Democracy in the Dock

Ironically much of the blame for this rests with Jinnah because as a jurist par excellence it was the easiest thing for him to dictate a Constitution within a few hours to his stenographer. If he had done just that, such a Constitution could never have been challenged by anyone after his death. But even if it had happened so, it was unlikely that the Constitution given by Jinnah would have suited our people and hence probably not lasted because Jinnah was taken up with the notion of Muslims of India being a separate and homogenous nation as manifested in his famous speech in Dacca in 1948 where he declared, much to the chagrin of the Bengalis of East Pakistan that Urdu would be the language of Pakistan thereby ignoring the differences between people of East and West Pakistan.

The fact of the matter then is that the kind of Constitution and system of governance that Pakistan required was different than what India required because firstly Pakistan consisted of two wings separated by over a thousand miles and secondly its one wing, that is West Pakistan, consisted of four provinces where only one province i.e. Punjab had some sort of a representative institution. All other provinces consisted of feudal fiefdoms and were entrenched in the nineteenth century. The other wing i.e. East Pakistan, consisted of a populace with a language, culture and ethos very different to that of West Pakistan.

It is not surprising then that after Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan left the scene, the politicians were unable to give a Constitution to the nascent country until 1956 and when they did, it was a mix of the British Government of India Act, 1935 and the Indian Constitution and was based on a Parliamentary form of Government on the Westminster model. It is obvious that no thought was given by the makers of the Constitution to peculiar geographical, ethnic and cultural circumstances of the provinces of Pakistan, particularly its Eastern wing. As a result the system collapsed within two years and led to a military takeover.

It is to the credit of Ayub Khan that he was the first leader, though self appointed, who gave thought to the peculiar situation of Pakistan and set up a proper Commission under Justice Shahabuddin, which after much deliberations, gave its report in 1961 provideing for the system of One Unit but stopped short of giving autonomy to the two wings perhaps because there was lack of trust amongst the military in so far as the people of East Pakistan were concerned. The Commission also failed to take into account the ethnic differences amongst the people residing in the four provinces of West Pakistan, who were not too enamoured by the attempt to herd them together in one unit as it meant dominance of the majority province i.e. Punjab.

Nevertheless, Ayub Khan did manage to promulgate the 1962 Constitution which introduced a Presidential system of Government with a unicameral legislature consisting of indirectly elected Basic Democrats as well as the President and also provided for limitation in land holdings but alas, not for abolishment of feudalism. There were certain merits in the system but it was opposed by politicians of all hue. The Bengalis opposed it because they did not get autonomy and the West Pakistanis opposed it because the feudal politicians were deprived of political power through introduction of the system of Basic Democrats. It is unfortunate that when the crunch came and a movement against Ayub Khan’s rule began he, instead of following his own Constitution, which in such a situation provided for power to be handed over to Speaker of the National Assembly, handed over power to the Army Chief General Yahya Khan. If only Ayub Khan, while leaving had handed over power to the Speaker of the National Assembly, perhaps the history of Pakistan would have been different. Need it be said that power was not handed over to the Speaker only because he happened to be a Bengali. Thus we owe the debacle of the loss of East Pakistan and the resulting turmoil, the effects of which we are reeling under even today, to the prejudice of the top brass of the Army against the Bengalis.

Following the departure of Ayub Khan and Pakistan’s geography having changed due to the loss of East Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got an opportunity to do some political engineering to devise a Constitution that would suit the ethos of the inhabitants of the part of Pakistan that remained. The Constitution that Bhutto gave to Pakistan was bicameral and by and large it catered for the needs of the populace but it was again Parliamentary in nature and hence the power of the feudals did not diminish and soon, in combination with the religious elements backed by the Army, Bhutto was removed. This is how it appeared on the political canvas but essentially Bhutto's removal was due to his autocratic tendencies and so also the subsequent removal of his political successor i.e. Nawaz Sharif.

While it is easy to blame the military for dislodging democracy in the country and not allowing it to prosper but the fact of the matter is that military takeovers, except that of Musharraf in 1999, were welcomed by the masses generally and the three military regimes made a definite contribution to the evolving of a political system that could give the fruits of democracy to the common man, that is Ayub through an attempt to eliminate feudalism and introduction of strong local governments, Yahya through holding the first free and fair elections in the history of Pakistan and Zia through giving Islamic bearings to the Constitution though in doing so he committed unforgivable excesses.

In the final analysis the reason why true democracy has not prospered in Pakistan is firstly because the quest for a Constitution to suit our ethos has been like the search for the Holy Grail, secondly any format of Constitution introduced was violated with impunity by those very people who introduced it and lastly that our politicians, because of their feudal and quasi-feudal mindset, are autocratic in nature and are not prepared to cede power to the people at the grass roots and are uncompromising, intolerant and determined to have their own way no matter what the means. Democracy can only succeed if feudalism is buried and our Parliament plays its role and legislates in the interest of the people and its Members do not scheme and manoeuvre to seek office, pelf and power for themselves and for their acolytes and are willing to accommodate and listen to their political opponents.