Daily Times

Political parties are said to be getting ready for the next elections, which are likely to be held sometime in 2013. They are presumably articulating the assurances they will give the electorate concerning their performance if they are returned to power. The situation created by the general breakdown of law and order has assumed crisis proportions. Killers, robbers and kidnappers for ransom abound and the law enforcement agencies are unable to restrain them. According to some observers, there is hardly a family in Karachi that has remained unscathed by the carnage that these gangsters have imposed upon the city.

Law breaking is not a phenomenon unique to Karachi. Lawlessness is pervasive throughout the country. This is the case partly because the enforcers of the law are inclined to overlook its violations and evasions in return for bribes. Moreover, they are in short supply. The country needs many more policemen than it has on the payroll.

Law works as a restraint upon the individual in his interaction with other persons. It forbids certain types of conduct. The disposition to obey it is a complicated matter. There is the fact that the individual wants to act as the spirit moves him such as it may be. He agrees to live by the law when he realises that this original inclination will lead to what Thomas Hobbes had described as the war of every man against every man. His attitude also depends on whether he had participated in the process of law making. Let us visit a small town with a population of 500 persons who meet once a week to settle their collective affairs. They will be willing to follow the rules and regulations they have set forth. They will be less willing to do the same with laws made by a distant assembly even if its members claim to be implementing the wishes and the collective wisdom of the people. A few persons will obey the law because they agree with Plato that if it became customary to violate or evade the law, cities would come to ruin. Others will do the right thing because their conscience dictates it. Many more of them will obey because they do not want to invite the penalties that will ensue in the event of violation. If penalties are not imposed, lawlessness will become the order of the day. In Pakistan, we seem to have reached that stage already.

The justification for the state’s very existence has been in dispute in Pakistan. Some of the better known opinion makers insist that it was made to be an Islamic state and that it remains unfulfilled if it is not Islamised. They want to reestablish the pious caliphate. A difficulty in this connection ought to be noted. Islam does enjoin the believers to settle their collective affairs by mutual consultation, but its modus operandi is not specified. We are not told who the consultees will be, how often they will meet, if they will have advance notice of the agenda, how their decisions will be made and whether these will be binding on the executive. All of these matters are left to the future generations to decide according to their needs and circumstances. Islam also sets forth the qualifications that candidates for public office must have. These are listed in the text of our constitution. They are truly awesome but it must regretfully be noted that only a few of our representatives and other functionaries possess them to an acceptable degree. The likelihood is that Islamisation in its fuller sense will remain an aspiration more than a ground reality. Government and politics will not be more Islamic than the people themselves are.

Commentaries on TV talk shows and articles in the print media have been given to the situation in Balochistan for the last many months. By all accounts it is alarming and it calls for the federal government’s most serious attention, which has not been forthcoming.

Beyond the city of Quetta during the British rule, Balochistan was a tribal society ruled by chiefs (Sardars). There were scores of them but the larger and more powerful were Marri, Bugti, Mengal and Bizenjo. The state of Kalat was the only organised political entity in the area. Ruled by the Khan of Kalat, it had a bicameral parliament. Anticipating the division of India, the two houses adopted a resolution, moved by Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, to the effect that the state would remain independent. Mr Jinnah, a friend and adviser of the Khan, urged him to become part of the new country. The dominant political forces in the state rejected this option. In 1948, the Pakistan army moved in and took the Khan away to Karachi. The Baloch nationalists did not relent and continued their opposition to Balochistan’s inclusion in Pakistan. That revolt has continued to this day at varying levels of intensity.

The army is fighting the militant nationalists who want to make Balochistan a separate independent state. Yet the army commanders agree that the crisis is to be resolved through politics and not by military action. Akhtar Mengal, a former chief minister of the province, returned to Pakistan from his self-imposed exile to present his case at the Supreme Court. He offered a six-point formula for meeting the problem. Suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding, it has nothing in common with Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s six points in 1970 except for the use of the number six in both cases. Akhtar Mengal’s proposal consists of the following items: withdraw the military from Balochistan and place the Frontier Constabulary under the provincial government; recover the missing persons; prosecute and punish officials responsible for kidnapping, torturing, and killing Baloch activists; prosecute and punish the killers of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti; allow political parties to function; and hold free and fair elections. These demands are eminently reasonable. Most of the politicians in the country except those in the Pakistan People’s Party have met Akhtar Mengal, applauded his politics and endorsed his proposals. If implementing them will overcome the Baloch leaders’ alienation from Islamabad, what more can we ask?

There are admittedly other issues and problems that need to be addressed. I have exhausted the space I had and may take up some of them in a subsequent presentation.

The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net