And the myth that our system works
Feeling depressed after my last article? I do sometimes too, but don’t be, for it is darkest before the dawn, though it might not be the sort of dawn you envisage. Someone wrote saying that “brilliance lies in simplicity”. Sure it does, but not in the simplistic. We often confuse the two.
What is unraveling is the system, not the state, though if after a system’s failure we cannot forge a better system by forging a new social contract within the context of the state, the state too will fail. Then new states will be made, as they were in 1947 and 1991, with new social contracts, however airy-fairy. That will be sad, but then states do disappear. Consider how many states have existed on the land on which you live. What really matters are the land and the people living on it. States are manmade, not God-made. Manmade things have a finite life, for human ingenuity is finite, though in my dark moments I sometimes feel that human stupidity is limitless. God-made things live till God wills them to live, and some live on forever in other forms.
One cannot help being human though. With life and the world in such turmoil my pensive moments have morphed into melancholy. It occurs with such increasing regularity that I fear that melancholy may become permanent till one feels that life isn’t worth living. But that is to be an ingrate: life, however ‘good’ or ‘bad’, is the greatest gift from God. The mystic would say that what is considered ‘good’ in this world is actually bad or irrelevant in the next and what is considered ‘bad’ is actually good. We should be grateful for living through such tumultuous global change and witnessing history in the making at fast-forward. I wouldn’t miss it for a second. Thank God that one is alive today.
I am sharing these thoughts with you because I know that if you have a working brain, which you do, you must sometimes be melancholic too. Look upon it as catharsis, otherwise melancholy might descend into ‘alcoholy’. What could be more exciting than what is happening today, if only we could step back from our own imaginary self-made reality and look at things objectively? Mental and emotional distance helps one to see the wood from the trees and realise that we leave this world as we came into it – naked, pocketless and empty-handed. All we will take are the intentions behind our deeds – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – and the knowledge that we have gathered and digested. Intentions and knowledge need no pockets or bank accounts. They need only the mind, and the better it is the better for us.
Now, back to ‘reality’. We saw last week that the root of our problems is the evaporation of our social contract that our constitution is supposed to be based on. None of our three constitutions has been faithful to our social contract – to make a democratic homeland as an Islamic welfare state for the Muslims of India in which every citizen is equal regardless of faith, religion, gender, race or colour. Our current constitution made by a rump assembly of losers is so full of hypocrisy piled upon more hypocrisy and contradictions piled upon more contradictions by successive governments for their own advantage that it has become irrelevant and unworkable. No wonder our political and economic systems born of this hypocritical-unworkable constitution are hurtling towards their demise so fast that it leaves one breathless. A few more years and the system and the status quo it protects and perpetuates will be dead and gone and may it go to Hades and take its few beneficiaries with it. Ameen. Then, hopefully, a new social contract will emerge and give rise to a new constitution and a better system.
That is why I have been saying: let this system continue to its logical conclusion through evolution. But there are some spoilers who would wish the coming elections postponed on some constitutional pretexts, even though they have no representative character because they or their parties are not even in any parliament. Sure they proclaim that their objective is not to delay elections but to ensure that the constitution is followed faithfully. Why didn’t it occur to them earlier? Why now, when elections are upon us? Is this hypocrisy, because they are unlikely to score well if elections are held? Mark my words: if elections are postponed the country could fall apart. Which suits no one, least of all our neighbours and Russia and America, which needs exit from Afghanistan like yesterday and cannot without a stable Pakistan. This is the glue that is keeping us together – too dangerous to disintegrate. The fallout could engulf the region from Turkey to Burma and change geographies.
What has happened is through evolution, not revolution. During this time people have learned more than I would have imagined five years ago. So don’t close their school of life down for God’s sake. Now you understand why I have been saying that the system should be allowed to continue till it self-immolates and hopefully a beautiful new phoenix emerges from its ashes. Try and bring revolution without a workable ideology, without ideologues, without a vanguard and without sacrifice and all you achieve is anarchy, making this system a martyr and prolonging its life. Again: witness Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Their imported western electoral systems have failed on the launching pad and what is emerging is an ogre.
Where did we go wrong? It goes back to before Partition but that can wait. All three of our constitutions lacked legitimacy. All were made by the consensus of the oppressor. Our first Constituent Assembly was elected in another country – India before Partition. Many of its MPs left their constituencies behind in leftover India. If I remember correctly, India held an election soon after independence to make its parliament fully representative. So did Bangladesh. We didn’t. Our first national elections were held in 1970, 23 years after independence. By the time the 1956 constitution was made the character of the Constituent Assembly had changed drastically at the hands of our first bureaucratic dictator who stuffed it with many unelected. It took nine years to find a device to deprive the majority of its majority. It was an anti-democratic abomination, not a constitution. To justify it we mutilated West Pakistan by making its four provinces into one.
Our second constitution was made along misunderstood US lines and imposed by a military ruler who adopted the worst features of the first constitution because the oppressor had to be kept in control of all levers of power. As soon as he bit the dust his constitution bit the dust.
Our current constitution has the same sad story as the 1956 constitution. The 1970 elections were held in another country. The 1973 constitution was made in another country. The 1970 elections were held in the original Pakistan. The 1973 constitution was made for the ‘New Pakistan’ by legislators elected in the original Pakistan. No fresh elections were held. How can a majority secede from a minority? What if the East Pakistanis had decided to call their new country Pakistan instead of Bangladesh?
We made the 1973 constitution after chasing the majority out even at the cost of breaking the country just so the Bengalis don’t come to power. The myth is that it is made by a majority of leftover Pakistan, not the minority. This is a zero-sum game. By this logic the MQM could say that since they are the majority in Karachi they will make a constitution for Karachi. At this rate we will go down to zero. The myth is that it is made by consensus. Consensus between whom: a minority of legislators comprising mostly bloodsucking tribal warlords and feudal robber barons? It is a rehash of the colonial British India Act of 1935 and has nothing to do with our original social contract of 1947. In 1971, when the country broke, our social contract broke too and has not been replaced by a coherent one. All we have is polarisation: are you pro-Bhutto or anti-Bhutto? Pathetic. That is what dynastic politics does to you, forces you to mindlessly follow icons. So let the system continue and let us learn the hard way till realisation dawns. Then and only then there will be revolution.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted at humayun.gauhar786@gmail.com