Everyone his own master

This is the dispersal of power at its best: defence policy in the clutches of General Headquarters (GHQ) with no input at all from the federal government; the Supreme Court (SC), under the forceful leadership of the twice-restored Chief Justice (CJ), turning itself into an alternative centre of administration; and the government reduced to presiding over a state of administrative mayhem and colourful financial skulduggery.
To say that only defence policy is with GHQ is to do our most powerful institution a great injustice. Foreign policy, or its most salient aspects, is also being run from that holy of holies. Small wonder that no foreign visit to Islamabad is complete without a call on the army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, who gives every indication of devoting as much time to ambassadors and foreign visitors as to his professional responsibilities.
The Foreign Office likes to take itself seriously but in truth it has been reduced to an adjunct secretariat of GHQ. Its image severely battered during Musharraf’s last days, the army had become a bit defensive about its role at the time of the 2008 elections. This was a temporary retreat but that it would be reversed so soon is not the least of the wonders the nation has witnessed since this latest dawn of democracy.
Latest dawn because we have seen many before it: many dawns and as many sunsets. But as a resilient people we are used to these turns of the wheel. To quote Ghalib (no doubt inaccurately), my difficulties became so many that they became easy.
But to give President Zardari his due, he is one helmsman least worried by the army’s domination. Indeed it is part of his political style: give the army what it wants and thereby keep it happy and occupied.
One of the first acts of his government was to cede security policy to Kayani. The arrangement is neat: Kayani fights the Taliban and keeps various American military commanders engaged while the government concentrates on self-survival and its leading figures burn the midnight oil in trying to decipher the secrets of high finance.
All was not well between Zardari and Kayani in the beginning, the strain in their relationship almost showing. Not anymore. Kayani seems to have made his peace with the inevitable, something which the media samurai have yet to accomplish, their leading warriors (no names, please) still hoping for a firestorm to hit the Presidency.
Kayani, however, can scarcely complain, having just received a three-year extension. Rather than being an aberration, this was an extension of Zardari’s policy of doing anything to keep the troops happy. If tomorrow Kayani wants to be a field marshal, rest assured Zardari will happily oblige him.
Not to be left behind in the imperatives of conciliation is Prime Minister Gilani who keeps everyone happy including GHQ and the National Assembly. He is the first prime minister in Pakistan’s history who faces no personal opposition, of the vitriolic kind, in the National Assembly, principally because of his easy-going temperament and his readiness to accommodate assembly members in matters small and, perhaps in exceptional cases, not-so-small. That his administrative skills and leadership qualities don’t quite measure up to his conciliatory skills is of course another matter.
But since when was incapacity a disability in Pakistan? Low performance is so much the norm that even mediocrity looks like brilliance. Wherever the chattering classes congregate in their drawing rooms the financial adeptness of people very close to Gilani is a staple of conversation. Still, Gilani draws little flak from the media, which again must be put down to his affable temperament.
Because of some chip on their shoulders, or quirk of mannerism or character, there are people who invite criticism. We love to hate them. Not Gilani who can lay claim to being our most Teflon prime minister.
Running a coalition, even if the coalition has hit some rocks lately, is not easy, all the more so given the prickliness of the MQM and the oiliness of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI-F. Zardari and Gilani have shown these skills even if, as already mentioned, their political virtuosity is quite unrelated to anything even remotely suggestive of administrative competence.
This is politics of a very limited kind, attuned only to the art of survival. But pending the next elections – provided of course nothing else intervenes in the meantime – this is the only thing on offer. Alternatives lie chiefly in the fancies of conspiracy theorists.
Into the administrative vacuum thus created has stepped a very active, some would say over-active, SC which is taking notice of matters that would normally be taken not to lie in the judicial domain. If fixing the price of sugar and looking into petroleum pricing are old stories, there is currently the slightly bemusing spectacle of a four-member commission set up by the SC to investigate the breaching of canals and protective dykes during the recent floods. A laudable initiative no doubt but provoking the question whether the SC is the proper forum to look into this matter.
The SC relies on Article 184(3) of the Constitution to look into matters of public importance and to take suo moto notice of them. This can be a useful device for the public good, enabling the highest judicial forum to address issues neglected by the administration or involving serious breaches of human rights.
The present SC led by its intrepid CJ has righted many wrongs and corrected many grave injustices by use of its suo moto powers. Which other SC and which other CJ would have questioned the intelligence agencies regarding missing persons in the manner in which this Court has done? Which other SC could have drawn such a damaging admission from the agencies as in the case of the 11 persons who went missing from the Adiala Jail?
The credit for this goes to the CJ and his colleagues sitting on the same bench. A law unto themselves, our agencies have never submitted before any Pakistani court. This development, therefore, needs to be unreservedly welcomed.
However, there is the danger of giving too wide an interpretation to Article 184(3). For when this occurs, as it increasingly has with the present SC, it gives rise to the impression that the highest judiciary is not only intruding into the administrative sphere but also, in some instances, hampering the ability of government to discharge its functions (not that the present dispensation can be accused of discharging much by way of its functions...but that’s a separate matter).
Hyper judicial activism can also lead to such embarrassments as the clarification the SC has just had to issue relating to the sacking of the two federal ministers, Swati and Kazmi. Newspapers reported the CJ as saying that this action showed the government’s respect for the SC, giving the impression as if the sacking had taken place in deference to the SC’s wishes.
By late night, the timing itself an embarrassing circumstance, the SC had to explain that the reported remarks should not be taken to mean that the sacking had occurred on the orders of the Court. An SC which has done much good and is still looked up to by many people can do without such bloomers.
But just to show that incapacity is not a civilian monopoly, the yarn given by the agencies regarding the 11 missing persons gives a new dimension to the meaning of hilarity. It says that the 11 persons were not really abducted by the agencies but by people pretending to be “spies” who took these dangerous terrorists, guilty of the most heinous crimes, to the areas where the army is currently engaged in counter-terrorist operations.
An operation launched by the army netted many terrorists including, lo and behold, the magnificent 11, now in army custody and soon to be tried under the Army Act.
As creative fiction goes, this is unsurpassed. But it gives rise to the unfortunate perception that if this is the best our intelligence agencies can up with – organisations which claim infallibility and think of themselves as the first guardians of the national interest, superior to anything else – then, collectively, we are in deeper waters than we think.
Email: winlust@yahoo.com