As a US-returned young Pakistani who got caught up in law I had this unshakeable faith in democracy and civilian constitutional rule. It was because of this feeling that one supported the lawyers’ movement and eventual ouster of the dictator but what do we have to show for it. A hybrid system less transparent that Myanmar’s short-lived “democratic” stint? A country where one cannot breathe freely because of fanatic religious groups that target minorities and where the space for reasonable discourse has been shrinking since the assassination of Salmaan Taseer? This is a shamelessly populist majoritarian electoral democracy at best and that too in name. We know where the real shots are called. It is a strange partnership between the militablishment and civilian rulers of which nothing good can come out. The whole thing is a farce. The civilians play musical chairs while you know who plays the music.
Truth be told, naked military dictatorship was better than this masquerade and tamasha. In 2002 under General Musharraf there was considerable enthusiasm. He presented himself as the Kemal Ataturk of Pakistan. For reference read his speech of 12 January 2002. This speech was deemed so important that the US Congress had it placed on the Congressional records. In this speech he undertook the modernisation of Pakistan and enlightened moderation. At least when I came back, I came back to a revitalised Pakistan; a Pakistan that had 50- odd TV channels, bold TV debates all matters from religion to minority rights, and even dissenting views. Meanwhile the country’s interior minister General Moinuddin told the Time Magazine that the regime was going to unveil a secular constitution. Talk to any minority in Pakistan, take your pick, and ask them which period in the recent decades did they feel the freest. Sadly their answer will be: General Musharraf’s. The 13 years of hybrid democracy has brought them nothing but untold misery, targeted killings, marginalisation and forced conversions. What happened in that Chapel in Lahore i.e. Muslim Nurses taking over the Christian Chapel was unthinkable in the Musharraf era! Targeting killings of minorities, massacres and ransacking of places of worship were unheard of.
With Imran Khan’s rule we have had the worst of both worlds. There is no iron-willed leader willing to put his foot down to take on the mullahs. If nothing else, Musharraf the dictator was willing to do that. Meanwhile we have a hybrid ‘democracy’ that no one in the world is willing to accept as such
There was an opening up of society and upturning of social conservatism. The soft power of Pakistan was growing, as was its tech and software economy. Of course much of Musharraf era progress was buttressed by US aid to the country. Nevertheless the economy really took off. The economy grew at nearly 7 percent every year and the GDP over all doubled. Pakistan’s start up economy dates back to that era. Poverty was reduced considerably and this is when Pakistan’s services industry from Telcos to Banks and so and so forth took off. Then we started the Lawyers’ Movement and everything went downhill from there. Young men and women as we were, we naively believed in the dreams that were sold to us by people like Aitzaz Ahsan i.e. Riyasat ho gee maan ke jaisee. 13 years after we got rid of Musharraf, the “riyasat” is nothing like a “mother”. It is an oppressive wretched state that stifles its children and appeases monsters. Meanwhile the deep state has gone back to playing the games it has always played when a civilian government is in power. With Imran Khan’s rule we have had the worst of both worlds. There is no iron-willed leader willing to put his foot down to take on the Mullahs. If nothing else, Musharraf the dictator was willing to do that. Meanwhile we have a hybrid “democracy” that no one in the world is willing to accept as a “democracy”. The world looks at us like the savages we are. We mistreat women, we mistreat our minorities and we crush freedom of speech, sometimes in the name of religion and sometimes in the name of national security. Then we wonder why the world passes resolutions calling out our bigotry.
Now I don’t give a damn as to who rules us and who doesn’t. I say overturn the game of musical chairs altogether. We made a mistake in 2007 when we supported ill thought out Lawyers’ Movement which by the way only unleashed a sort of judicial dictatorship led by Iftikhar Chaudhry. Musharraf himself had made a mistake in 2002 of cobbling together a coalition of the likes of Chaudhry brothers and what not, led by that religious zealot Zafrullah Khan Jamali. Musharraf should have stayed what he was: a modernising dictator in the tradition of Kemal Ataturk. Instead he gave up too early. In his classic Grey Wolf , H C Armstrong wrote of Ataturk, “he is a dictator so that there are no more dictators in Turkey”. General Musharraf left a legacy of tiny dictators instead. These tiny dictators continue to play havoc on Pakistan and its polity. Sadly General Musharraf was no Kemal Ataturk. No – not even close.
The author is a Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn and the author of the book “Jinnah a Life” published by Pan Macmillan