Beyond hyper-jalsas…

… lies unsexy work

The problem with revolutions, as also tsunamis, is that they are destructive. Of course, one can use kitchen imagery and argue that making an omelette always necessitates breaking eggs. Much the same is said about volcanoes that spout the burning, destructive lava that leaves the land mineral-rich. Shelley, in one of his less profound poetic moments, talked about the cycle of life and death by referring to spring succeeding winter. But there’s a problem with the application of these images to political life.

Politics is about interminable processes of negotiations. Even when the fundamentals of a social contract are agreed upon, negotiations never end. Solutions to a set of problems throw up their own problems. Individuals, groups and interests continue to clash. Very often, to borrow the concept put forward by jurist Cass Sunstein, everyone has to live with “incompletely theorised agreements”. In other words, there is no final solution and nothing is linear.

Processes are a function of evolution, cutting the Gordian knot of revolution. There are times when societies are so desperate for change that they are prepared for, and actually seek, major disruptions that would somehow lead to a new contract, a change so massive and sweeping that the ancien regime would give way to the dawn of a new era.

There are two problems with this approach. One, it ignores the factors that might have led to that point in the collective life where people ask for such a change; and, two, because such an approach ignores the first requirement, it wrongly assumes that a disruption would in and of itself remove those factors that necessitated the desire for disruption in the first place.

It cannot be gainsaid that there are, can be and have been extreme situations. Systems can get locked down so badly and throw up such inequities that a smothered people looking for air would have no time for conceptual niceties. They would even be prepared to lay down their lives for a utopia knowing that they would not enjoy its presumed idyllic charm.

Even if one were to make space for such exceptions, while knowing full well that people are likely to be moving from one oppressive system to another, is it correct to talk about a revolution in Pakistan? Those who ask for one are in two categories. One set desires it and thinks that a major sweep is the only way to get this country out of the current mess. The other, desiring for a change, laments the fact that this society is incapable of making a revolution happen.

I find this incapability, if it could be described such, a blessing. This is a country which, despite its many problems, has remained wedded to a democratic expression. Even its military dictators, unlike Latin American juntas, have to seek legitimacy for themselves through the courts. It is no use arguing that their actions were ham-handed nonetheless because the very fact that they had to seek legitimacy shows the limits and limitations of their power. The form of democracy here is advanced even when it falls short of substance. In any case, this chicken-egg problem is an old one in the debates on democracy: should the form come first and lead to substance or should we wait for substance before allowing people the right to expression and practising democracy.

Fareed Zakaria talked about illiberal democracies. He even argued that constitutional liberalism in England developed separately from the form of democracy. True. Yet, it is difficult to see how, in a country as diverse as Pakistan, administrative and economic efficiencies can lead to conditions that are finally, and presumably, propitious for the full functioning of democracy – especially, if political life is accepted as comprising aggregation of interests through negotiations that would often lead to essential compromises at the cost of administrative and economic efficiencies.

We are thus faced with two sets of problems: the debate between evolution, or what I have elsewhere described as the good, old English gradualness, and revolution, the storming of the Bastille. And the thought that what is undesirable in a system can somehow be changed through a sweep whether violent or non-violent rather than small steps.

It is important to note that these are two different sets of issues and it seems to me that most people would settle for non-violent means if any moribund system could in fact be changed entirely. Because while people desire change, they would much rather have it non-violently than through the use of guillotine.

Which brings me to the IK phenomenon. It is a matter of some satisfaction that Mr Khan is promising change through the existing system. I also assume that by the use of the term tsunami he unwittingly refers to cleaning the Augean stables by harnessing peoples’ energies a la Heracles who diverted two rivers as part of his fifth labour. To this extent I am fine with what he is doing. People should have choices and if Mr Khan can offer one within the democratic system, he has done well to yank the debate out of the civil-military binary: let’s get the army in if the civilians cannot deliver. He now tells us he can. Nothing can be better.

Beyond this point, however, lies hard, unsexy work. He is untested on that score yet and may pull surprises on that count. However, to think, as he seems to, that he can fulminate against other political entities for being dysfunctional because they are decaying and then, to mix metaphors, picking up their detritus to spearhead a major change is somewhat naive, if not entirely self-serving.

It may be so that he could turn these donkeys into useful Athenian mules and get us the Parthenon. That would be a miracle and I am not much into that exciting stuff. Chances are that after the high tide of the current romance would come the dull routine of running the house. That would allow for some changes within the general boredom of sameness. That is likely to disappoint many of his admirers. Not me, though because selective interventions in key areas are far more robust than sweeping changes that come unstuck.

The writer is Executive Director of Jinnah Institute. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect JI’s policy