Daily Times

At the societal level, the Pakistan of today is beset with two main conflicts: ethnic and sectarian. At certain places such as Karachi and Quetta the boundaries of both conflicts coalesce to engender a greater challenge for governance. The question is this: what role can democracy play to blunt the ethnic and sectarian edges of society?

The existence of ethnic and sectarian diversity in Pakistan is a reality and so is its destructive potential. Economic disparity jeopardises collective identity: economic recession can make ethnic and sectarian fault lines prominent. Political deprivation threatens the shared oneness: authoritarianism fractures society from within. In this way, both economic and political factors produce a marginal group (or community), which in turn adopts a culture of marginality. This sort of culture may be considered a counterculture, which runs against the norms of the main culture. In both Karachi and Quetta, a kind of counterculture is palpable, which has dipped both cities in violence, disruption and bloodshed.

Collectively, both ethnic and sectarian realities pose a great challenge to national integration. Nevertheless, for some people this is a counter-argument. In the past, the state found out the solution for poly-ethnic and poly-sectarian facets of society in imposing a kind of national integration. That effort backfired because the state adopted coercive measures to actualise national integration.

The uninterrupted supply of democracy can simmer down the ethnic and sectarian conflicts ravaging Pakistan in at least seven ways. First, while ethnicity keeps societal groups fixed, democracy offers a solution through their mobilisation. The deprivation of democracy means the reinforcement of rigidity of ethnic groups. The same is true in the sectarian context where democracy offers an alternative ideology, which is flexible enough to accommodate the point of view of one another. However, in a democratic context, when one group is mobilised, a sort of countermobilisation also takes place by other groups to struggle for occupying the given economic and political space. That kind of mobilisation gives birth to a healthy competition in society. In fact, democracy offers more opportunities for social mobilisation. In this way, instead of generating a grievances-based society, a competition-based society is constructed.

Second, the narrative of democracy is rooted in offering civic identity to its followers. Identity is what is desired in both ethnic and sectarian contexts. Identity when embedded in ethnic or sectarian domains makes identity-seekers violent. However, identity when rooted in a democratic system or norms makes the identity-seekers clubbable. By offering new opportunities for social mobilization, which in turn creates conditions for the identification of an individual, democracy let the individual come out of the confines of an ethnic identity and yearns for a social identity. The projection of one’s importance remains the same but the display of one’s attitude becomes different. In this way, democracy offers an alternative identity to both ethnic and sectarian members of a group.

Third, democracy offers a medium for integration of ethnic communities and sectarian groups into the national mainstream. Disparate ethnic groups can be integrated into a state through either social or political means. Social differentiation is very important to assign new roles and identities to the members of any ethnic community or a sectarian group. Social differentiation also offers a large role and identity than an ethnic or sectarian one. Democracy promotes the acquired identity at the cost of one’s ascribed identity and democracy creates room for economic and political integration. In this way, democracy offers an option to the member of an ethnic community or a sectarian group to be associated to a larger whole instead of a smaller entity.

Fourth, democracy introduces a representative government that can redesign ethnic and sectarian loyalties and affect the configuration of ethnic communities and sectarian groups. The rigid inter-personal bonds of ethnic and sectarian associations get brittle, even if not broken, and their members tend to see themselves through the prism of democratic and national beings. In this way, the sense of shared interests in survival offered by democracy keeps them broad in outlook and constrained in reaction.

Fifth, democracy promotes (rounds and rounds of) negotiations to make peaceful co-existence possible. The forces of ethnic or sectarian cubism are powerful and offer an inward looking approach to their members. However, democracy has proven as an anti-thesis to the do’s and don’t’s of ethnic and sectarian realms. Democracy advocates possibilities and options. Democracy speaks for respecting dissent. In this way, democracy can stave off any ethnic or sectarian struggle that could lead to hostility. Sixth, democracy encourages the formation of an environment in which an equitable distribution of economic resources is possible. Marginalised ethnic communities come into conflict with other communities or even with the state when their due economic share is at risk. The opening out of economic resources is one way of managing ethnic conflict; however, the recognition of one’s civil rights is another way of managing the same conflict. An authoritarian state may offer one and not the other; however, democracy offers both simultaneously. In this way, democracy offers a chance to the marginalised to get emancipated both economically and politically.

Seventh, democracy keeps a country integrated. When ethnic groups are marginalised, they yearn for a sovereign territory or try to create one on their own. Under authoritarian regimes, ethnic discontent is dealt with ethnocide. When poly-ethnicity is a reality, national doctrines if not made compatible with them spawn a conflict. The latter has brought more troubles for Pakistan than comfort. The state is not supposed to promote one kind of ethnic community or sectarian group at the cost of the others. Contradictions in the state’s narrative are a reality but the solution lies in finding a negotiated order and that is possible when the state keeps travelling on the itinerary of democracy. In this way, instead of letting people take refuge in ethnic and sectarian isolation and perhaps separatism, democracy offers a common medium to get recognised with.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com