For the past more than two decades, whenever one attends any civil society seminar or discussion, there is always a mandatory mention of the ubiquitous “challenges of implementation” of x desired recommendation or y good policy.
The question is: why have Pakistan’s civil society and policy circles not done something systematic about the lack of implementation of desired policies? Before we go deeper into this, one has to put this in some context. We do not subscribe to the view that politics of resistance is dead in Pakistan. We also do not blame the progressive forces in the country for their ‘weak’ efforts. The impact of progressive forces is marginal in Pakistan due to structural reasons.
Pakistan has been part of the global cold-war politics since 1950s, having been part of the first Afghan war/jihad and then of the ‘war on terror’ from 2001 onwards. Being an active part of the global cold war and the ‘war on terror’ has made Pakistan a security-centric state. Cold-war allies such as the US worked actively with the security apparatus; progressive forces, on the other hand, have been undermined since the 1950s. The weak civil society that we see in Pakistan today has not come about in a single day, month or year. It is the result of the tightening grip of a security-centric state over progressive forces in the past 70-odd years. Therefore, resistance politics is weak in Pakistan due to state structures and not due to lack of agency on the part of progressive individuals or groups or organisations in Pakistan.
Another important qualifier that is needed and has been mentioned by others as well is that authoritarianism and fascism is spreading almost all over the world, including the US, India, Turkey and other countries. Pakistan is not unique in that way. There is certain pushback against the gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and retrogressive trends and politics are gaining a foothold in many countries of the world. Pakistan too is experiencing the same, just in a more pronounced manner due to the nature of the state.
There are also indications lately that Pakistan might look towards the repressive policies and practices in China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey as some sorts of ‘role model’ to follow. We have seen systemic efforts to undermine the free media in Pakistan recently as part of this trend.
Having qualified the structural impediments that progressive forces face in Pakistan, there is still a need to review the challenges of implementation. If we look at pro-women legislation, there are lots of laws that have been passed in the past some years both at the federal and the provincial levels. Some of the issues that have been legislated on are: harassment of women at the workplace, acid crime prevention, prevention against anti-women practices, anti-rape laws, protection against domestic violence, child marriage restraint, minorities marriage laws, abolition of bonded labour, child protection and welfare, free and compulsory education and women empowerment packages. There have also been laws made or amended regarding disabled persons employment and rehabilitation, inheritance/ownership rights, maternity benefits, transgender persons empowerment, and family courts amendment amongst others.
The next logical question is: has this flurry of pro-women legislation led to actual empowerment of women and other marginalised communities? We cannot comment on it with any certainty as these laws face immense challenges at the stage of implementation.
Pro-women legislation is not the only arena that is not being meaningfully implemented. This problem extends to the entire range of progressive policies, laws and national and international commitments. Recently, a section of the press reported on the challenges of implementing the human rights agenda in Pakistan. The country went through its Universal Periodic Review a year ago. The international community made 289 recommendations for Pakistan to progress on its human rights record. Pakistan accepted 174 of these recommendations and “noted” another 111 suggestions, while rejecting four. Some of these recommendations concerned ratification of international conventions including criminalising enforced disappearances.
Who is monitoring Pakistan’s compliance with its human rights commitments and implementation of pro-women legislation? Pakistan’s civil society makes an effort to keep tabs. However, there are serious issues of capacity to systematically monitor implementation. And Pakistan’s civil society is up against deep structural impediments.
It seems repression is here to stay and is becoming an increasing trend in many countries of the world. Progressive forces and civil society in Pakistan need to strategise on how best to protect the rights of the country’s citizens. While the international community makes a noise, we know that their actions are also often guided by real politik and security policies.
Progressives in Pakistan need to systematically work on the protection of rights by forming a national implementation monitoring task force. We need not spend all our energies in lobbying for more rights-based legislation or tinkering at the margins of other outcomes. It would be helpful if the civil society develops a well-designed and thought-out mechanism to systematically monitor and report on the implementation of progressive laws, policies, and commitments that are already part of statute books or national and provincial policies.
It would also be useful if quarterly reports on the ‘status of implementation’ are formulated and launched regularly to hold the state and its institutions accountable for the protection of the rights of citizens, particularly those from marginalised groups. We need a systematic monitoring of the rights-based agenda in the country.
The writer is a freelance contributor.
