Daily Times

One of its characterisations tells us that politics is the art of the possible. The realm of possibility is not firmly fixed. It expands or shrinks in response to the surrounding circumstances, which in turn are amenable to change. Possibility implies the ability of the concerned agents to assemble and deploy the ways and means to direct the course of events. There are things that need to be done that it may not be possible to do, and others that are within our reach. Let us see if we can identify the needs that can or cannot be met without going through excessive exertion.

It will be extremely hard to abolish feudalism. It governs the calculations of not only the great landowners in Sindh and southern Punjab, it has gone out to possess the minds of the ruling elite elsewhere. It dominates the legislative assemblies and other organs of civil society to whom we look for bringing about social change. Imran Khan, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, and Altaf Hussain, the head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), vow to abolish feudalism when and if they come to power. Assuming that one of them reaches the position where he can manipulate the existing social order, his campaign against feudalism will lead to a bloody civil strife. The feudal lords will not take the assault on them lying down.

One may also want to know what Imran Khan and Altaf Hussain will do about the feudal ethic and ethos that have come to capture the ruling classes. The feudal culture recognises only one type of interaction between persons, the one between a subordinate and his superior. It is the superior’s privilege to command and the subordinate’s obligation to obey. We are a long distance away from the stage where a subordinate can say to his superior: Sir, you are wrong.

Massive corruption in both public and private transactions is the next order of business on the reformers’ agenda. In customary usage, the term refers to a bribe accepted by a public official in return for overlooking a violation or evasion of the law. It might also refer to a general decline of morals in society. In that larger sense, it would cover a variety of situations: misrepresentation of facts in buying and selling, student cheating in examinations, breaking promises, offering false testimony in a court of law, among many other things. It would be poetic exaggeration to say that corruption can be abolished altogether. It can be diminished. In my reckoning, it travels from top down and not from bottom up. A section officer in a government establishment will take bribes if he knows that his boss accepts gifts from those who want unlawful favours. He does not take unearned money because a junior clerk in his office is charging a fee for handing out prescribed forms for filing income tax returns. This is precisely the strategy that Imran Khan has in mind when he says he will substantially reduce corruption within a relatively short period of time if he reaches the chief executive’s office.

A Transparency International report a few years ago placed the government and society in Pakistan among the most corrupt in the world. An impediment to reform in this area should be noticed. Of corruption in government, we have all heard enough. Interpreting the term as bribery, it is denounced mostly from the public platform. In the drawing rooms, it is the corruption in which others are engaged that is condemned but not that which the denouncers themselves practice. The preachers, after they have stepped down from the pulpit, will feel free to give and take money that neither side has earned. It will not be abolished fully but it may abate.

Let us now turn to another very serious challenge to politics of Pakistan. To begin with, it is the only country in the world where some of the important opinion makers still ask, 65 years after its founding, why it was created in the first place. It is not enough for them to be told that it came into being to enable the people in the northwestern regions of the subcontinent to organise their lives and affairs according to their own ideological and other preferences. They insist that this country was not worth creating and it is not worth retaining unless it is fully Islamised.

A basic dichotomy destabilises the social order here. Ask an ordinary citizen and he will tell you that Islamisation is a good idea. Actually, he does not want the state to enforce it. He does not want the hands of a thief to be chopped off or an adulteress to be given 80 lashes. He is content with the Islamic elements that have already been incorporated into the laws of Pakistan. In fact, he may want some of them (such as Ziaul Haq’s Hadood Ordinance) taken out. Given the general public’s state of mind we may conclude that the people will celebrate Islamic holidays and festivals but they will not allow the larger spirit of Islam to guide their conduct. They will kill and die to defend the honour of the Prophet (PBUH) but they will not live according to his direction. They acted in a strange way last Friday. It was to be a day for demonstrating their love for him (PBUH). Organised and directed by the MQM leaders and the head of a Sunni organization, they paid him (PBUH) tribute in a fitting and orderly fashion. But when they were left to themselves they raised hell, killed more than 20 of their fallow citizens, and destroyed public and private property worth billions of rupees. There are doubtless a few good Muslims here and there. It may be said of the generality of them that while Muslims in name they are, it would be too much of an exertion for them to become Muslims in fact. That is the reality of politics, the art of the possible in Pakistan.

Related to all these matters is the issue of identity. Politicians in the Islamic establishment have been contending that their common allegiance to Islam is enough to bind the Pakistani people together as a nation. The emergence of Bangladesh in December 1971 proved them wrong. A few commentators since the advent of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto have publicised the idea of a Pakistani nationhood, but the desired result remains to be achieved. Its emergence and acceptance are not to be taken for granted. It has to compete with the existing sub-national identities. Pakistan is only 65 years old, but the Sindhi and Punjabi identities have been alive and kicking for many hundreds of years. It follows that Pakistan is still to be made. Punjab harbours more than 60 percent of its people and is satisfied with its status, but Sindhis and the Baloch are not sure how they profit from being Pakistani. It is Punjab’s responsibility to share its power and resources with them and to give them the good feeling that Pakistan is a gift of God to them as well.

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