Pakistan’s problems lie in laws promulgated almost a century before the country was born
Dr Mubashir Hassan grants us audience at his old home in Lahore, practically on the Main Boulevard in Gulberg. Now one of the city’s busiest areas, it must have marked its fringes in the late sixties, when he got together with Zulfi Bhutto and JA Rahim, within these very walls, to start a movement that was to become Pakistan’s biggest, and for a while its most dynamic, political force, the People’s Party.
The weather is surprisingly pleasant for late May Lahore, so I find him relaxing on the outside veranda. The mercury had been surprisingly lenient during the early summer, but suddenly rose to uncomfortable levels, pretty much like the course of the present government, enjoying its heavy mandate and election hangover till suddenly more sobering developments came to arrest its attention. But he’s a veteran who’s seen many such seasons, and political cycles. And the problem, according to him, is not so much one particular party or ideology, it is the system of governance that has been in a process of continuous decay since long, long before many of us care to look, and understand.
Asked about his understanding of what is really happening in Pakistan, he leans back, looks somewhere into the distance, and says he sees the crumbling of an order established in India in 1858.
“It took the British 100 years to conquer the feudal order which made India famous in Mughal times. They did not destroy the old system completely, but rather established their own colonial order with the help of the military, out of which emerged the police and land revenue collecting system. Thus came into being the institute of deputy commissioner and superintendent of police, under laws promulgated in the 19th century”.
Real source of power
Interestingly, he points out, these laws were devoid of democratic credentials. And in the 20th century, a select population was given the right to vote in the Reform Acts of 1909, 1920, and 1935, but power to rule was not given to elected persons.
“India was ruled by a combine of civil/military officers, who did not need directions from members of parliament in London. Otherwise no British appointed officers (governors and governor general) had power to rule, which lay with officers under the law”.
He says this feature is very important and cites an example from 1942, when the All India Congress declared war against the government and its workers started bombing railway tracks, attacking officers, etc.
One fine day the SP of DI Khan, Sardar Rasheed, received orders to arrest Congress leaders carrying out a procession the following day. But when the officer approached the DC to ask ‘under which law should they be arrested?’, he received the honest answer ‘I don’t know’. So the two rang the chief secretary in Peshawar, who was just as clueless, which led to a 2.00AM exchange between the latter and his excellency the governor, who subsequently issued the order that ‘the matter is left to the discretion of local officers’. The next morning the police took no action against the procession, nor the next. And eventually the agitation thinned out on its own.
There are other telling examples from the British days, including a superintending engineer from Lahore’s public health engineering department issuing a report concerning an ‘unauthorised washroom’ in Viceroy Wellington’s house in Delhi, recommending it be dismantled. Lord Wellington actually replied that since his departure was due in a few months, the said room should indeed be dismantled as he received his replacement in Bombay.
Then came Pakistan
These laws started failing before the first world war. Signs of local dissatisfaction had been obvious, especially the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy in 1919, and by the end of the second world war, the British had concluded that they had lost the power to govern.
“200 million people have no say in anything. A small percentage of those who have money and guns is supposed to be responsible for exercise of governing power”, he says, asking, “Where is the police? Where is the revenue collector? Where is the service provider? The system has effectively collapsed”
“Their system of governance had failed, so they decided to leave and handed over the colonial order to the two new parliaments”, he adds.
“In 1948, the deputy commissioner in Pakistan had powers to issue orders under 134 laws, and under Section 144, he was personally empowered to exercise all powers of the sovereign”.
And so from ’47 to ’58 civil officers of the Ch Mohammed Ali, Sikandar Mirza, and Ghulam Mohammed like exercised all such powers. “Eight or nine prime ministers were changed and the constituent assembly had been dismissed by the time we got to Ayub’s takeover in ’58”, he remembers.
In the 24 years from independence to the ’71 tragedy, civ-mil rulers didn’t only lose wars with India, they also lost all the confidence of the public, and “pleaded with Zulfiqar Bhutto to rescue them, which he did”, he emphasises and becomes melancholic, “so much so that they arrested him in ’77 and executed him in ‘79”.
This is the story of a long deterioration of the system which started in the 1920s and continues to this day.
“200 million people have no say in anything. A small percentage of those who have money and guns is supposed to be responsible for exercise of governing power”, he says, asking “where is the police? Where is the revenue collector? Where is the service provider? The system has effectively collapsed”.
So much so that Pakistan has now become an untenable state and simply cannot survive in this form. The answer is to do away with the colonial system and establish the rule of the people. And that, he is certain, can only happen when the people take to the streets, make a show of force, and compel authorities to understand the change taking place at the grassroot.
But isn’t that easier said than done? People have tried to show force on numerous occasions, but always ended up the worse for it.
“It’s about organising yourself, building a team. Everybody knows that people are not behind the government, its ministers, etc, but the people are unable to transform that into something concrete, which is what is wanting”.
But despite the systemic breakdown he remains confident about Pakistan’s future. At 92 years, he must have far too many better times to remember, especially since his memory remains sharp – citing names and dates from long times ago throughout the interview. And the descent into extremism, especially the radical turn to the right, must hurt an ardent, secular leftist like him.
“These are cyclical features. Those days ended, so will these. These forces will go just the way they came. Life goes on.”
There is much more to ask someone who has been around so long, and has seen the rise, fall, and departure of many a player to appear prominently on Pakistan’s stage. Of all the leaders he has known, he naturally remembers Zulfi Bhutto most fondly.
“Oh he was a remarkable man”, he says a few times. I notice he looks into the distance again, and betrays a slight touch of emotion only when I mention Bhutto sb. “And his most remarkable quality was his computer like brain, which was always at work, and remembered everything”.
He adds, though, that leaders must learn from the past and avoid being reckless. They must concentrate on building first class teams, and make sure they always communicate with the people, otherwise we will see things getting yet worse before they get any better.
About now I feel I have taken enough of the old man’s time, who is kind enough to allow us to come and talk more another day, especially about his efforts to mould Pakistani youth into more productive avenues, and integrating the country with crucial trading partners; ideas that have had few takers.
