All that glitters

We have a curious taste for men who wear the uniform. Through much of his three-year tenure as army chief, we were repeatedly told General Raheel Sharif enjoyed immense ‘popularity’.

We were never informed how this was measured, but it is possible some people, and certainly some political parties which virtually pleaded with him to take over, sought this as a desirable option – for a variety of reasons. Some were of course centred purely on self interest and the quest for power. Others perhaps genuinely believed a military general offered a better option than the elected civilian leadership.

The reasons are fairly simple. We tend to look back at eras of military rule with a strange, twisted sense of nostalgia. This is especially true of the years under Field Marshal Ayub Khan from 1958 to 1969, when he was ousted by a populist uprising. Surprisingly, the Ayub Khan tenure is today looked back upon as a ‘golden age’, economic growth during this decade being cited as a key reason for this.

Yes, there was economic growth, standing at 5.82 percent. It was higher only under General Ziaul Haq with 5.85 percent, and to the world, chiefly his admirers in the US, Ayub was seen as a modernist. His personal views at least were indeed essentially secular and essentially liberal in that very broad sense of the word that defines lifestyle and patterns of activity. But there was an uglier side to the picture beyond the ballroom floors.

As the chief of Ayub’s Planning Commission, Dr Mahbubul Haq, stated himself, industrial wealth became concentrated in the hands of a mere 22 families under his policies. The industrial base established – in carpets, cement and textiles – resulted then in a vast discrepancy in wealth with poor tax collection, standing at barely ten percent, adding to the problem.

The wealthy became wealthier and the poor sank to deeper depths from which they have never clambered out. Land reform was a cosmetic affair with holders of large estates simply transferring some property to close family members. Oligarchy was put in place through the warped system of ‘basic democracies’ which permitted the vote only to a minority, claiming the illiterate could not wisely use this privilege. Of course they did, with enormous clarity, in 1970 – but the myth that the uneducated choose bad leaders persists. Ayub’s regime made no effort to educate them and in many ways established the class divide which persists.

The dictator also demolished the political Left, including the then active Communist Party of Pakistan and clamped down on the media that opposed him. For all his liberal views, Ayub had no scruples in using the religious right and the orthodox clergy against his opponent Fatima Jinnah. His very worst offences, which eventually resulted in civil war and a horrendous genocide, were the openly discriminatory policies put in place against the eastern wing of the country. The east for example had to pay tariff on goods sent to the west; the west was not required to do so.

This then was the ‘golden age’ that so many in the Pakistan of today look back at with nostalgia. They conjure up pictures of a smartly dressed military officer leading a country towards success. The truth about Ayub Khan and the steps he took which have led to our present crises and deprived us of sources for leadership and set up an enormous class divide are simply ignored. So is the evil role he played in creating the divide between the eastern and western parts of the country.

Yes, perhaps the country set up as Pakistan after 1947 with its two wings was always untenable. But Ayub built the hatred, the bigotry, the racism, the sense of injustice which later flared up into a terrifying storm.

In other cases, we have people who insist Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator who ruled from 1999 to 2008, set many good precedents. Again, like Ayub Khan, he was a man of essentially liberal views at a personal level. But we need to remember these did not translate into policies. Pakistan remained, and in fact became even more dependent, on the US aid which poured in after 2001. While Musharraf claimed to be using it against militants, it is obvious that militancy in fact grew during this period, with more Pakistanis killed in terrorist attacks than ever before.

The deliberate tarnishing of the political leadership begun by Ayub also continued, with politicians derided and attempts made to undermine what abilities they possessed. For democracy, for civilian rule and for the representation of people in governance this was a disaster.

While there are fewer admirers of Ziaul Haq, they do exist. There are those who insist that the kohl-eyed, moustached dictator was a humble man who valued Islam. The kind of religion he brought in is something we live with today. Assisted by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Ziaul Haq opened up the doors for extremist groups from the Middle East enter the country, set up seminaries and other centres and alter forever the face of religion in a country that till then had followed an essentially moderate line of thought. He also altered laws, introducing onto the books and into the constitution his own version of Islam which pushed back the rights of women and minorities.

We still struggle to amend or retract most of these laws. And of course under Zia’s watch, arms and drugs poured in from Afghanistan, altering the face of the country forever. A curious attempt was made to push Pakistan across the continent, west into the Middle East, breaking its linkages with the Indian subcontinent and the culture it had inherited from its long association with this region. The crackdown on dance, music and on so much else including forms of art is just one example of this.

That retrogressive mindset can still be seen today. It comes across when perfectly well-educated people suggest the Pakistan should emulate Saudi laws as a means to introduce greater morality, for example by removing permission for women to drive. The brutalisation of the country as floggings, lynching and the award of punishments which included the amputation of hands came in, though were mercifully never carried out, altered thinking and brought in the sectarianism that Ziaul Haq used for his own purposes.

This then is the legacy of our military interventions. Why do we cling on to it? Why should we want yet another military dictator to take over? We need to find answers to these questions. It is obvious that we need to develop a culture in which the military plays its role as laid down by the constitution. This would allow political parties to develop their cadres and move forward perhaps beyond the place where they stand today.

Yes, they have a lot of growing to do. But this can happen only when the stifling shade held over them is removed and the fear of intervention taken away. This fear remained in place over the past three years. We must hope that for the future it can be dissipated so that the light can shine through and the civilian-led democracy permitted to climb to places where it has not been allowed to tread before. This is after all our only hope.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com