Authoritarianism or Democracy?

ZULFIKAR Ali Bhutto waged a long and hard struggle against Ayub Khan’s dictatorship. In retrospect one might say that, left to his own devices, he too would have opted for one-man rule — that is, his own. As head of the government he suffered democratic institutions and processes to the extent that he did for want of an option. He wanted his writ to prevail not only at the centre but in all of the provinces, and to that end he got rid of the NAP-JUI governments in Balochistan and NWFP, imprisoned their leaders, and manipulated the remaining local politicians so as to form PPP governments in these provinces. He had little tolerance for opponents or dissidents. I can think of none among them who did not end up in prison. But intolerance of the opposition was not something that Mr Bhutto had invented. It had been the order of the day before him and it did not cease with his departure from the nation’s political scene. Going beyond Ziaul Haq’s military dictatorship, we see that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif instituted bogus criminal cases against each other and imprisoned each other and associates during their respective tenures as prime minister. Following their return from periods of exile abroad in 2007, they admitted their past “mistake”, and promised never to persecute their opponents again. We cannot say what Benazir would have done with this promise, for she died in December 2007. After the elections on Feb 18, 2008 her party formed the government at the centre and in Sindh and entered ruling coalitions in Balochistan and the NWFP. PML-N put together a coalition, including some PPP notables, to form the government in Punjab with Mr Shahbaz Sharif at its head. True to its tradition, the PPP could not accept the fact that another party had come to dominate the government in Punjab. Party stalwarts , spurred on by Governor Salmaan Taseer, worked to dislodge it. Then the wheel of fortune turned in their favour: the Supreme Court found the Sharif brothers to be ineligible to hold public office. Consequently, Shahbaz Sharif ceased to be a member of the Punjab Assembly and chief minister. The normal procedure in this situation would have been for the governor to summon the provincial assembly to elect a new chief minister. Instead, governor’s rule was imposed on the province. Leaders of several political parties and many other observers have condemned Mr Taseer’s action as improper. Mr Nawaz Sharif has called it an unconstitutional and unlawful act and asked civil servants and policemen not to obey the resulting government’s orders. He has also called upon the people to come out on the streets to protest and agitate against the Zardari regime. The people in fair numbers are coming out and a mass movement appears to be taking shape. The governor on his part showed no signs of relenting. Within minutes of taking charge he replaced the chief secretary and the inspector general of police with officers of his choice, He locked the entrances to the provincial assembly to prevent members from meeting, and they along with the speaker, have been holding sessions outside on the building’s steps and adjoining grounds. Mr Zardari’s government seems to be assuming that the people marching on the streets will get tired in a few days and go home. This may or may not happen. Mass movements have come and gone but some of them have persisted until their ends were achieved: for instance the anti-Ayub movement (1967-69); Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s autonomy movement in East Pakistan (1969-71); anti-Bhutto movement (1977); Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (went on for several years to oust Ziaul Haq but fizzled out before his death); and the anti-Musharraf movement (2007-08). Mr Taseer’s partisans told us that governor’s rule was a temporary expedient, and that the assembly would soon be called to elect a new chief minister. The intervening period would give the PPP managers time to do a bit of horse-trading and put together a majority in the assembly and form the next government. That may happen but it will not necessarily bring public tranquillity to Punjab. It will probably be said that the PPP has taken power through crooked manipulation, that it is an expression of Mr Zardari’s unbounded and unprincipled pursuit of power, and that it does not mean well for Pakistan. Professions of peace on the part of those who sponsor mass movements may be sincere. Our experience shows that when people in large numbers come out on the streets they will not remain content with chanting endearing slogans. Orators will use their way with words, highs and lows of voice and body language to arouse them and call them to action. They will then set private cars and buses on fire, break windows and plunder stores, clash with the police, kill and get killed. Supporters of the present government brand Nawaz Sharif’s protest movement as the politics of confrontation that is liable to strain the country’s fragile democracy beyond endurance. This is specious reasoning. People protesting on the streets are a part of the democratic tradition. They are a needed warning to rulers that they cannot get away with arbitrariness and usurpation of the citizen’s fundamental rights. There are times when it is beyond the government’s capability to meet the protesters’ demand. That is not the case in Pakistan at this time. Reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, along with the related issue of judicial independence, is the principal objective of the lawyers’ movement and their intended long march. The same objective informs the PML-N’s plan for a protest movement. Mr Nawaz Sharif says he will call off his movement if Justice Chaudhry is reinstated. It is thus open to Mr Zardari’s government to reinstate the gentleman, send the protesters home and return our city streets to peace and tranquillity. It is possible that Mr Zardari’s personal pride and stubbornness are keeping his government from making this simple move to resolve the current crisis. If that is indeed the case, it is an awful shame that this government has chosen to keep the country in turmoil merely to appease a single individual’s ego, even if he be the president of Pakistan. The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

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