Wrong assumptions lead to wrong framing of question

By Prof Dr. Sohail Ansari

Conceived and worded by Prof DR Sohail Ansari (originality of concepts and originality of words).

He believes that there can never be a zero scope for improvement and appreciates criticism if it is not for the sake of criticism.

Debate regarding the conduciveness of post-independence context to flourishing of democratic cultural may not seem to settle in foreseeable future. Consensus regarding underlying reasons that conspired against metamorphosis of country into the land where democratic ideals could find free play has hitherto been and most possibly continues to be as elusive as Holy Grail.    

One assertion that over-developed state apparatus and nascent political institutions condemned Pakistan to autocratic rule equates the genesis of country to the genesis of the civil-military bureaucratic omnipotence in Pakistan; and other though not denying that military and the bureaucracy were the two considerably cohesive and developed inherited institutions goes to suggest that both institutions were subject to division and were struggling to overcome the diminutive effects of partition. One more factor, as holder of second assertion asserts, contributed further to diminish the status of military was that the man who spearheaded the movements of independence was non-military personnel, drawing on grass-root support that nourished, fuelled and sustained it till it was culminated into Pakistan, making the political struggle characteristically different from revolutionary and militant national and anti-colonial movements like those of many Afro-Asian countries which gained independence during the same period.

It was all due to devotion to the blatant self-aggrandizement of Landlord cum politician vying to out maneuver each other through non-democratic forces; and of politicians at helm aspiring to rule despite being deprived of indigenous support (almost all Muslim league leaders had constituencies in India) and capitalizing on vice regal system to achieve this end which by its nature relied heavily on bureaucratic machinery that power gravitated before long to civil-military bureaucracy.     

What made Pakistan authoritarian? Was it the legacy of past? Or was it the peculiarities of present that invited past to dictate its future? (Weak state apparatus that became overdeveloped condemned Pakistan to autocratic rule) If it was past that dictated the course of event then moment of the creation of country was also the point of the genesis of the authoritarianism. If it was the context that made weak state apparatus ultimately powerful enough to establish its sway; then Pakistan degenerated into autocratic state in 1958.

In one sense, it makes no difference as difference of cause led to no difference in outcome; Pakistan in either case anyhow became authoritarian state.

These two explanations probe the arrival of authoritarianism or in other words the failure of democracy; and differ on why and when. Implicit in the search for causes of failure of democracy is the assumption of its existence. The very assumption underpins the addressing of question: why democracy failed. But perhaps this question itself is wrong.

Wrong assumptions led to wrong framing of question, and thus rendering subsequent inquiry exercise in futility. From the moment of birth to martial law, civilian ruler behaved like martial law administrators until martial law administrators took charge himself. Pre-martial law period was only the democracy of form; in substance, it had never been democracy. Dictatorship in guise of democracy was replaced by dictatorship of no guise in 1958, and Pakistan ultimately became undemocratic in form as well.

Pakistan therefore, never became undemocratic as it had never been democratic. And it was due to the same lack of substance that democracy of form was replaced by dictatorship in 1977. When Pakistan came into being, a thousand years of Muslim monarchic rule and in immediate past the British imperial rule formed its political background. Quaid-i-Azam ‘rejected the distant as well as the most recent past for democracy’(1) but forces of history and culture aided by politicians consumed by insatiable cravings for trappings of power succeeded to reject this rejection. Apologists may argue that due to inadequacy of past, Pakistani politicians could not equip themselves to democratic experience and post-independence milieu militated against any such possibility as LaPorte notes ‘historical factors impeded the movement toward democratization in several ways: the emergency frame of mind growing stronger due to the confrontations with India; and the early death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’;  the effects of these realities registered not only on the policy-making elites and their willingness to introduce democratic procedures but not the larger publics and their expectations and tolerance of non-democratic practices.

Validity of this argument is beyond dispute, so is the failure to make any serious endeavor to break with legacies and build up present different from past. Consequently independence from British could not become independence from authoritarianism. Attitude and measures of different rulers from 1947 to 1988 kept reinforcing the undemocratic traditions that enable cultural and historical forces to not only maintain but also grow their influence. But world had come far off in 1988: monarchs had been consigned either to footnotes of history or become dejure; democracy was universally acknowledged as the better system. ‘Feudalism is based on a well-conceived plan of division of labor in which every individual has his well-defined place and function…. And each member is a well placed cog in the social mechanism…. Authoritarianism prides in organizing humanity into insect state; not realizing that such a cog-wheel society spells the end of the development of man a as a biological species, and the end of creative culture. These cog-wheels who are no longer individuals, but cells, and enjoys full security, are robbed of all initiative for self-expression, which is the basis of every cultural innovation…..such  a society sacrifices for security’s sake everything that gives color, variety and change to human life. The demise of this system and genesis of democracy is the triumph of system that preserves the dignity, self-expression and free development of the individual.

A system that recognizes inventiveness and individual accomplishment have proved its worth by surpassing in efficiency such rigidly planned insect type society’.(2)  1988 was heralded as a harbinger of a new dawn as it ushered Pakistan into democracy, sparking optimism that public office holder would have to acknowledge the worth of a common man by returning him the justice and dignity; and ruler would demonstrate more civic excellence than those who might be otherwise equal to him in birth, descent or wealth.

Urbanization continued throughout this democratic period, and the more population of cities rose, less number of people remained controlled by lords or heads of tribes: Pakistan appeared to be at the threshold of change as F.J. Teggart pointed out in process of History that migration from rural settings to cities have been the great occasions of human advance….as escape from the cultural traditions enable people to think creatively.”(3)

Democracy needs democratic culture to grow; the birth of former though not impossible in absence of latter, but growth is; and birth of latter is only possible if measures and attitudes of rulers are tailored to foster democratic consciousness which in turn makes the growth of democracy possible.

Pakistan was back to square one in 1999; democracy paradoxically proved to be its downfall and unraveled itself. Minus democratic substance, democracy from 1988 to 1999 allowed the forces of history and culture to overshadow and ultimately doomed this period to dictatorship of form.

Democracy of democratic norms and democracy of democratic norms can only rise if country has democratic culture. Justice to job is reflected in objective realities in democratic society; but if democratic country has society in which tendency of hero-worship is deeply embedded and ingrained; justice to job is in assuming job by person assumed to have in alienable right for it, who in turn acquires knowledge about ruling from ruling not from being ruled. In the former happiness emanates from tangible contributions, and in latter it is mere subjective. 

The goodness of subject and of performance during office-tenure is superfluous in democratic countries of no democratic norms. Elections degenerates into no-holds barred contest in which participants aim at triumph in order to shortchange ‘the hoi polloi’ and as almost every participant knows that he can’t be candidate of people in his right; therefore, every imaginable political shenanigans, chicanery, jiggery-pokery, and browbeating are employed in coming up as ‘representative’ of people.

Triumphant ones abuse mandate; flout democratic norms and trespass all bounds of political decency with impunity as reelection with state juggernaut at command not only can be engineered through institutionalized arm twisting, coercion, saber-rattling and rigging but also can be presented most flagrantly as the endorsement by people.

Ruler owes everything to tradition if excellence of ruler is the excellence of blood and politicians owe everything to devious means if excellence lies in the excellence of ‘performance’ during election. 

1.         Ahsan ‘Muslim political culture’, Alberta, Lethbridge Press, 1997, P3 

2.         Kurt, ‘The Practicality of Democracy’,  London, Green Wood Press, 1990, P58

3.            Teggart, ‘The Process Of History’ New York, Princeton University Press, 1976, 75