Negotiation and dissent

My last column ‘Forms of dissent’ evoked several responses, largely from my colleagues engaged in the study of politics. Dr Tahir Jamil’s take was extremely profound and immensely helpful in developing the argument further, regarding the various ways of managing the political dissent. His analyses of the violent forms of dissent were quite insightful, particularly his deliberation on the settlement of political dissent through negotiation.

Before going into our exact interaction, let me introduce Dr Jamil, an important member of GC University Lahore’s History faculty. A man of umpteen talents, ready wit being the most conspicuous, Dr Jamil is a scholar of world politics, who holds a PhD from the Claremont Graduate University, California. Before proceeding to the US as a Fulbright scholar, he did his under-graduate degree from Government College Lahore and Masters and M.Phil from Quaid-i-Azam University. Despite his training as a political scientist, he has an abiding interest in history therefore he preferred the latter over the former.

The discussion went something like this. The institutional structures as well as the organisations representing various strata and professional groups operating in a society have to be visibly functional and active. These institutional structures are embedded in the indigenous customs and conventions. It is also through these conventions that the institutions keep re-inventing themselves. Besides, these institutions and structures lay the very foundation on which the edifice of democracy rests as they act as a bridge between the national (high) politics of the elite and the politics of common people.

The role of these organisations is quintessentially political because they are mostly locked into a struggle of securing rights of the dispossessed from the privileged. The leadership of such organisations employs dissent which is, at times, articulated through protests and agitation. By saying so, one should not imply that struggle between the dispossessed and the privileged lead both of them on the war path. Despite dissent on various issues, they keep the door of negotiation open. Thus the differences between the two are not of abiding nature.

The nature of their relationship is markedly fluid. They provide an effective mechanism of filtering the intensity of anger which may end up in violence. Particularly in socially-advanced societies, dissent is mostly settled through various engagements including negotiation. Among the most vital functions of these organisations is the management of dissent through negotiation with the party which has appropriated the major chunk of power and privileges.

In order to prove his point Dr. Jamil quoted famous French political thinker and world-renowned historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) who, in his universally-acclaimed book Democracy in America, underscored the presence of the associations at every level, be it the representatives of labourers or farmers. Along with individual liberty and freedom of women, associations and their effective functioning was the most important feature of American democracy.

He could not imagine American democracy without these associations, which on the one hand generated dissent but on the other managed it too. Both of these roles, according to Dr Jamil, are equally crucial.

When I pointed out to him the presence of myriad associations and anjumans of young doctors, clerks or traders, making all sorts of hue and cry on Lahore’s Mall Road or in front of Civil Secretariat, he cast a serious doubt on those bodies as truly democratic. The election process that throws up the leadership is not transparent enough, he argued with utmost certainty. Lamenting on the state of trade unions, Dr Jamil shifted his gaze on Pakistan’s democratic setup in which he found countless holes.

In Pakistan, according to him, the democratic experience is just superficial. Here we come across a complete disconnect between organisational and national level of politics. We have even failed to evolve our local bodies system properly.

When I drew his attention back to ‘negotiation’ as an instrument of resolving political dissent, he brought forth another aspect which is very significant. Over the last four or five decades, the character of the associations operating in Pakistan has turned tangibly religious. In the political milieu, religion has acquired centrality, as a consequence of which negotiation ceases to be a viable tool to settle dissent. Any political party or organisation with religious agenda and overtones goes for what Dr Jamil termed as ‘absolute gain’ which is usually not possible through negotiation. Through negotiation, both parties tend to forgo some of the claim(s) and eventually agree to something less than what it originally demanded. When both parties are trying to bulldoze each other, violence is the natural corollary.

To corroborate his point Dr Jamil said, Shia-Sunni differences cannot be settled through negotiation because both parties have taken hard lines and are not prepared to budge. That attitude is seen when dissent crops up regarding issues that are not religious at all.

In the subcontinent in general and Pakistan in particular, politics of protest and demonstration found ubiquity since the 1920s. That trend continues unimpeded. He agreed with me that Jinnah employed his negotiating skills in a dexterous manner. Similarly, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had a knack to negotiate not only at the international level but also at the national level too. The constitution of 1973 and the Simla Accord (signed in1972) are two vivid instances of his skills to finding solution to the issues through negotiation. However, his dialogue with the Pakistan National Alliance in 1977 failed to yield the desired result.

That juncture, Dr Jamil averred, is a decisive moment in Pakistan’s history. Had that dialogue been successful, the nature of Pakistani politics would have been entirely different.

I kept listening to Dr Jamil and took notes of the points that he was making. At the very end of our interaction, I was a bit unsure about the intellectual validity of his arguments; yet I found his deliberations extremely interesting and novel.