Humiliations galore, it is way past antibiotics time
Understandably, the parliament is elected by the people and it is their will it should serve. If, however, there is an issue that, in the parliament’s greater wisdom, requires a dispassionate and highly intrusive discourse and is constrained to take decisions that may not reflect the dominant will of the people, it should present a broad rationale for following the course that it did and also highlight how it was likely to serve the larger state interest. Has that been the case in Pakistan?
If one reviews the number of crises that the country has endured and the manner in which the parliament has either been rendered irrelevant, or apparently coerced into taking positions contrary to the express will of the people, it would require volumes to be projected. However, it would not be incorrect to say that, on most occasions, the will of the people was either not taken into consideration at all, or simply rubbished at the altar of compromises for protecting and promoting the specific interests of individuals and the broader considerations impacting the profit-related proclivities of the ruling mafias. It would, therefore, not be inappropriate to say that the parliament has, in fact, become an instrument in the hands of the ruling conglomerate to subvert the will of the people.
Take the manner in which the issue of Pakistan-US relations with particular reference to the re-opening of the NATO supply routes is being conducted. Strictly speaking, the matter falls within the professional domain of the foreign office that should act in conformity with safeguarding the broad national security paradigm as enunciated from time to time. If, however, the government is sincere in its pronouncements that the shape of the Pakistan-US relations would be decided by the parliament, it should also show the courage to put it before the parliament. No effort should be made to scuttle its authority or its relevance by constituting committees or commissions as cover-ups to deliberating the matter elsewhere and then bringing it before the house for cosmetic authentication. It is this lack of openness that has jeopardised the legitimacy of the parliament and, hence, that of the government as well as the policies it formulates.
There is another even more damaging fear. Because of its incessant and grave failings (remember the NRO?), the government may feel that it does not command the trust of the people to present its case in an open house and, therefore, it may adopt means that are not in keeping with the spirit of parliamentary democracy. It may be forced to take recourse to authoritarian practices by sidelining the de-jure organs of the state and replacing them with smaller, select groups artificially created and invested with the authority to define the course of national policies, thus limiting peoples’ participation and ownership. This may help the government survive in terms of time, but it does not help in legitimising a system that, with all its countless inherent limitations, still remains the preferred form of governance.
Unfortunately, decisions pioneered in such circuitous manner are usually shorn of peoples’ support resulting in pitting a key instrument of the democratic dispensation against an entire nation’s will. It is this expression that has the potential, particularly in societies where a bulk of the people remain heavily deprived, to gain in intensity, relevance and ultimate effectiveness, thus replacing the more traditional and peaceful instruments of change in a democratic regimen.
Pakistan seems just about headed in that direction. The manner in which the review of Pakistan-US relations has been undertaken may constitute a serious ingredient, but the countless underlying deprivations that the people have to suffer as a matter of routine are the real reasons behind the festering discontent that is boiling over onto the streets of the country. This agitation is being further fuelled by the raging ethnic, sectarian and economic divide that has consistently worked to the detriment of a vast majority of the liberal (a tradition that is fast waning!), hard-working and peace-hungry people of the country who have been hopelessly sidelined by the more violent and obscurantist voices representing nothing beyond their self-interest, and the interests of the mafias they are aligned with. The government has abominably failed to reign in these ravaging demons simply because it seeks their support in the parliament – a factor that has deprived the government of its democratic authority to control these vagrant elements and has, instead, become a part of the deep-set malaise that afflicts the national body-politic. This has sadly resulted in complete abdication of governance. It is this surfeit of administrative, moral and intellectual bankruptcy that has further aggravated peoples’ woes.
Is there still room for administering antibiotics for remedy? I am afraid not. It is a case of massive haemorrhaging where the body has been completely drained of even its feeble life signs. It has to be literally carried to the operating table with few options for revival: the first and foremost being a change of mindset and the elimination of all its ‘democratic’ attenuations. Obviously, it is not possible to forge a turn-around by employing the trick of co-existence among equally corrupt outfits sticking together for safeguarding common stakes. The only chance is through initiating a process, no matter how painful, of urgently infusing a dose that attacks the breeding grounds of the malaise – be it corruption, violence, religious, ethnic and sectarian divides, extensive deprivations and grave humiliations that the common people are routinely subjected to. It is an unholy of alliance among all these constituents that has rendered the system untenable.
The writer is a political analyst and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He can be reached at [email protected]
