Some of us, watching with bated breath the high-pitched drama named the ‘Long March for Revolution’ by Dr Tahirul Qadri, heaved a sigh of relief at the drop of the curtain. Indeed, it was an engrossing drama with a finger-waving fiery preacher as a hero, whose voice resonated with tens of thousands of people gathered in D-Square, and government ministers who termed the preacher a religious charlatan, and mocked him in talk shows. However, as the march entered the fourth day and the protestors, including old women and suckling children, were seen precariously grappling with biting cold and rain, majority of us wanted a peaceful and swift resolution to it. Mercifully, the federal government showed maturity and flexibility and held negotiations to bring to an end the maverick preacher’s play.
The long march has been termed a success by Dr Qadri and his supporters. No doubt it has been a success story, but only of democracy. Dr Qadri’s fallacious argument that “We need to protect the state and not politics”, couched in reformist jargon and emotional historical references, has been proved wrong. It was only good politics — democratic in character — that saved him and the state from a cliffhanger.
Landing in Pakistan after seven years of stay in Canada, Dr Qadri tried to channelise the discontent of the people with elected governments in the centre as well as the provinces into a reform movement. Dr Qadri has vowed to bring political reforms but his change agenda mirrored the jargon and tactics of the military rulers of the past. He parroted out a slogan, “Save the State” that has been raised previously by many dictators. Pakistan has been ruled for 34 years by military-led regimes that stepped in the political arena to protect the country in the name of national ideology and protection of territorial boundaries. But actually the ‘protection of the state’ was a misnomer for suppressing human rights, annulling the constitution and derailing the democratic process. Similarly, like military dictators, Dr Qadri also tried to create a ‘political other’; elected representatives were derided as a corrupt class and politics as a dirty business that needed to be cleansed through unspecified and vague electoral reforms.
After spitting out fire and brimstone against the political class and the present state of democracy in two rallies in Lahore and Karachi, Dr Qadri gathered people in Islamabad, where he demanded the resignation of the president, prime minister, dissolution of the assemblies and the electoral commission, and the formation of the caretaker government with the consultation of the judiciary and the armed forces. Again, his demands were not only unconstitutional but also showed a lack of clarity about the direction and implementation mechanism of the electoral reforms. A number of questions were raised. Who would carry out the reforms? If an apolitical caretaker setup, constituted in consultation with the judiciary and the armed forces, had been mandated to carry out reforms, then who would ensure that the caretaker government is not hijacked by vested interests? And, more importantly, who would guard the guardians?
Fortunately, the federal government has not acceded to his extra-constitutional charter of demands. And fortunately too, different political parties have rejected his undemocratic demands and moves. This is a real success story of politics where unconstitutional demands have been neutralised in a democratic manner.
Dr Qadri’s supporters fail to understand that whatever success he achieved was due to the political space afforded by democracy. He succeeded in bringing multitudes on the streets with the indirect help of the government that provided the protestors with security. Likewise, the vibrant and assertive media of this democratic era gave his long march unprecedented coverage. Had it been a martial law regime, could he have led people on a march? No, absolutely not! He would have been shut inside his house or put behind bars, and the use of TV and newspapers would have been banned in his house or cell.
Therefore, the purported success of Dr Qadri, as trumpeted by his supporters, owes itself to the rights of the freedom of expression, peaceful assemblage and protest, which are guaranteed by the constitution and guarded in a democracy.
After this march, Dr Qadri needs to understand that ‘saving the state’ is a limiting concept but democracy is vast in scope. Emphasis on territory or state tends to exclude social, political and cultural aspirations of the people while emphasis on democracy amplifies them. And he needs to comprehend that whenever people have won in this country such as while framing the 1973 constitution, distributing resources between provinces and guaranteeing human rights, it has all been through a democratic rule.
The writer is a civil servant and research analyst. She holds a postgraduate degree in Public Policy & Management from King’s College, London