The forces of the status quo are fighting an intense battle to foil the popular challenge to their supremacy notwithstanding the chaos they have created by their wrong plans and priorities. The security conditions are getting worse; the political instability is deepening; the economy is in continuous nosedive; the human rights violations are rampant; the courts have come under tremendous pressure to dispense justice and establish constitutional supremacy and rule of law; the political leadership is in disarray and lives in awe and fear; the state institutions function in a constitutional vacuum and, more often than not, at cross purposes; the poverty index has leapfrogged exasperating the woes of the common man and the young generation is fast losing hope in the future of the country.
The switch from a dictatorship to a democratic rule in developing states is always fraught with pitfalls. The political leadership has to be cautious, farsighted and steadfast. Such a transition in our country has always been prone to derailment. Our politicians are impatient, unrestrained and devoid of political discretion, principles and ideals. Their rhetorical love for democracy has a short life and evaporates as soon as they get out of power. To have a plump piece of the apple pie, they seem to be ever ready to slit each other’s throats. They pliably consent to become part of the toolkit of the undemocratic, unelected and constitutionally unauthorized forces to destabilize a sitting government and restrict the remit of the democratic rule to bring about positive changes in the political, economic, foreign and security policies of the country.
Our politicians’ rhetorical love for democracy has a short life and evaporates as soon as they get out of power.
We have been going back and forth in this circle of political jugglery since independence. We have neither democracy nor any benevolent autocracy. We are entangled in a cobweb of half democracy (consisting of elected faces) and half autocracy (comprising not-so-hidden string pullers) called hybrid rule with the latter firing shots and using the former as sandbags to bear the brunt of their wrong decisions. They show no qualms about throwing out the head showman of the spectacle if he dares to protest or defy them on any issue. They have politicians waiting in the wings to fill the vacancy. This is what we have grown up in since our adolescence, witnessing Prime Ministers shunted out; framed in murder cases and hanged; dethroned and sent packing into exile or lodged in a small cell in Attock Jail. The law enforcers are pliant; the judiciary stands divided and avoids asserting its constitutional writ; the parliament enacts laws specific to a limited purpose unconcerned with the public wellbeing, and rubber stamps amendments in the existing laws to strengthen undemocratic forces thereby reducing the Constitution to worthless pages.
This country has withstood many alarming crises in its short history. However, the political crisis of 1970 proved fatal to the territorial integrity of the country. The current political crisis is deeper than the turmoil we faced five decades ago in the rebellion of the people of East Pakistan against the usurpation of their right to form the federal government. The current crisis involves the political aspirations of the four federating units. These units are diverse in their political aspirations, economic resources, cultural moors and ethnic and linguistic composition. They can remain glued to each other in a democratic dispensation with sufficient provincial autonomy and ownership over their land and resources. We have walked past the times for highly centralized governance from the capital as shown by the consensus of the political forces in the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution augmenting the quantum of provincial autonomy.
There has been a chronic unrest against the broken promises of the federal government in Balochistan. The three insurgencies in the Baloch land were overcome, and the fourth one has been festering since 2006. It shows no sign of abatement. Rather it has exasperated apparently establishing a nexus with the religious militants. The erstwhile tribal territories are infested with the militants of TTP as evidenced by their increased attacks on security personnel even in the settled districts. The KPK is entangled in political chaos. It would be a phenomenal blunder to foist an unpopular rule on the province. The centrifugal forces in KPK are far stronger than the centripetal factors.
Sindh has remained sandwiched between the rapacious and corrupt PPP rule and the wrong, extractive and extortionist policies of the federal government patronizing the MQM-P and eyeing the provincial resources in terms of its lands, islands, seaports, forests, coal and mineral and hydrocarbons reserves. They are gripped by a deep sense of insecurity. The lava of their anger is boiling under the surface and needs a small spark to erupt if things, God forbid, spiral out of control.
Punjab is politically at a crossroads. The popularity of the beleaguered PTI has been continuously ascending despite the incarceration of its chairman and the first-rank leadership. The desertion of the bulk of its stalwarts has not made any difference as far as its vote is concerned. Any attempt to engineer the results of the general election to the advantage of anti-PTI political parties in Punjab and KPK would plunge the country into a long spell of political and economic chaos. We cannot afford it.
We cannot adopt a head-in-sand attitude and claim to be a democratic polity – conforming to constitutionalism, human rights and the rule of law. We are under scrutiny by friends and foes in this global village.
The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books