Policing our fundamental rights

National consensus in a democracy is a bit of an oxymoron, which is why it is so hard to achieve. On the one hand, anti-democracy voices across the country are singing that familiar tune, ‘oh, these corrupt politicians are taking too long to amend the constitution’, while on the other,

By Mosharraf Zaidi
January 03, 2015
National consensus in a democracy is a bit of an oxymoron, which is why it is so hard to achieve. On the one hand, anti-democracy voices across the country are singing that familiar tune, ‘oh, these corrupt politicians are taking too long to amend the constitution’, while on the other, a plethora of civil society actors – many with good cause – are lamenting the onset of dictatorship masquerading as civil-military unison.
The prime minister, who has acted with more courage and leadership in the last two weeks than he had in the past two years, is now in a remarkable fix. He has to do more, and more and more. And never, never, never give up. I use that Churchillism quite deliberately. It is clumsy and over the top, but Pakistan needs a courageous and tireless leader right now, and God has placed this unique opportunity in the hands of a man who may not get credit if he delivers, but will surely live in ignominy if he does not.
In the flowery and bluster-ridden macro-level rhetoric about war and decisiveness and clarity, a lot gets overlooked. This is ever the trouble with grand narratives. There are a lot of pretty solid speechwriters in Pakistan. There aren’t nearly as many effective Station House Officers. What’s that you ask?
The Station House Officer is the man incharge of a police station. It is a man, because mostly, it is a position staffed by men. In our parlance, the Station House Officer, or SHO is an incredibly powerful man. In Islamabad, no one would notice an SHO because he occupies the shudra band of BPS-1 to BPS-16, the ‘non-officer’ ranks of our public sector. Yet many an oiled-and-perfumed babus from across the land know exactly when an SHO is in the house, when they are in an SHO’s territory. In his jurisdiction, an SHO is a big deal.
Pakistan has about 200 million people. It is said that about a tenth of these live in Karachi. There are roughly 107 police stations for

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Karachi’s 20 million people, leaving each SHO in the City of Lights and Darkness to serve and protect 200,000 people.
Punjab is said to be about half of the country, or about 100 million people strong. In 2008 there were about 640 police stations in Punjab, and today there are roughly 740 police stations. Let us be generous, as we always are with Punjab, because, let’s face it, we have to be. Let’s say there are an extra two to three hundred stealth police stations we don’t know about, and that there are a thousand SHOs in the land of Bulleh Shah. That leaves each SHO with about 100,000 residents of Punjab to deal with.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 265 police stations today. That is a lot of SHOs. The total population of the province is estimated to be over 26 million. That leaves the KP and Punjab SHO with about the same size of headache. The safety of about 100,000 people, made up of about males and females split fifty-fifty, and young and old people about 70:30.
How many of us grew up wanting to be an SHO in Pakistan? How many of us want our children to grow up to be SHOs? How many of us would be willing to put out lives on the line, every day, to live the life of the Pakistani SHO?
Please don’t answer any of those questions.
Military courts are a pretty sorry answer to our problem of marshmallow-soft statehood. Tickle the belly of Pakistan, or put a bullet in it, Pakistan won’t respond, doesn’t respond, can’t respond.
Surgical strikes in North Waziristan, and the shelling of Kunar and Nuristan may be necessary, but they are far from adequate. We have a police system made up of an insanely high number of brave and courageous men and women, none of whom have been given a framework to succeed in. Worst still, irresponsible political rhetoric over many decades and shameful political exploitation for even longer have corroded professionalism and self respect within our police system.
Sometimes, all the soft analysis in the world is useless. Like right now. Even without all the cultural problems that Pakistani cops face, they are stuck with the problem of scale. This is a system of law and order made for a country of about twenty million. It was wildly inadequate then, and it is terrifyingly inadequate today.
A parade of retired officers will swear by the adequacy of the system, as long as there is no ‘political interference’, or as long as people are ‘sincere’, or as long as the IG is ‘clean’. This is contemptible hogwash. If this seems harsh, it is because this irresponsible rhetoric puts lives at risk. Pakistani policemen are among the most vulnerable people in the country, and they are fighting a war that they are neither staffed for nor equipped for. Worst of all, they are part and parcel of a society so deeply susceptible to violent extremism that the line is often crossed. Don’t forget the story of that governor of a province of about 100 million who was assassinated by his cop guard.
What does all this boring mumbo jumbo about how poorly staffed Pakistani policemen are have to do with the throbbing sensation of a fight amongst lawyers about the constitutionality of military courts? A lot.
Pakistan’s police services are a mirror into the basic dysfunction of government service delivery. We haven’t yet touched poor training, low-quality equipment, rampant and deep-seated corruption and heavy handedness. We are merely talking about the overall coverage that the police provide to Pakistani citizens.
The debate about military courts is anchored in fundamental rights. The guardians of the rights of day-to-day, average, mundane Pakistanis are our policemen. They are, almost by design, incapable of offering the protection that they are meant to.
My argument last week for military courts was rooted in the singular qualitative difference between the security a major or colonel have versus that of a judge. The spread is supposed to be covered by the police. If our police had the capacity to protect our judges, the argument would be moot.
It doesn’t. Now, don’t panic. Just carefully consider what this means.
The national debate is obsessing about the coverage of our fundamental rights. That is to be celebrated. But in all the discourse around our rights, how many conversations have been about the guardians and guarantors of our rights?
Now panic.
The writer is an analyst and commentator.

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