DAWN - Opinion; 14 March, 1999
'Democrats' against democracy
By Eqbal Ahmad
IN most democracies there is one occasion each year on which politicians forgo partisan politics in order to honour the symbol of statehood - the constitutional head of state. The honour is accorded to the office not the person holding it. He/she may be good or bad, admired or hated, controversial, mediocre, corrupt, ugly, or stupid. On that occasion his failings are forgotten and he is treated with decorum for the office he holds.
There is a recent example: Bill Clinton was facing impeachment and the proceedings had taken a most partisan character when he went to Capitol Hill to deliver the presidential State of the Union Message. Among those who heard him respectfully and applauded him decorously were his prosecutors. The event suggested a stable democratic order where respect for processes and institutions takes precedence over partisan politics and personal grievances.
Contrast it to the conduct of Pakistan's leader of the opposition during President Rafiq Tarar's annual address to the joint session of the parliament. I first heard of it from two ambassadors who visited me directly after attending the scandalous affair. They described the outrage with amusement while I heard it with deep shame. Neither of them could recall anything that either the President of Pakistan or the head of the 'shadow government' had to say. Said one of the diplomats: "Like a crier in cattle auctions she was screaming as the President spoke, the opposition legislators heckled and pounded at their desks when she stopped to breathe, and the sound system went haywire. I heard not a sentence, but the din nearly split my ears. I had never seen anything like it."
Ms Benazir Bhutto is of course a phenomenon. It is rare to find such contrasting traits - persistence and courage, corruption and purposeless will to power - converging in a single corpus. But her detractors in the government have done all they could to bring out the worst in the leader of the opposition, and shown little inclination to nurture democratic institutions and values. An accounting of their failings would begin with the misuse to which they have put the so-called accountability process. What should have been a judicious and judicially correct procedure has been turned into a two-year long political trial by the government-controlled radio and television, newspaper advertisements, innuendos and unsubstantiated public accusations.
The protracted campaign has been so vicious and extra-legal that it is now rebounding on the government. Talk to people in the bazaars and streets and you will find the conviction growing of Ms. Bhutto's innocence and Mr. Nawaz Sharif's vindictiveness. Mr. Saifur Rahman has done his benefactor a lasting damage. If the court convicts Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Zardari - it may do just that - the popular opprobrium will now be born by Mr. Nawaz Sharif.
The president does not add either to the weight of the government or the legitimacy of the state. Mr. Rafiq Tarar was nominated by the ruling party. Given the fait accompli, we have no choice but to accord him the respect due the head of state. Yet, the incontrovertible fact is that his appointment betrayed a certain disregard of the interests of democracy, the state, and the people of Pakistan. It is customary to expect that the person whom the majority party shall nominate to the country's highest office would command a national, if not international, stature and a bi-partisan, statesman's reputation.
Before Nawaz Sharif, only Z.A. Bhutto among Pakistan's parliamentary leaders had the opportunity to invest the office of the president with a certain stature and dignity. He was too insecure and authoritarian to comprehend the importance of the presidency as the office that helps legitimize the state and the democratic order. In 1997, Mr. Sharif had another historic opportunity to make such a nomination. He commanded a large parliamentary majority, had repealed the Eighth Amendment and denuded the presidency of all but a ceremonial role. He could have nominated for president a person capable of forging a non-partisan image, of supplying vision and wisdom when these were needed, and commanding a neutral, national stature. He lost that opportunity and the country pays for it in ways that I am sure is not visible to him and most of his associates.
A similar disregard of institution building and maintenance has been apparent in other areas. The Supreme Court suffered a physical assault by the goons of the ruling party. Fortunately for the country, the higher judiciary is recovering from the shock and many judges have recently issued independent judgments which have not pleased the executive authorities. One should hope that the executive authorities shall welcome this trend. To be sure, it is uncomfortable to live with an independent judiciary but in the long run it is good for the government no less than the state and the people. On their part, the judges ought to begin decisively to clean up the judiciary's Augean stables, by no means a simple or easy challenge.The bureaucracy continues to be treated by leaders and legislators of the ruling party as though they are their personal employees rather than that of the state, as though whims rather than rules and procedures govern their careers. There is much talk of better governance these days but the bottom line is as ignored today as it had always been, that the sina qua non of good governance is rule-making and adherence to rules. Over three decades, the rules by which the bureaucracy had functioned have eroded, and the gap is being filled by ad hoc measures, influence peddling, and corruption.
Democracy does not thrive without criticism of government performance and dissent from state policies. Apart from parliamentary debates, these are expressed most commonly through a critical press and independent associations of civil society such as human rights, workers' and women's organizations. Radio and television are the most effective means of communicating independent perspectives on state and society. In Pakistan, they are controlled by the state and are employed as instruments of propaganda for the men and the government in power. NTM (TV) and FM radio are private but their news and opinion programmes are under government control.
Despite promises, no government has taken even the first steps towards allowing a modicum of autonomy to the electronic media. Dish endowed viewers switch to foreign, especially Indian, channels. The burden of providing information and perspective on problems facing the state and society falls on the press. It is quite lively but given the low rate of functional literacy reaches less than 10 per cent of the population. One would think that the officials will be satisfied with this state of affairs, entirely in their favour. But no, the democratic spirit has not grown even to this degree.
In its recently released 1998 report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has, among other matters, recorded at some length the government's antipathy to the press. The minister of information promptly questioned its accuracy and, by so doing, helped publicize the report. In its reply the HRCP communique says: "Information Minister Mushahid Husain's criticism of the report was extensively covered by the electronic media he controls. On the other hand, the same media had not considered the Report itself worth a word of mention before that. ... As always the audience of radio and television get to know of any criticism of the government only from the response the government gives to it."
It is a tribute to the culture of power that the same person who, during the first government of Mr. Nawaz Sharif, had reacted to harassments of journalists by founding a Committee to Defend Journalists, now defends the government's assault on the press. The chasm between the cultures of power and civil society has to be narrowed if democracy is to survive in this country.
After a decade of unstable parliamentary governments, the democratic order is menaced by undemocratic trends and forces. Consider only two of these: Between 1988 and 1993, a two-party system, which is essential to stable parliamentary dispensation, had emerged. Today it shows signs of collapsing. The 'election' of Benazir Bhutto as the Peoples Party's chairperson for life is but one signal of it. The defections of Messrs. Farooq Leghari, Shafqat Mahmoud, and now Aftab Sherpao is another. If it occurs, Ms Bhutto's conviction will deal it the final blow. We may be heading towards a one-party regime.
Then there is the under-reported rise of religious militancy in this country. It is a subterranean phenomenon of which the existence is known but not quite visible. Qazi Husain Ahmed's public antics should not divert attention from it. He may well be knowing that his muscle flexing is not popular with citizens. Yet he does it, with some frequency these days, in order to impress and placate this hidden constituency of thousands of highly motivated, ideologically driven and armed militants. With the madaaris offering an inexhaustible reservoir of raw youth, thousands of these undergo military training and ideological induction each year in the various camps run by militant, sectarian organizations.
As they see it, theirs is a divine mission. They hold the state, including those of its organs which assist them, in contempt. Sociologically and psychologically their yearnings and grievances are deep seated. Sooner or later, they will turn on the enfeebled state and society. Hence the latter need to be reinvigorated, and with a sense of great urgency.