It’s the people, stupid ….Shahzad Chaudhry

Parliamentary democracy of the Westminster model, if not democracy per se, hasn’t thrived despite its institution and practice since the country was first formed. An immediate and reflex repose is to blame the military and its frequent interjections, formal or informal, shielding inherent weaknesses in the political structure permitting external influences to dominate. Democracy as the practised governance model has been weak in its formation, structures, conduct, performance and delivery failing to find credibility and authenticity among the masses. No one trusts politics and the politicians. If anything, they are reviled.

There can be a host of defences against this proposition since those holding aloft system’s sanctity only do so in fear of its alternate, dictatorship. Such zero-sum stagnation in thought shields from its proponents the creeping impact of theocracy, autocracy and illiberalism which now pervasively colour the model. To the subcontinental ordinary only the election or the process of election is what constitutes democracy. He knows nothing more or better. If he would, he would demand better from the people, the party, or the model of governance he votes for. Beyond the voting day democracy’s interface with the people ceases to exist in the current practice. Its only now when life is unbearable that there is popular backlash, again only sparingly, against politics and its practitioners.

Any region’s geographical anthropology determines the genius of its people. Northern India, of which Pakistan was the main geographical constituent, was the route of the most raiders and marauders in history. Central Asians and their progenies in West Asia and those from the Persian Empire frequently raided India to rob it off its riches, and in that process found an easily submissive and submitting natives who gave way before brute force. An odd exception lives through folklore alone. The people were easily dominated and hardly ever resistive of externally triggered reverberations. India as it stands today is a different composite than Pakistan. It has regions in the centre and the South with their tradition of defiance against external attacks.

Eastern India was even more remote, hence territorially secured as well as communally better structured. Only the English because of their trading compulsions first berthed here and then slowly intruded inland. Hence, the most vibrant political opposition to the English too arose out of Bengal although it had the largest security structure to buoy East India Company’s presence. Gandhi’s subsequent resistance in Quit India movement against the British carries within it the kernels of that tradition. The Muslims, perpetually the minority, had their own stories defending against Hindu domination. The creation of Pakistan though was an idea first born in the minds of the Muslim community leaders who delved in politics and sought their own share in the power construct. They were willing to coexist under power-share agreements when the British finally left. Finding the proposition hard, they floated the idea of separation with not insignificant British support amenable to the creation of Pakistan. The larger masses were engaged only after the idea was germinated and found acceptance already. The ‘independence movement’ followed.

Difficulties in getting Punjab to agree to a separation, as in Bengal, indicate the effort it took for the Muslim leadership in India to get the people and their elected leadership to agree to the idea of Pakistan. Jinnah’s personality and thus the larger faith that people reposed in him turned the tables for that promise. People were the last to be brought on board. Does it then in any way reinforce the tradition of politics restricted to only the elites, landed and trading, while the people join at the tail-end only? Does it also in anyway explain how timidly the people acquiesce to any imposed environment, especially political, because they remain least invested and distanced from it?

People have thus only remained bystanders as one system of governance after another has left them roiling even more in poverty and criminal neglect with little space for anything else than struggling to survive against the onslaught of impoverishment and joblessness. They are happy to live on hand-outs than seek permanent redressal of the failures the corrupt and corroding governing models have wrought. They know no better leaving the power elites relishing unchecked freedom to despoil what is left of nation’s common assets. An autocratic and undemocratic political party system thus thrives in the name of democracy for the people who remain entirely disconnected and disenfranchised without the slightest return of a benefit their way.

Young Pakistanis thus are forced to flee for a better future. Importantly, they only see chaos laced with even more unpredictability ahead. That’s a sad commentary on how we are regressing as a nation. The world at large expectantly awaits gorging on this brain trust happily inducting them into their economies while we lose precious resource. On a recent travel back from abroad on an international carrier the mob of men which was disciplined enough on foreign land lost its marbles as soon as the flight touched Pakistani soil. They turned into untamed beasts as the hapless cabin crew tried to pacify the urgency in them. I inquired of the Singaporean cabin crew if the flight to Pakistan was always the most difficult to handle? She thought she had been on worst but yes there was always the need to discipline many. To me such behaviour perfectly encapsulates the chaos and tumult which now stands ingrained into our genius.

If indeed order is what makes life predictable for a society and parliamentary democracy hasn’t evolved to deliver what will make a stable economy and a society, it is time to address this most telling omission in our political construct. Not only must politics evolve and be democratic in its structure, and flavour, it must place people front and centre in its purpose. Parliamentary democracies suit the palate of societies which are minimally equipped to know, practise and extract democracy from an informed interface between democratic institutions and the people. Till then a more hierarchical system, as in the French model of government, may seem greatly more satisfying to the palate of a people who have historically only known authority and respond to it. It is not undemocratic to have an executive presidency where the powers are shared with the prime minister. Yet, in this restrictive environment of political thought any such suggestion is heretical.

Predictability, order and stability are the lost values in the life of the Pakistanis who feel sucked into a whirlpool of all-round decay and morass. Whatever else February 8 may deliver one should hope a more realistic review of the Constitution to alter it to meet the needs of the masses is what will be the new Assembly’s foremost business. Delivery, not the form, is what will count in the end.

Courtesy The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2024.