A painful saga

It is becoming increasingly difficult to write about Pakistan because so vast is the extent of challenges it faces and so grave their intensity that one is lost in the maze struggling to find a point to start from. At a different level, the problems are so inextricably interlinked that it is almost impossible to make one out from the other. It is like the sickness is widespread, thus making it difficult to write a prognosis.

Even if one were to restrain oneself from saying that the entire state edifice has collapsed, it would be impossible to deny that it is excruciatingly close to falling apart. This must also be viewed in the context that the process of institution-building was never initiated in earnest in the country. In fact, even what we inherited from our colonial masters at the time of gaining independence has been systematically squandered and bulldozed, leaving a vacuum for individuals to exercise their will and whims.

Therefore, over years, instead of institutions formulating and implementing policies, it is the miniscule ruling elite which became the masters of shaping the national destiny. This gap separating institutionalized governance from the exercise of individual prerogative has continued to increase with time, thus dividing society along multiple discriminatory lines depending on the interests of those who hold the command as against those who forever remain the vassals.

The consequential damage which this aberration has caused to the societal structure has been monumental. Instead of looking at long-term planning, we have moved from tenure to tenure, consolidating the spectrum of interests of parties and individuals who manage to walk into the annals of power. Their sole focus has been on perpetuating their own base and blocking the way of their opponents. When their political adversaries would manage to strike a deal of their own, instead of continuing the policies of their predecessors that would be of some benefit to the people, they would chisel their own script principally meant to concentrate power in their own hands to the exclusion of their political opponents.

In between were long military interludes which would derail completely whatever little may have been achieved by way of moving the country along some modicum of institutionalized path. A new mindset would come into play to drive people apart along divisions encompassing religious, ethnic, social, caste and colour identities. To generate longevity for their rules, such dictatorships would work to tailor together political concoctions mostly comprising people who would be willing to espouse their agenda and take it forward.

So it is that, over a period of 75 years, four military rules have been promulgated, each leaving behind its own pile of debris which would not be cleaned up. Its most damaging impact has been that individuals would take to adopting violent and exclusionary tactics in preference to mutual engagement to work for forging national identity. Thus, the institutions were eliminated to let individuals rule by virtue of the pleasure of a few.

This resulted in two major fallouts: damage that was incurred by the state and the people and the loss of face the institution had to suffer as it got involved in tasks other than its constitutional undertaking.

One other lethal consequence of the military rules has been that these left behind a legacy of power vested in individuals in preference to the empowerment of institutions. Even when not directly in command of the country, by the confessions of its own chiefs, it has continued to play a political role from behind dark curtains.

There is much talk that the military has disassociated itself from politics and, henceforth, will not meddle in these affairs. Despite such assurances, whatever one has seen of it in the recent past belies such claims. Apparently, the military continues to play a dominant role with the connivance of other state institutions which are least concerned about an act being constitutional or otherwise. These institutions stand out as being completely out of sync with democratic credentials and constitutional constraints. If democracy is to ever dig in its foothold in the country, this mindset must change.

With the long and painful history of such involvement in the past, it is rather difficult to believe such assurances unless one sees it happening over time, reflected in the institutions freed of all incumbrances and allowed to perform their duties strictly in accordance with the constitutional strictures. That goal appears to be a million miles away as the remedial process, if undertaken at all, will not be a simple one.

It is going to be at least a two-fold undertaking: to let the institutions be divorced of the vicious stranglehold of personalized domination and guided along to operate strictly within the constitutional framework. That, in turn, will be secured only if these are led by people who are deeply wedded to a democratic culture and who come with competence, courage and character to stand up to bullying from every conceivable quarter.

At this early stage, both these aspects seem like dreams which will take a long time in cultivating and practising — that is if such a process is actually initiated in the foreseeable future.

There is no harm in seeing dreams. Let us nurture the dream that these protestations, for once, will see the light of the day to lay the foundations of a genuinely democratic state where its institutions will remain committed to zealously safeguarding its foundational liberal ethos and its constitutional parameters. Let us also nurture the dream that we shall not have people of straw, but of calibre and character who will be able to guard these values without a shade of doubt either in their understanding of their importance, or the need for their unhindered and unrestrained implementation.

Let’s nurture the dream that our dream may come true, and we may look forward to a future with hope and promise.

The writer is a political and security strategist, former special assistant to former PM Imran Khan, and currently a fellow at King’s College London. He tweets @RaoofHasan