November
23, 2007
What Ails Thee, My Native Land?
What we have today is certainly
not the state that the Quaid had visualized. He
was a great visionary and what his superb leadership
could achieve for his people has been well summed
up by Stanley Wolpert, an outstanding American authority
on South Asia, in the following words: “Few
individuals significantly alter the course of history.
Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly
anyone can be credited with creating a nation. Muhammad
Ali Jinnah did all three.”
Let us just recall briefly the trend of events over
the past several decades to assess how his followers
have handled this great gift of the Quaid.
With the demise of the Quaid and the assassination
of Liaquat within a few years of the creation of
Pakistan, the governance of the state fell into
the hands of a bureaucracy that had been nurtured
on the service ethics of pre-Partition days and
a Constituent Assembly still pulsating with the
spirit of the Pakistan movement.
The army, the feudal aristocracy and the noveau
riche followed meekly, as expected, the decisions
formulated by the bureaucracy and the Assembly.
Accountability was held supreme; corruption was
disdained.
Enormous problems such as the rehabilitation of
millions of refugee and of a crippled economy started
moving fast towards solutions. Pakistan found a
respectable place in the comity of nations. It played
a prominent role at the UN in the anti-colonial
struggle, in securing for China its rightful place
in that forum, and for the independence of several
Muslim societies. What an ego-building sight it
was to witness the press galleries filling up with
correspondents from all over the world whenever
Sir Zafrullah or A.S. Bukhari was to address the
Assembly or the Security Council.
Even during the decade of Ayub Khan’s rule,
prominent civil servants were his chief advisers.
Things worked well and the country registered high
growth rates.
Ayub did introduce land reforms but in a half-hearted
way. He missed the opportunity of cleansing the
society of the canker of absentee landlordism. Soon,
the Generals too got themselves allotted government
lands in Guddu and Kotri barrages, thereby strengthening
further the feudalistic structure.
Z.A.Bhutto, himself an arrogant landlord, hamstrung
the bureaucracy by deleting the constitutional guarantees
to civil servants in his Constitution of 1973. These
guarantees that provided the civil servants the
security of service had remained a part of all earlier
constitutions. That enabled them to check the excesses
of feudal lords turned politicians without any fear
of retaliation.
Being deprived of the sense of security in service,
they sought it in pelf through corruption.
Bhutto cut down the influence of industrialists
through his nationalization of basic industries.
But, he pampered the military by more than doubling
the defense budget. That folly cost him a few years
later his life.
He encouraged the feudal lords to enter the political
arena. Consequently a ruling triumvirate emerged
that comprised: (1) higher echelons of the military
and civil bureaucracies, in that order, (2) feudal
lords and tribal chiefs, and (3) wealthy business
barons.
This triumvirate has been playing the game of musical
chairs for power and pelf, ensuring at the same
time that no outsider ever got anywhere near their
domain. They have networked into a self-serving,
self-preserving system.
Z.A. Bhutto in his lust for power, stirred up the
emotions of the public by calling them ‘the
fountainhead of all power’. The extensive
public response to his call astounded even himself.
It reflected the outburst of the pent up emotions
of the public. Riding on the crest of the massive
support, he climbed into the seat of power by deposing
two military dictators, one after the other. His
oft-repeated empathy for the downtrodden, despite
its sincerity being clearly open to question, did
give the poor a sense of self-esteem but an unforgivable
offense to the ruling elite. He was sent to the
gallows by a military ruler in a moot murder case.
The common man could merely squirm, on his hanging,
under the jackboot. Yet, years later, when he got
the opportunity to vote, the same devalued common
man elected his deserving or undeserving daughter
to power not once but twice.
Benazir realized soon after assuming power that
she could not survive politically by rubbing on
the wrong side any sector of the well-entrenched
elite, the brass in particular. While the problem-ridden
common man, the voter, looked up to her for the
mitigation of his plight, she concentrated on what
her husband called ‘the pleasant pastime of
making money’. On occasions, her arrogance
surpassed that of her father.
The Sharifs, who succeeded her by paving the way
to power with grease money, continued to denude
the public exchequer to the brink of bankruptcy.
The image they projected for public consumption
was that of a God-fearing family. Benazir too would
put on Hijab and even carry a string of beads while
in public view. Both families personified hypocrisy.
The VIP culture they promoted, allowed even a minion
of theirs to park his car in the middle of any road,
pay no bill or tax, take bank loan without surety,
never be punctual at any official function, call
back a PIA flight after it had taken off, and even
take a second wife without the legal permission
of the first. If a pedestrian was run down by a
VIP’s car, the police report would cite the
dead man for jay walking.
Law making in the country was and still is done
through ordinances; for, privilege motions, protests
and walkouts took bulk of the time of the Assemblies.
Not unoften, the parliament gave the impression
of being a zoo of primates run by the inmates.
The feudal spirit that permeates the society now
has spawned the dynasty system in the political
parties too. The Muslim League, the PPP, the ANP,
BNP, PKMAP, and JUI are all controlled by dynasties!
Benazir went to the extent of getting herself declared
as the ‘Chairperson for Life’ of the
PPP so that she could hang on to leadership till
her son Bilawal comes of age. That is feudalism
at its worst! What an irony that she keeps talking
ad nauseum about the restoration of democracy.
If Murtaza Bhutto had no pretense of being the legitimate
heir to his father’s political mantle, he
might still be alive today!
A new category joined the group during the Afghan
war. That is of the gunrunners and drug barons.
They may not be in the parliament, but they manage
to have a good number of surrogates there whenever
such a body is in existence.
The crisis of governance has already reached a stage
where the leaders constitute themselves the major
part of the nation’s problems. Highest number
of those elected regularly to the national and provincial
assemblies belong to the upper feudal class. Their
continuous appearance on the political scene is
due to the well-entrenched tribal and feudal setups
where chances of broader participation by even mainstream
political parties are remote until these feudal
lords assure them of their support.
The non-party elections of Gen. Zia enervated further
the mainstream parties while strengthening the hold
of these tribal and feudal elements. His protégé,
Nawaz Sharif, pandered to this class, subjugated
further the civil bureaucracy, terrorized the judiciary
and showed a community of interest with the rich,
but miscalculated or mishandled the most important
component of the ruling elite – the army.
He tried but could not domesticate it.
The military takeover of October 1999 has essentially
been a change of command within the elitist framework
– a kind of ruler derby. It has led to the
militarization of almost all civil departments.
Men in uniform have become ubiquitous.
The common man had hailed the military takeover
in the hope that it would effect a basic change
in the decadent and oppressive system. The feudal
spirit continues to permeate the society. No wonder,
the urban luminaries emulate the rural aristocrats
by donning highly starched white shalwar kamiz,
sporting flashy wrist watches, walking with a swagger
with a couple of body guards in train and being
driven on the paved and carpeted city roads in the
4-wheel Pajero jeeps, used normally by the rural
aristocrats.
Can society, the people at large, continue tolerating
indefinitely such false and pretentious values and
suffer for long such an antiquated elitist system?
Nature is said to abhor the status quo as much as
illogicality.
Until nature takes a turn, the people of Pakistan
will have to suffer the domination of the ruling
elite. And, the man in uniform who is now at the
apex of the pyramid is unlikely to present power
in a platter to Benazir, the chief contender. Political
culture in Pakistan has yet to develop the tradition
of the transition of power. One hopes that elections
are held as announced, planting the seeds of a smooth
transition of power. arifhussaini@hotmail.com
