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A few simple lessons from Pakistan statecraft

— PHOTO: AP

A man shouts slogans from inside a police vehicle after being detained at a rally in Lahore on Wednesday.

Sooner rather than later, films and cricket should provide distractions that would help us move out of our current patronising preoccupation with the developments in Pakistan. A collective sense of smugness informs most of the Indian reactions to President Pervez Musharraf’s Emergency proclamation in a country that has not been allowed by a combination of external and internal forces to construct a durable structure of governance. Arguably, it is at a time like this that we can feel good and even superior about our democratic arrangements; but, it is also at times like these that we need to summon the humility to learn a lesson or two from the turmoil next door.

The foremost lesson that is obvious for us in India from the recent events not just in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh is that there would be consequences if the idiom of confrontation is pushed too far and too hard. Despite a seemingly robust institutional arrangement of checks and balances, we too are in imminent danger of giving in to a culture of confrontation, a culture that puts a premium on the right to oppose without the obligation to produce minimum orderly conduct of governing processes. This creeping culture of confrontation has already set precedents, which are stoked by all-too-over-enthusiastic, under-supervised, discourse-manufacturers.

We think it is legitimate for political parties to pursue their rivalries without restraints and rules; we seem to have given our leaders a licence to pursue their personalised animosities and dignify these animosities as ideological differences; we appear to have acquiesced in these leaders’ claim to some kind of immunity regime, whereby even their most blatant transgressions cannot be checked without inviting accusations of vendetta; and, most distressingly, there is an itch to engage in a clash of institutional egos.

However politically correct it may be to berate General Musharraf for his uniform, there is no getting away from the overwhelmingly simple fact that Pakistan’s so-called democratic leaders have done precious little to earn any kind of public legitimacy. Nor have they helped deepen the democratic processes or institutions. When in power they have been prone to misuse and abuse their authority for exceedingly narrow objectives and personal gains. They have made a habit of betraying the public trust. And, there is no evidence that they have purged themselves of those very instincts and pretensions that in the first place prompted them to want to short-change the masses of Pakistan. We in India are not immune from these infections.

Second. The armed services brass should understand, once again, that governance is not its cup of tea. Governance is about organised political activity, which at its core comes down to a struggle over society’s resources — who gets to get what and at whose expense. This involves bargaining, compromises, negotiations, and arbitration. Armed forces do not train their officers and men in any of these functions; on the other hand, these skills can be acquired only in the mohallas, bazaars, and chawls, not in cantonments or an officers’ mess. Politics and governance are predicated on disagreements, disputes, debates, and dissent, even defiance; armed forces are professionally trained to obey and command, submit to hierarchy and control.

Army officers in this part of the world have often been lured into the political arena on the presumption that they were honest, dedicated, and committed enough to clean up the mess created by the “irresponsible” politicians. It should be obvious to every epauletted officer in the Indian armed forces that the developments in Pakistan and Bangladesh have only one moral: avoid the temptation to step into the politician’s dirty world. It is too messy to be swept away by the wave of a field marshal’s baton. Democracy has always been a messy arrangement and will remain so.

A similar lesson ought to be imbibed by the judicial fraternity in India: do not overstep the institutional boundaries. Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry is also in part author of the mess that is Pakistan today. He and some of his brother judges allowed themselves to be provoked by the gentlemen in the black coats into a confrontation with the Islamabad establishment. The Bar and the Bench goaded each other to assume the role of the principal opposition to President Musharraf. This was presumptuous and was bound to invite reaction.

Similarly, some of our judges in the Supreme Court and the High Courts would do the institution they preside over and the country a whole lot of good if they understand a simple maxim: there will be consequences, not always healthy, if you decide to play politics or decide to get involved in politicians’ quarrels. The judges’ job is to interpret the law and to promote constitutional wholesomeness; judges are not and cannot be arbiters of political morality. Moreover, there can be the most unpredictable consequences if the judges continue to refuse to set their own house in order by addressing allegations of corruption while arrogating to themselves the right to preach and prosecute an errant political class.

There is the issue of the nature and content of the democratic discourse, which claims its credentials from a membership in civil society but, in fact, is a neat commercial arrangement, unaccountable and unanswerable in any democratic forum. The problem, as it manifested itself so acutely in Pakistan and which manifests itself day in and day out in India, is that this so-called democratic discourse ends up de-legitimising every democratic symbol and institution.

Because of our six decades of democratic give and take and the gradual deepening of the democratic spirit, the democratic structure is able to absorb the daily assault on the legitimacy of politics and politicians. In Pakistan, this produced insecurity and irrationality at the very core of the ruling arrangement; and, there was no mechanism for self-correction. Our own media leaders need to reflect on their own institutional arrogance and their own frailties; more than that, the democratic discourse has a responsibility to ensure that it does not create conditions which may tempt the non-democratic forces and voices to step in.

And, lastly we need to understand the danger of involving the outsider in our domestic disputes. Indian leaders and commentators have all too glibly been suggesting that the United States should do this in Pakistan or do that to General Musharraf. Unwittingly we concede the outsider a legitimate right to meddle and interfere in Pakistan’s affairs. Sooner rather than later, the same precedent gets invoked in the context of another country.

In recent days, we have had this entirely distressing spectacle of the American Ambassador and other high-ranking U.S. diplomats visiting assorted leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in an effort to convince the principal opposition party of the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal. It speaks volumes about the collapsed communication between the government and the opposition that at the Ashoka Road establishment the Americans are heard with respect and deference. The Americans, however, are not the only foreign power suspected of over-stepping nor is the BJP the only political party susceptible to advice from foreign missions in New Delhi.

Nonetheless, Pakistan provides our political leaders a classic reminder of the costs of becoming too close to the Americans and their agenda. Every political leader and political party ought to remember that democratic legitimacy comes from popular support and public respectability — and not from control over the armed forces or from convenience or acceptance of this or that foreign power.

The unhappy turn of events in Pakistan once again prescribes a simple lesson for the leaders in India: do not abuse the public trust; do not cross the limits of fair play; public office is not a licence to loot and plunder, and political rivalry and competition is not another form of feudal vendetta. We may permit ourselves a false sense of superiority that the Pakistani politicians deserved the mess they find themselves in. But we will do well to keep in mind that we now have a whole generation of political leaders who have thrived and prospered by their cultivated indifference to public good and political decency.

Prime Ministers in successive coalition governments have found themselves helpless in reining in errant ministers belonging to regional political groups. We need to find collective willpower and energy to reverse this new trend and to restore trustworthiness to public office. If we do not want to go the Pakistani way we may have to remember that the democratic edifice rests on restraints, respect for boundaries and fair play.

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