It gets better, trust me

A dispassionate analysis of our polity actually gives us many reasons to be hopeful

RASUL BAKSH RAIS

This piece reflects on the last four years of Pakistan’s journey into democracy, and raises three questions; what have we accomplished, are the gains sustainable and what other steps could we take to make democracy work better? Let there be no confusion about democracy being Pakistan’s only destiny. A m u l t i c u l t u r a l , multi-ethnic country with so diverse, and even conflictive, identities cannot be governed, managed and integrated into a single nation without democratic rule. Those who thought otherwise, and imposed military rule in the past, had no understanding of the diverse societies that make Pakistan, no idea about how to build a state and a nation in the historical context of Pakistan, and, indeed, no sense of world history. The results of the colossal blunders of all the four military dictators are before us, and their legacies of political fragmentation, subversion of the constitution and state institutions are not going to leave us anytime soon. The Pakistani polity will have to be repaired step by step and one issue at time, and we will have to be patient, persistent and focused on righting the wrongs of the dictatorships.

The second point that I would wish to make is that democracy is neither new to Pakistan, nor it is a gift of anyone to the peoples of this country. The idea of a ‘responsible’ or representative government, if not as a whole for the Indian subcontinent, in parts, starting with the local government institutions, began under the colonial rule. So did the modern political ideas of a constitutional government, meaning a government restrained by laws and accountable before law and the peoples, emerged in the consciousness of the peoples of this area more than a century back. The political parties, nationalism, newspapers, social movements of all types, from religious reforms to political mobilisation, have a long history in the subcontinent, including the regions that now comprise Pakistan.

Let us not forget that the struggle for Pakistan, an independent country for the Muslim majority areas, was shaped by the idea of political and civil rights, and the means that the founders of Pakistan had opted for were peaceful, political, and constitutional. Sadly, the democratic and constitutional vision of the founders was lost when a few of the bureaucrats found opportunity in the weakened Muslim League and weak institutions of the new state to capture power and derailed the country from its democratic path. The rival tradition of personal, personalised, and extra- constitutional rule has manifested itself in Pakistan in four military takeovers. Actually, four military generals have ruled the country, according to their idea of what could be good for them and the country, for nearly half of its existence.

Despite all the manipulation of law and institutions by the four generals and their co-opted political elites, the democratic tradition of Pakistan has not died out. Each dictator faced a popular movement for democracy, and the country returned back to democratic rule once the dictator was deposed or dead.

Since 2008, we have started staggering back to democracy. Let us recount what we have accomplished. Being a strong critic of this government, notably of the coalition partners, I cannot ignore some of the truly significant successes toward providing essence to democracy. The first and foremost is the 18th Constitutional Amendment, which has, in fact, not only restored the original spirit and consensus of 1973, but has also achieved a landmark consensus on provincial autonomy. Then and now, the democratic political forces of all shades and opinion— ethnic nationalist, religious, mainstream, left and right—negotiated and reached a genuine consensus. All political conflicts, clashing interests and rivalries were pushed back to purge the provisions inserted into the constitution by two military dictators that mutilated it, and actually made it unworkable since the distortions created multiple centres of power.

During the almost ten years of dictatorial rule, general Pervez Musharraf couldn’t get provincial consensus on the National Finance Commission Award. Once again, a remarkable achievement of the post-military regime in Pakistan is shaping this difficult consensus by give and take, compromise and yielding of ground in a spirit of cooperation. These are successes of democratic rule. More than resolving issues amicably, they establish norms, generate empathy and build coalitions around alternative visions and sets of solutions that are always amenable to change and negotiated settlements.

Yet another milestone is the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. Although it started with a minor issue of providing constitutional cover to the elected members of provincial and national legislatures, the major opposition party, the PML-N, struck a hard bargain on two democracy-building national issues— an independent Election Commission and an interim government in consultation with the opposition parties. At least theoretically, this must pave the way for free, fair election and peaceful transfer of power to another party or a coalition, depending on the outcome of the next elections, later this year or early next year. A couple of peaceful transfers of power and the carrying out of fair elections will firmly root Pakistan into democracy, and that will move the country into the global club of well-established democracies.

It would be, however, premature to reach this conclusion. There is reason to be optimistic as the above points illustrate, but there are also many reasons to be pessimistic, for the behaviour of our ruling elites has not been always pro-democracy. The fact of the matter is that a large part of the electoral elite has been with the military governments in the past, and even in the present phase of our democratic development, the ruling groups are resisting meaningful transition to democracy.

What are they resisting? They are resisting rule of law, accountability, supremacy of the constitution and independence of judiciary. The ruling groups have been questioning jurisdiction of the supreme court, trashing its stature and defying its decisions, arrogating them with power to judge, whereas this is the mandate of the judiciary. Even in the ‘clash of the institutions’, there are legacy issues of the corruption cases of the past with a tinge of political victimisation and the National Reconciliation Ordinance of Musharraf—his ultimate surrender and big gamble for holding on to power.

Maybe, the resistance of the ruling elite to true democracy is a part of natural democratic growth. The balance among conflicting social and political forces and state institutions takes some time to settle jurisdictional boundaries. This also requires the next stages of democratic struggle through civil society, free media and an active and principled opposition. We have covered lot of territory but democracy, even in mature democratic states, is an unfinished evolution. What is important is a constitutional consensus, rules of political game and many players in a political competition. Pakistan’s democracy has all these elements.

The writer is an academic at LUMS.