Military Intervention vs. Institutions’ Growth

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac
-– Henery Kissinger

It fails all imagination. It sure does!

Could there be any worse statement by the great general (read king) who sits on the Islamabad throne and reiterates (read threats) yet another likely “military intervention 15 years down the road if situation does not improve.” What improvement is he talking about and who calculates and defines if “situation” has improved or not? Would Pak Army do that only and only for the reason it has the deterrence of the guns and trained hands to pull the trigger? After all, how many “citizens” (read subjects) of this crushed nation spoke about the “civilian intervention” when Gen. Niazi signed the surrender deed in 1971? And let’s also not forget that it was a civilian leader who negotiated with Indra to get close to 90,000 PoWs released despite being on the weak footing.

Over the last few years, it’s become a trend to blame the successive civilian administrations (1988-99) of the bad governance and political instability. Agreed. But it would be equally interesting to look at the reasons because of which all that happened. The sane circles of Pakistan still remember the name of “operation midnight jackal,” “Mehran Bank scandal” etc. when the defenders of the nation tried to break into what-little democracy that we had had. Let’s also not forget the axis between the presidency and uniform when nation heard of sharing the lists of Sikh militants and capping the nuclear program. Later the political historian discovered that all were fallacious. All who were in the governance loop knew how independent they really were.

The recent political crisis in Azad Jammu Kashmir makes an enlightening case study where “an elected prime minister” has to get permission from the Rawalpindi corps commander to “expand cabinet” and fails. And it happened for the fourth time as the “elected prime minister’s” repeated visits to GOC Murree and corps commander couldn’t convince them to “grant permission” for expansion in a civilian setup. Let’s also not forget how the president of AJK was appointed in blatant violations of the army service rules. Kashmir is only a thumbnail of that big plot that was written and re-written many times in the four federal units and the center itself.

That’s all history but in the words of President Regan when he addressed President Gorbachev: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The nation of 160 million people demands the same from the Caesar of opening the gate that bars the fresh breeze from entering our society and tearing down this wall of ill-conceived authority that insults the collective wisdom of the Pakistanis when they hear that future wouldn’t be much different than the past. In this case, what’s the point of an individual’s positive activism in a society when “situation” will not improve?

In not too distant past an elected prime minister called Jamali (remember him?) said that “Pakistan (was) becoming irrelevant to people.” He was addressing the “men at their best” at NDC and had the guts to say that.
After all, a politician is a politician and has some roots in people and thus talks about them whereas our kings have always spoken about the “industrial revolution” “Islamization” and now “enlightened moderation.”

None with open eyes can call the present democracy as the true democracy but even this system that was grown in the backyard of GHQ is not allowed to fully function. Jamali came with a smile and left with the same smile on his face. Between his two smiles nation lost some 19 months. Who should the people hold accountable for that? And now Shujaat is holding the position of the sandbag to be replaced by Mr. Shaukat Aziz in a few days to come. In what the past has been, future doesn’t look much promising either and “military will intervene!”

Institutions develop only and only if granted independence to grow, make mistakes and then grow better and faster. It’s not the people who cause strength of a nation; it’s the systematic evolution of institutions that ensures strength in present and prosperity in future. Barring a few, majority of the institutions, including judiciary, were maliciously meddled with. Their growth was hampered and now we see the outcome of that in our society in the form of widespread restlessness, breakdown of law and order, terrible health and education facilities, no respect of civil liberties and above all, complete hopelessness from the future of this country. One can easily question the king as to how different things are than when he took over in 1999? How far the lives of the people have improved under his “good governance” over the last five years? There are too many questions one can ask vis-à-vis the deliverability of the setup introduced by the powers that be. Ignore that. Answers are more important!

And the only answer is the freedom for the state (read civilian) institutions to evolve with a freedom to make mistakes and learn from them in complete absence of any kind of dictation. Would that be allowed, Mr. President or you would like to keep the doors open fifteen years down the road in future? In that case, great Thomas Jefferson comes to mind when he said: “It is error alone, which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”

Enough said!