Musharraf and Robin Hood

A few days back on my way to Islamabad on the Daewoo Express Bus from Lahore I had a chance of sitting beside a retired army NCO. I had been curious about the Kargill war. Having visited Pakistan after ten years I wasn’t sure of many details of Pakistani involvement in the war, so I took this opportunity and asked him about Kargill. He smiled and told me that he was still in the army when Kargill war took place and he himself has carried body bags of soldiers out of there. According to him Pakistani army needed some closure after their defeat in the 1971 war and that is why they started the one in Kargill, and it wasn’t mere infiltrators there. A retreat took place of Pakistani army from LOC Kargill for whatever reasons and now the army has to carry the burden of shame for that as well. I asked his opinion on how this has affected the Pakistani populous perception of army, “well”, he said, “for some army does not sit on the same pedestal, its definitely not the same as before, now if army shows up in public places you hear a few people muttering “Kutay a gaye” or “Qabza group a gaya””.

The reason why I mention this brief discussion with the NCO is because to me it truly depicts the state of the army right now in Pakistan. A lot of army CO’s blame the politicians for this situation and that is why we see how time and time again Pakistani army to hide its shame have involved themselves in the political and democratic system of Pakistan. That is probably what compelled Musharraf to step in and venture to cleanse political system and become the savior of democracy and be the people’s champion.

Very ambitious, I am glad to hear somebody stood up against the corruption and steer this country towards prosperity, but to give these novel ideas true meaning and a long life Musharraf has to take his people in confidence not his army.

When I talk of a people’s champion and Musharraf in the same line I am instantly reminded of Robin Hood. In my opinion Musharraf is the modern day desi version of Robin. There are a lot of similarities between the two. Robin was not an aristocrat neither is Musharraf, Robin looked out for the commoner and so does our Musharraf, and well they both can be affiliated to an outfit.

Granted, Robin Hood was a good man doing good things for the people, one should remember that his method of doing so were not exactly virtuous he was a thief stealing from the rich and giving to poor. Theft is theft you cannot justify the means by the end and if you think you can please stop reading ahead. I cannot explain to a person what helping a blind man cross the road means when he does not even understand what virtue means.

Similarly, Musharraf being a good guy and all has done many things for the people of Pakistan but they have all been done autocratically not democratically. And autocracy is not virtue. The positive steps Musharraf have taken may look positive in the short term but are actually very detrimental for the Pakistani people, democracy and last but not least the army itself.

I saw a lot of roads and infrastructure being built in Pakistan on my recent visit from which I came back not a month ago. I was pleasantly surprised how this change took about and why are contractors not swindling more from the Government and making bad roads as they used to. My cousin explained that this is because of the accountability that is done by the army; they check if the road has been made to the requirements of the tender and then release money to the contractor. I was baffled by this statement, it doesn’t even matter if my cousin is wrong in saying that army is doing accountability the fact that a perception of a common that that is how the process is setup is scary. This means that accountability is not getting done by a civil institution. So what happens when army is gone from politics? Will there be no more accountability? Will there be a system collapse because we have used the army structure as a foundation for it. Many institutions like energy, education, basic infrastructure are in some form getting controlled by one aide-de-camp or the other of Musharraf. It’s all good now but what will happen of us when Musharraf’s uniform is gone? Back to square one if not worse.

I also had the pleasure of visiting a friend in Karachi who is currently living in defense. He was kind enough to show me around Karachi, I asked him why he chose to live in defense and not some other housing in Karachi. He told me that the defense area is the best because the army has developed it and they take care of road maintenance, sewerage, electricity and water. While he was saying all these good things about the army I am thinking in my head, why is the army involved in real estate? Isn’t a purpose of an institution to serve its inception and in the case of army it would be defending the country not making prime real estate for the rich. And then how is the political system to be blamed for lost wars when army is involved in ventures like property and civil accountability and not their own defense and offense strategies.

What is wrong with this picture is that people in general have started to believe that only army can solve their problems because the civil and political systems were so corrupt. Meanwhile, the army of Pakistan and Musharraf has done nothing to restore the confidence of people in the political and civil institution of Pakistan and it’s not their job either to do that. People should realize that the only system virtuous in a political and civil system is a democratic one not military dictatorship. Do people of Pakistan not see the hypocrisy in having military dictatorship in-charge by having a democratic vote in the parliament for it, are we really that blind? What is next the Pakistani democratic system decides democratically that we will banish democracy from here on, will that be virtuous and democratic just because majority voted for it. Democracy cannot be allowed to cut its own roots and still be called democratic and fair this is the kind of circular logic and paradox to which Einstein would have pulled his hair out explaining and I am not sure how Musharraf has gotten away explaining it. Simply put you just cannot assert virtue by eliminating it first.

Sure we are progressing under the banner of Musharraf’s uniform but at what price, democracy is a joke, our high maintenance CO’s (who require atleast two people a batman and a driver to get to office in the morning) are loosing face as they have only given us shame when it came to defending our boundaries and are still not willing to concentrate on what their institution was meant to do. We will be hitting a brick wall as soon as the uniform is removed from the driving seat of this broken car. We will not just halt the progression but will be taken back to the time where we started going wrong; virtue has a way of asserting itself. Even Musharraf knows this and that is why he is not taking his uniform off. We can extend the period of merry time for now but we cannot shield ourselves from the truth forever. We do not want to be a country which is run by a one man army but a country which is democratically run by its people and institutions that is the only thing that can give this country true prosperity and a long life. There are no short cuts to democracy the sooner we halt and go back and fix our problems the less time we will spend catching up to the rest.