Daily Times

Not that what we are witnessing in Pakistani politics is happening for the first time, yet it’s so debilitating that it feels as if unfortunately democracy has no future in the land of the pure. The disgust, which was hallmark of civil and military bureaucracies and judiciary in terms of their view of the politicians in 1950s, the very first decade of the existence of this country, when we witnessed musical chair of prime ministers at the hands of this nexus — continues to be so to this day. Over the years as civilian bureaucracy lost its lustre and sway, in many ways, the aversion towards democracy, politics, politician, more so towards popular politicians, has only aggravated among military bureaucracy and the judiciary.

Since the years when ZA Bhutto, being the first popular politician of Pakistan, was the prime minister to the latest Nawaz Sharif the establishment in this country has done everything outright in order to remove them politically and if needed physically too. Ironically, while the establishment liberally removed their own handpicked second-rate prime ministers too such as Muhammad Khan Junejo, or Zafarullah Jamali, dubbing them inapt; those who rose to be the prime ministers on the basis of their political merit such as ZA Bhutto, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, establishment found them too difficult to be tamed.

Hence the latter kind were first inflicted with vilification campaign, with anti-Pakistan tendencies, and portrayed as tainted in corruption. It’s not a coincidence that the prime ministers of the ilk of Junejo, Jamali, and Shaukat Aziz which were chaperoned by military rulers were seldom termed as corrupt by establishment or the judiciary; seems this charge is exclusively kept for popular and independent minded political leaders.

In the last twenty years an excessively denigrating narrative against democracy and popular politicians has been perfected to such a level that anyone defending democracy and politicians is taken for a sold-out. Greater tragedy is that it’s no more just the military establishment from where the idea of democracy constantly suffers propaganda onslaughts. In fact, the country now has a daunting size of cohorts within media, academia, clergy, traders and students who are infatuated with military establishment and so blatantly despise the very idea of popularly elected democratic governments.

The whole exercise of general elections and consequent elected governments seem so useless when we see these governments get reduced to the role of a municipal body, existing without virtually any say in national security and foreign affairs policies

In this socio-political backdrop, the whole exercise of general elections and consequent elected governments seem so inoperable when we see that elected national government is more often reduced to the role of a municipal body, without virtually any say in national security policy, international diplomacy, more so in case of neighbouring countries such as India and Afghanistan.

In other countries media, academia, students are the indefatigable force guarding the peoples’ right to rule themselves i.e. democracy. But not in Pakistan.

Incidentally, on the whole, the society has been brainwashed so much against its political leaders that a layman will curse them in most foul words for any and all of his misfortunes without realising his own limitations and that of the politicians. Lest someone misconstrue, certainly politicians and those at the helm of democratic governments have got their part of responsibility to be accountable for. Yet, it can’t go beyond that and we must be cognisant of the fact that almost every alternate decade of our history a military dictator ruled this country, while not a single prime minister could complete full tenure.

But then democracy is not just about installing a popularly elected government at all tiers of governance. Of greater value to peace, prosperity and coexistence are the social elements of democracy such as respect for diversity, dissent, and freedom of expression. All three are the target of those who feel threatened by these democratic values. What else can define decimating the diversity than the way some groups of sectarian clergy and their associates in parliament, media and judiciary indulge in hate speech against religious minorities? So often this has resulted in mob lynching of the members of these minorities but also of the mainstream Muslims. Young Mashal Khan and former Punjab governor Salman Taseer were killed in most cold blooded manner just because they had more considerate view of diversity and importance of social coexistence.

Similarly, if bloggers, journalists and writers venture to peacefully dissent with the dominant narrative or expose the conspiracies and blatant violations by public office holders within civil, military and judiciary, they are issued threats. If this was not the case, bloggers were never frequently abducted, tortured, and journalists such as Shahzad Saleem, Musa Khankhel and numerous others would be alive today, and many more would have escaped tortures and murder attempts. As if the situation wasn’t already bleak, the state is now politically promoting the likes of Khadim Rizvi, Hafiz Saeed and Ahmad Ludhianvi by ‘mainstreaming’ them. Unfortunately such state of affairs will keep the future of democracy elusive in Pakistan.

The writer is a sociologist with interest in history and politics. He tweets @ZulfiRao and can be reached at Zulfirao@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, November 16^th 2017.