Daily Times

Pakistan’s progress towards democracy can be better trailed after having accounted for the competing notions and challenges that marginalised the very nature and essential spirit of democracy in Pakistan. The first 10 years of independence brought about a wrong beginning with the ensuing fallacious democratic processes in Pakistan worseningthrough stints of protracted military rule.

The contextual interpretation of the post-independence time reveals that Pakistan was intensely indulged and plunged into dire problems that made the democratic structure, parliamentary practices and political andconstitutional development a very insignificant area of concern. Certain fumbles were committed, which obstructed the country’s way in coping up with these challenges in the first decade. Pakistan began the journey on some wrong and uncalculated footings that later on not only persisted but became the defining characters of democratic rule in Pakistan.

In its formative years, Pakistan had no elected legislature to run its political setup. It had to continue with the assembly that was elected in 1946’s elections. These elections experienced a landslide victory of the Muslim League and eventually resulted in the formation of a coalition government led by the Muslim League and All India National Congress. The frame of governance was made possible by a centralised bureaucracy that was an institution inherited as a colonial legacy from the British Raj. Bureaucracy was a firmly coherent, centralised and hierarchical institution, and this centralised frame of rule led to the centralisation of administration in the newly independentstate.

Civil servants were used to operationalise the executive machinery in provinces and even at the local level. In its earliest phase, Pakistan lacked elected political bodies torun the setup. The bureaucratic rule was used as an option to run the state’s machinery. It opened the way towards administrative centralisation. This way of governance was contrary to the very nature of the normative conception of democracy, which presumes powers to be executed in concordance with the elected representatives.

Unrest at large was due to the grim circumstances of that time, which also worsened the prospects for the evolution of democratic norms in Pakistan. The resettlement of refugees, collapsing state of economic affairs, abysmal condition of infrastructural development and obfuscation at the helm of affairs in coping up with these challenges de-routed democracy from its original contextual niche and led to a definitional dilemma, which to date haunts Pakistan to a large extent. Since the very start of Pakistan’s journey towards democracy in the early years there had been no concrete development or intention to establish a consolidated frame of rule that could perpetuate democracy as a mechanism of governance in Pakistan.

The central government operated in an authoritarian way. Pakistan had to assure its territorial integrity by making the central authority retain hold and control over the territories and areas that were separated through a difference of 1,000 miles. This imperative totally dominated the resources and capabilities of the newly independent state.

The practical and grim realities of that time can be given as a rationale for Jinnah’s autocratic frame of rule. Two governments were shown the door successively by Jinnah, one of Dr Khan in NWFP and the second of AyubKhoro’s government in Sindh. Kallat is also believed to be forcefully annexed into the federation of Pakistan. Jinnah was mandated under the Ninth Schedule of 1935’s India Act and the powers of the Ninth Schedule can be measured from this: “The Ninth Schedule rendered tremendous powers to the governor-general than were present in Part II of the 1935 Act. Under Section 67(b), legislature failing to pass a bill in line to the recommendation of the governor-general, might declare the passage of that bill essential for safety and according to the interests of British India.”

Jinnah was a gigantic personality who overshadowed the debate of political processes in the nascent state. His personal charisma and stature did not assist democracy much in Pakistan, rather the curbing down of democratic norms started from his office. He had assumed the office of the governor-general but the powers that he exercised were far beyond his office. Cabinet was under his thumb and hardly took any decision without his directives. He was the arbitrator in the centre versus the provinces.

Pakistani democracy even today is a victim of this authoritarian pattern of rule. Successive martial laws, the army’s upper hand, political autocracy and personality cults have personified the system and have not allowed Pakistan to arrive ahead with institutional consolidation and have made the leader a pivot. Unchecked powers, lack of accountability and brutal execution of authority have not only contradicted democratic practices in Pakistan but have defined a tone of malpractices dubbed as democracy in Pakistan.

The author is a faculty member at the School of Politics and International Relations in Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the author of Democracy in Pakistan: From Rhetoric to Reality