Opinion Coup that never was
A journey to and lesson from Pakistan: democracy has at last taken root there
The TV crews were racing us to the Attari-Wagha crossing,goggle-eyed at the prospect of covering yet another military coup in Pakistan. Our motley delegation of 15 more-or-less self-selected members of Parliament,ranging the spectrum of 10 political parties and drawn from across the country,Lakshadweep to Haryana and Maharashtra to Odisha,comprising both eager first-termers and more hardened veterans,led by the former foreign minister,Yashwant Sinha,proceeded to the same crossing at the same time with the opposite apprehension: that the overthrow of the government and the closing down of the Pakistan National Assembly might leave us with no interlocutors for the third round of the India-Pakistan parliamentarians dialogue being organised by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT).
Our journey to Islamabad began even as the Pakistan National Assembly reconvened to debate a motion of confidence moved by the prime minister in the face of a standoff between the government and the supreme court over initiating criminal proceedings against the president,and against the background of a straight confrontation between the government and its army brass over Memogate,the defence secretary (a retired lieutenant-general and confidant of the army chief) having been summarily dismissed the previous week and a decision hanging over the continuation beyond the next few weeks of the head of the ISI,General Shuja Pasha. It was a situation ripe,in the light of the past six decades,for a coup to send the civilian government packing,more ripe perhaps than ever in the past,given that there is no charismatic Bhutto at the head of the political establishment but a fragile coalition held together by leaders who can feel under their feet the heaving discontent of their own supporters.
As our panting reporters and hysterical anchors back home flitted like bees from one expert to another predicting an imminent political earthquake in our immediate neighbourhood,anxious messages had flown between our delegation and our hosts over whether it would not be wiser to postpone the event to a less eventful time. The contrast between the tone of our queries and the even replies we received could not have been starker. Repeatedly we were reassured that all was on even keel; that our parliamentary counterparts were ready,able and willing to receive us; that we could indeed even bring our spouses along if we wished; and that the theme of the conference would continue to the somewhat banal one of trade and economic relations even as our general public was being informed by our always perceptive 24×7 media that Pakistan was hurtling once more towards the abyss,and that to talk trade at a moment like this was a bit like discussing the trickle in the tap when the issue was the imminence of the flood.
Our discussions over two days 17th and 18th overlapped with the debate in the Pakistan National Assembly and Senate,essentially over who was to run the country,the army or the civilian authority; concern over whether Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would,in fact,respond to the supreme courts summons for his personal appearance before the bench,and what would happen if he were to go or not to go; the stripping of Gilanis principal counsel of his right to appear on behalf of his eminent client and his replacement by none other than the seasoned barrister,Aitzaz Ahsan,who had led the lawyers movement against Pervez Musharraf; the dismissed defence secretarys decision to appeal to the courts against what he insists is his arbitrary dismissal; and widespread speculation over the future of the ISI chief and thus of the relationship between the civil government and the armed forces principal enforcement agency,not only operating abroad but even more against dissidents and discontents within Pakistan.
In the event,and notwithstanding their other pressing political life-and-death preoccupations,no less than 52 members of the Pakistan Parliament,stretching past all the principal political formations,took time off to meet us,as many as 35 of them participating,without rancour and with immense good humour,in the most constructive round of discussions of the three we have held so far. More,we were taken to the Senate and welcomed formally not only by the chair but by every one of the heads of the political parties represented in the Senate. There was some apprehension when Prof. Khurshid Ahmed of the Jamaat-i-Islami rose to speak that the cordiality might be blown away; his remarks were,however,entirely in keeping with the warmth of the sentiments expressed from every corner of the House. The next evening,the delegation was received by the prime minister (to some whispering among us as to whether this was a farewell tea from an outgoing head of government). But rising above the steaming samosas and delectable sandwiches,the engagement turned into a full-blown protocol event with the leaders of all the political parties represented in the ruling coalition in respectful attendance,along with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar (at her winsome best) and other senior ministers,the prime minister himself going well beyond his written speech to convey an unmistakable message of goodwill and good neighbourliness. Given that ours was an utterly informal,non-official delegation,with no particular sanction or mandate from either the government or even the presiding officers of our Parliament,let alone our respective political leaderships,the reception at the prime ministers residence,in the context of what is his most daunting domestic challenge to date,was,to say the least,quite remarkable. We had certainly neither asked for it,nor expected it. Next morning,as we re-crossed the Wagha-Attari border,we learned that Gilani had presented himself in person before the supreme court,that he was exempted from further personal appearances and that the case would go forward with due democratic decorum.
The main lesson to be learned is that democracy has at long last taken root in the hitherto arid soil of Pakistan. In sharp contrast to the past,not a single political formation has offered itself as the civilian façade for military rule. There is no Kings Party,no Jamaat or other ‘Islam-pasand to prop up a Zia-ul-Haq,no PML-Q to lend a patina of democratic respectability to a Pervez Musharraf. Astonishingly,this is no achievement of a popular,charismatic political personality. Indeed,never before has the Pakistani political leadership had a lower popular profile. In fact,the traditional leadership of the PPP nationally and in Sind,of Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N in Punjab,of the Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (the erstwhile NWFP),and assorted revolutionaries in Baluchistan have never been more challenged than they are now by a rank outsider,Imran Khan. The principal domestic debate is over whether to split their four provinces into smaller,more governable units – the Hazaras under Ayub Khans son,Gowher,demand a Telangana-like separation from Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (ironic,given that it was his father who had constituted West Pakistan as One Unit!) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement hopes that the Mohajirs of Karachi,like the Gorkhalanders of the Darjeeling Hills,might secure the separation of their tiny territory from the parent province. The weak appear to have inherited the Pakistani earth.
Yet,this bitterly fractured polity has united on the need to keep out the military. And the military itself appears to have willingly acquiesced in letting the elected representatives continue to rule the country as best they can. The worst-case scenario projected in all sections of informed Pakistani political opinion is not a return of the faujis but an early election!
Bonapartism is not perhaps dead but it has certainly taken a backseat. The army fights its corner,but not as the usurper,rather as the authority in charge of national defence and security. That Nadeem Lodhi,the dismissed defence secretary,has taken his case to the supreme court,even as the Indian army chief is contemplating doing,rather than turning for justice to the Army HQ or the 111 Brigade in Rawalpindi is symbolic of both the emerging relationship between civilian rule and Pakistans armed forces,as also between the army and the courts,for no longer can the armed forces do an Ayub by coercing the courts to declare a doctrine of necessity as the legal fig-leaf for military dictatorship. Of course,Pakistans Military Inc. continues to be the countrys principal entrepreneur,but perhaps the armed forces have decided that minting money through the Fauji Foundation makes more sense than trying to run an economy on the verge of bankruptcy.
For me the most startling,enlivening and enlightening moment of the dialogue came when a Pakistani participant said that the most basic,fundamental issue between India and Pakistan (oh ho,here comes Kashmir,I thought!) is,said he,the need for a change in mindsets. Are we in India ready to change our mindset? Are we ready to recognise the transformation taking place in Pakistan,of the opportunities for reconciliation this presents us,of the need for so structuring our inter-governmental dialogue as to render it uninterrupted and un-interruptible until we have put the devils of the past to sleep and embarked on a new era of bringing South Asia into its own? I hope so… I fear not.
The writer is a member of Parliament,express@expressindia.com
(Shekhar Gupta’s column ‘National Interest’ returns on February 4)