will be the jurists who sat on the Tamizuddin case, the Dossov Federation of Pakistan and the Nusrat Bhutto petition (all validated some form of marital law). Politicians, the world over, are self-seeking and opportunistic. It is true that democracy is a messy business. It is also true that democracy is a bad form of governance. The problem is that every other alternative form of government is even worse. The defence budget in 1948 was Rs236 million. In 1958, Ayub jacked it up to Rs1 billion (remember, it was united Pakistan). It now stands at over Rs140 billion plus, Rs28 billion in pensions. That's an accumulated increase of 70,000%.

According to Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations 1992-99, "Pakistan despite its impoverished conditions" is one of the biggest arms purchasers in the global arms bazaars.

Democracy is not our priority. Defence is. One hundred percent of whatever is left after debt servicing goes into defence. After debt servicing and defence there is absolutely nothing left for health, education or anything else. When elected governments fail to deliver because of lack of resources this failure of delivery is taken as a pretext to take over the government. And, the cycle keeps on repeating itself.

We, as a nation, would have to decide once and for all where sovereignty actually lies. Is the parliament sovereign or is it the Constitution? Is it the people or is it the coercive forces? Is the Prime Minister sovereign or is it the President? Could it be the COAS?

Before we can do much there has to be a formal resolution of the issue of sovereignty (secular sovereignty that is). Until we do that our prime ministers shall continue to collide with the army top brass and the Constitution, without its own will, shall intermittently be held in abeyance. If the parliament is sovereign then it cannot be dissolved without its own act. If the Constitution is sovereign then its fundamentals cannot be tampered with. As long as the issue of sovereignty is not settled every force on the face of Pakistan shall continue to hunt for sovereignty, attempting to hold it and to monopolise it forever.

The question of sovereignty is a political one. In 1954, sovereignty was dragged into the Chief Court of Sindh (this is when the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by a half-paralysed governor-general, Ghulam Mohammed, with the support of Ayub Khan. Tamizuddin had challenged the dissolution). Chief Justice Sir George Constantine decided that the "Constituent Assembly was a sovereign" and that the "governor-general had no power of any kind to dissolve the Constituent Assembly."

Yes, there is instant coffee. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as instant democracy.