By Dr Ahmad Faruqui
CA
Even though Ayub has been dead for 30 years, his personality still casts a long shadow on events in Pakistan. Five years into his rule, General Pervez Musharraf can be seen closely following in the footsteps of the Field Marshal.
Ayub was the first military ruler to cast himself as the savior of Pakistan. According to Altaf Gauhar, Ayub felt that he had the best view of the problems of Pakistan. He would recount in the years to come that much of this derived from his having served as the army chief and “seen every inch of Pakistan, mostly from the ground and met and exchanged views with all manner of people.”
While reviewing the report of the Constitution Commission of Pakistan in 1961, Ayub noted, “politically, our people are immature. However, there are signs that after a couple of generations are reared in an atmosphere of freedom and suitable education on which we have launched, a national outlook will emerge. Until then we have to be continually on our guard, and may even have to do things to save [the] people against themselves.”
As his rule came to an end on March 25, 1969, Ayub confessed that the only thing on which Pakistanis were united was “the fear of Hindu domination.” Clearly a broken man, Ayub confided that he had failed to “establish the democratic tradition of peaceful and orderly transfer of power. There is now no institution except the armed forces which can save the country from chaos and ruin.” On that dismal note, he handed power over to the army chief, General Yahya Khan.
A day later, speaking to his former ministers at a farewell meeting, Ayub stated that Pakistan was a very difficult country structurally that was not ready for the modern age. He had given Pakistan a system of “Basic Democracies” that Western academics would hold up as a model of development. But as Ayub observed toward the end, “We were really able to bluff the world but our own people called our bluff.”
After holding the country’s fairest elections in 1970, Yahya refused to hand over power to the Awami League that had won an absolute majority in the National Assembly. The ostensible reason was that all of its seats were located in East Pakistan. Yahya’s anti-democratic decision created a revolt in East Pakistan. On March 25, two years after he had come to power, General Yahya unleased a military crackdown in East Pakistan that would result in his ouster from power and in the breakup of Pakistan nine months later. The man who claimed that he knew that province like the back of his hand, because he had served as General Officer Commanding of the 14th Division, had proved once again that knowing the terrain was an insufficient quality for being a ruler.
General Musharraf came to power on October 12, 1999, saying he did not intend to rule Pakistan and that fate had thrust the responsibility upon him. He sought to improve on General Zia by calling himself a Chief Executive rather than a president. On December 24, 2003, in a nationally televised address, the President-General said, “A President in uniform is not a democratic dispensation,” and promised, “I will remove my uniform by December 2004 and relinquish the office of the Chief of the Army Staff.”
Now Musharraf has asked the National Assembly to confer upon him the fig leaf of legitimacy by allowing him to continue as the army chief while serving as president. Speaking to the UN General Assembly last month, the General assured the gathering of world leaders, “Islam is democracy in action. It upholds human rights, social equality, non-discrimination, freedom of speech.” Meanwhile, in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the people had come to believe that Islam was compatible with military rule.
In his new book, “The Idea of Pakistan,” Stephen Cohen argues that Musharraf ‘s international backers “see him as a wise and modern leader, a secular man who is not afraid to support the West or to offer peace to India, and a man who can hold back the onrush of demagogues and Islamic extremists.” Yet, he notes, “no serious Pakistani analyst sees Musharraf in these terms. ... If he resembles any past Pakistani leader, it is General Yahya Khan - also a well intentioned general who did the United States a great favor.”
Over time, “Pakistan has adapted to changing strategic circumstances,” Cohen observes, “by ‘renting’ itself out to powerful states, notably the United States, but also Saudi Arabia and China.” He warns that the September 11 windfall and the al Qaeda card will, beyond a certain point, cease to guarantee cash and support. And although economic growth is currently strong, Pakistan has a fundamentally weak economy. In my view, any talk of a Musharraf-Aziz economic miracle will only serve to evoke memories of Ayub’s Decade of Development.
Surreal images abound in the democratic landscape that General Musharraf has painted in Pakistan. Perhaps someone has handed him the brush used by Salvador Dali. The Prime Minister is a man who has lived abroad for the better part of his adult life, like the prime ministers of Afghanistan and Iraq. He contested the National Assembly elections in two out of the way places and was elected by “overwhelming majorities” in both. His predecessor was fired because he assured the people that Musharraf would live up to his commitment to step down as army chief. His cabinet continued almost unchanged under the new Prime Minister because the ministers were loyal to the President and not to him. After all, they knew that the President attended the cabinet meetings for a purpose.
Even with all his faults, Ayub was honest enough to call his system as one of Basic Democracy. By contrast, Musharraf has turned Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy on its head. In his lexicon, it is a system of government “of the army, by the army but for the people.”
Musharraf has consolidated so much power in his hands that an advocate recently petitioned the Lahore High Court to declare General Pervez Musharraf the King of Pakistan. We may yet see someone petition the Supreme Court to have him declared the Emperor of Pakistan. Just imagine what that uniform would look like.
As argued by Cohen, the army is strong enough to prevent state failure but not imaginative enough to push through major changes. Or, one might add, to develop and build institutions that would make military interventions unnecessary. In other words, to finish the job that Ayub began in 1958.