Saviour or Tinpot Dictator?

They say newspapers are the first written chapter of history but you can say that this article is an attempt to pre-empt history.

How many times have we heard people say "Pakistan is at the crossroads of history". When Jinnah died, no less a person than George Bernard Shaw predicted in a letter to Nehru that he should be ready to inherit that part of South Asia as well. Orianna Fallaci wrote about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that Pakistan’s entire survival depended on Bhutto. If Bhutto went, she declared arrogantly, "Pakistan will go." Now similar doomsday predictions are made about Musharraf. If Bernard Shaw and Fallaci were wrong, those making a similar prediction about Musharraf are doubly so.

In fact, the problem is that Pakistan is where it has been for a long time - a pseudo-parliamentary oligarchy governed by a complex alliance of civil and military bureaucracy and the feudals with Mullahs to pick up the crumbs.

But it won’t be too far from the truth to suggest that General Musharraf today stands at the crossroads of history. If his analytical skills have not been irreversibly numbed, I would imagine that at 64 years of age and almost seven years at the top, he would be calculating feverishly his balance sheet. No doubt he achieved a lot but he squandered many advantages he had especially in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when the nation did indeed rally behind him for a brief moment and begun to saw him as a saviour. But surely the question as to how Pakistan will remember him must be nagging him. Will he be remembered as a great saviour or a tinpot dictator? He certainly has tried to do his bit for the country and his patriotism is the last thing one would want to doubt. But his actions also lend evidence to the contention that he is a tinpot dictator who subverted constitutional governance and institutionalised military rule while creating, perhaps unwittingly, huge public space for the fundamentalist elements who he was always opposed to.

That he reintroduced joint electorates after 23 years and increased women’s representation in national institutions like the parliament, provincial and local assemblies will be to on the credit column. Freer media and generally social liberal policies will also be appreciated. His attempt to bring about a social renaissance of Pakistani arts and culture would be hailed. But all this will only happen if the general exits with dignity. If he is forced out or killed when in office, not only will history and his own people remember him as an unpopular dictator in league with Saadat but it will keep Pakistan embroiled in its nauseating oscillation between a semblance of parliamentary constitutional polity and naked military rule. If however Musharraf was to exit after conducting a free and fair round of elections both for the parliament and the office of the president, he will go down in as a dictator who came to end all dictators in Pakistan.

For this to happen, he should make up his mind that 2007 elections would be his cut-off point. Then he must make sure he will not simply be take off his uniform but he will quit his office as the president of the country as well. Before the elections however he must comprehensively rid the country of the cancer introduced into its body politic by his military predecessor General Zia-ul-Haq.This would mean overturning the controversial hudood ordinance as well as the anti-Ahmaddiya laws in the Pakistan Penal Code. Furthermore he will be well advised to introduce Jinnah’s 11 th August 1947 speech, that he doesn’t tire quoting, as a substantive part of the Pakistani constitution as 2-B, making it incumbent upon the people of Pakistan to erase any and all distinctions between citizens to rediscover in some form the ideals on which the country was formed. He must also allow popular leadership to return to the country and take up their parties so that any advance by theocratic alliances and parties on Islamabad can be effectively countered by the people themselves. He must also make the election commission completely independent and judiciary completely free. Without this the transition to constitutional governance modern and liberal open society will not be complete. Indeed if he does this he would be hailed as one of the greatest leaders this country had.

Now compare this rosy situation to the dark alley that Musharraf has before him if he chooses to cling on to power. In order to do that, he would have to consolidate and compromise on the very objectives he wants to achieve. Already he is denounced as one of the worst dictators in the world and worse than many of the other dictators on that list, he is an unelected military man. Ultimately he will fall for he is a mortal and with him will fall all the good he brought. Like Ayub Khan’s otherwise social reformist regime, he too will be denounced as a brutal military dictator who usurped the people’s right to govern themselves. Musharraf is fast losing support from his international patrons. They will throw him away like a used condom and the president must be deluded not to see that. If Musharraf fails to relinquish control, his sound byte that "there was no democracy before me" will be a joke that will amuse the coming generations of this country greatly.

Therefore at this crossroad, Musharraf must take the road less travelled by military dictators and tinpots. He must bear in mind that this is no longer an issue of political survival but a matter of his legacy to his people and his country.