As Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822), the self-proclaimed legislator of the world observed: The world is weary of the past, /Oh, might it die or rest at last!
The Combine and its ward, the political elites, have the obligation to rescue the country and themselves from the steep downhill slope of a tottered system of governance.
The saga of exercising sovereignty, since 1947 by the military and civil services (the Combine), clearly leads one to conclude that the Combine miserably failed to provide Pakistan with a truly democratic and egalitarian state.
The Civil Executive of Pakistan dissolved the Sovereign Constituent Assembly in 1954, abrogated the 1956 constitution and appointed and dismissed 8 prime ministers in a span of six years. It was so nave in understanding the nature of sovereign power that on one occasion the Cabinet of Pakistan was guided into writing a letter to London to determine the scale of crockery and cutlery at 10 Downing Street so that it could decide what Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan should be provided with.
The military exercised undiluted sovereign authority for 33 years and in its desperate quest for legitimacy shared it for 14 years with nominated and pliant politicos, confirming the observation of the great historian Edward Gibbon The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
No longer available to the Combine is the option of yet another unconstitutional intervention with or without the help of politicos, unless it wants to invite general uprising and face the wrath of power of the people in the cities and the country side. Not withstanding any contrary advice of the US, the Combine cannot afford any repetition of its fatal past mistakes.
So, what can be done? The options available are limited. Two vital tasks stare Pakistan in the face. The first: the direly needed protection of life, property and dignity of citizens, known in the imperial parlance as the restoration of law and order. The second: What should be the form of a new social contract between the people and the state?
The authority under the prevailing law, to maintain peace and tranquility, to enforce law and order, stamp out goonda-gardi, check corrupt practices does not rest with MPAs, MNAs, ministers, chief ministers, governors, prime minister or president. It rests solely with the district officers under the supervision of the judiciary. To put the country back on the rails of good governance, the authority must be handed back where it belongs under the law. The members of the provincial assemblies and parliament should confine themselves to legislation and bar themselves from trying to run districts.
As a purely temporary measure, the government should appoint from a pool of senior civil service officers (serving and retired) known for integrity and patriotism who pledge to enforce the law without fear or favour and put them in charge of the districts with the powers of district magistrate and collector and such powers as they had under the repealed defence of Pakistan rules (except the powers to curtail the basic freedoms of the media and of detention of citizens without trial). The discretionary powers of the ministers to relax rules and regulations should be held in abeyance. The task of bringing peace and tranquillity to a very large number of districts should take a maximum of three years. The other districts where political factors are involved will require the settlement of their political demands for self-rule and autonomy.
At the same time we must not forget that under the British, the rule of the district officers helped by the military after the end of World War I was largely responsible for the demise of the British Raj. Pakistan has to find a new sovereign to maintain peace and order in the districts and its precincts, tehsils, towns and cities.
In the developed western democracies, locally elected bodies, and not the provincial, state or national legislatures, their members nor the officers of the state are responsible for exercising the sovereign power necessary to maintain peace. The police work under locally elected bodies and members of the public assist the court as jury. Why can Pakistan not take the same route?
The writer is one of the founders of the PPP, a former finance minister and president PPP (SB), Punjab.