Pakistan is 42 years old today. It has been through three major wars, several border conflicts and two internal unsurgencies in Balochistan, with another simmering in Sindh at the moment. Two prime ministers, one president, three chief ministers, several generals, and dozens of political, religious and party leaders, including members of parliament, have been assassinated. We have chewed up three constitutions and countless provincial and federal governments. The shadow of Martial Law has hovered over us for nearly two-thirds of our life. In the process, over forty billion rupees have fled the country for safer havens in the West, and we have lost half our population and one-fifth our territory.
That’s not a bad record at all. Our rapacious self-destruction is symptomatic of a deep crisis of identity which remains unresolved to this date, threatening to puncture the pristine dreams of the Quaid-e-Azam four decades ago.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Quaid wanted a democratic and secular Pakistan. The two epithets go together. Everyone knows that and no amount of propaganda will succeed in revising history. This is probably the most fundamental issue at stake. Because our leaders have sabotaged democracy in this country over and over again for short-term personal and political reasons, they have been desperate to clutch at some alternate source of legitimacy to justify their political aberrations.
When the palace intrigues of the 1950s were dominated by selfish bureaucratic and feudal interests, the nascent culture of democracy and tolerance was inevitably compromised. When Gen Ayub Khan talked of ‘basic democracies’, he meant a benevolent but highly restricted, circumscribed and centralised autocracy. When Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto shouted about “peoples’ democracy”, he believed himself unassailable and infallible for at least twenty years. When Gen Zia ul Haq was forced to justify his autocratic rule, he took recourse to “Islamic democracy”.
It is heartening that, despite desperate attempts to sabotage the essence of democracy by prefacing it with words like ‘basic’, ‘peoples’ and ‘Islamic’, our detractors have failed to kill its spirit in the hearts and minds of the people. It is time we realised that democracy is here to stay, and no number of martial laws and theological autocracies will get rid of it.
The democracy Pakistan needs for its survival has many different but complimentary facets. To begin with, we have to consciously nourish a social culture of tolerance, large-heartedness and peaceful co-existence. A political edifice of democracy can only rise on the durable foundations of such a vigorous culture of indulgence.
Political democracy also needs strict adherence to a universally accepted set of laws and rules enshrined in a constitution. Arbitrary amendments should be shunned after consensus has been reached. The 1973 constitution should be protected from subversion. For better or for worse, it is all we have got. That is why the divisive 8th Amendment must go.
If we look at the political landscape today, after four decades of death and destruction, certain features stand out prominently. For one, the Pakistan Army under Gen Mirza Aslam Beg has reiterated its pledge to strengthen the political system of democracy and concentrate on its professional duties of soldiering. This is heartening. For another, the Pakistan Peoples Party has been returned to its rightful place in Islamabad after many years of persecution in the political wilderness. However, this picture is marred by the blot of a dictator.
The IJI, whose democratic credentials were extremely suspect to begin with, today insists on resurrecting the legacies of a military usurper. This is unpardonable. Nothing muddies the democratic waters more than breathing life into the political ghosts of Generals Zia ul Haq and Akhtar Abdur Rehman.
Mian Nawaz Sharif has got hold of the stick by the wrong end. He has foolishly allied himself with all the fascist forces in this country. After Zia’s death last year, he is known to have made great efforts to thwart the scheduled process of elections in November 1988. Subsequently, he has allowed, even encouraged, his long standing dispute with the PPP to degenerate into a bitter and acrimonious feud which chips away at our fragile democracy. Now, Mian Sahib is treading very dangerous ground by closely allying with those who are pointing the accusing finger at the COAS. It looks very much as though Mian Sahib wants a coup d’etat to plunge this country into darkness again.
Even a cursory reading of the political history of Pakistan should warn him that this strategy is primed for self-destruction, sooner rather than later. In the end, the spirit of democracy will survive, as it has done all these years, and its hysterical opponents will indeed vanish without a trace, as they have done before.