Author: Husain Haqqani
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 20, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=26087
Introduction: Musharraf stepped
in to ''save my country''. The divine right of military chiefs to rule
the country indefinitely keeps him there
Some of General Pervez Musharraf's
recent pronouncements about Pakistan's political future should end the
illusion of those who see him as a well-intentioned soldier forced by circumstances
to take over the country. His statements that ''Pakistan is not ready for
democracy'' come on the heels of his declaration that, for national interest,
he would not relinquish power.
Both comments reflect a dictatorial
mindset and cannot be the thoughts of someone who stepped in simply to
save the country from a bad situation created by incompetent politicians.
They are a clear departure from Musharraf's previous line that he represented
an interim or transition arrangement aimed at creating ''real democracy''
in Pakistan.
When he assumed power in 1999, Musharraf
faced international condemnation and US sanctions. The promises of ''real
democracy'' were aimed at placating donors whose money enables Musharraf,
his generals and technocrats to keep the country's economy afloat. With
his status as a key US ally in the war against terrorism, the fear of democracy-related
criticism or sanctions is gone.
Musharraf thinks he can afford to
shed the cloak of ''real democracy'' now that he is about to be received
by President Bush at Camp David on June 24. But short- term US support,
based on Washington's needs of the moment, cannot be a substitute for creating
a viable political system in Pakistan.
Other Pakistani military rulers,
too, thought they were indispensable and that they alone knew Pakistan's
national interest. Musharraf's ''Pakistan isn't ready for democracy'' arguments
are not new. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya and General Zia all
made the same arguments. Ayub ruled for 10 years, only to lose a war with
India (in 1965) and to resign amid protests. Yahya presided over Pakistan's
bifurcation and a lost war (in 1971). Zia unleashed Islamist militancy
in another decade of military rule. General Musharraf's legacy is also
likely to be the same, notwithstanding whether he rules for a decade (like
Ayub and Zia) or blunders into early ouster like Yahya.
There is little disagreement among
analysts that Pakistan's political class has flaws and often makes mistakes
that do not advance either democracy or good governance. But that said,
civilian rule has not caused the greatest disasters of Pakistani history
such as civil war, as in former East Pakistan, or breeding of Kalashnikov
culture. Given their control of state's resources and ability to declare
any critic of a military man as a ''traitor'' or ''foreign agent'', the
generals simply manage to keep the nation's political discourse focused
on the civilians' flaws.
Bring up corruption under Field
Marshal Ayub or the completely degenerate rule of General Yahya and journalists
and academics start receiving phone calls about the ''need for protecting
the military's image''. Somehow the politicians' errors, including corruption,
are the fault of the entire political process but the flaws of previous
military rulers were just individual weaknesses. The secretiveness of the
military's culture, and the khaki tendency to cover up for its own, does
not allow the same level of scrutiny of general-rulers that is applied
to the blunders of civilians.
There is, of course, no logic in
the ''Pakistan is not ready for democracy'' argument, which raises more
questions than it answers. Pakistan emerged out of British India in 1947
and included Bangladesh until 1971. India was ready for democracy from
day one and Bangladesh, too, is a democracy with alternation of power and
civilian control. India's economy is growing, the number of its people
living in poverty is declining and its literacy level is rising despite
its chaotic democracy or maybe due to it. Bangladesh too has contained
its population explosion, expand literacy and transform from an economic
basket case into a growing economy.
If the country out of which Pakistan
emerged, and the nation that was born out of Pakistan, can both be democracies
why is Pakistan alone not ready for democracy? All the traditional answers
given by apologists of military rule can be rationally refuted. If religion
is cited as the reason for Pakistan's inability to sustain democracy, Bangladesh
is overwhelmingly Muslim and India has more Muslims than Pakistan in numerical
terms.
The ''Pakistan has just been unlucky
with the kind of politicians it has'' approach also has its answer. The
bickering Bangladeshi rivals, Begum Khaleda Zia and Begum Hasina Wajed,
are no better or worse than Pakistan's politicians. The ''Pakistan's feudal
system obstructs democracy'' view is losing relevance with urbanisation
and declining share of agriculture in national wealth. The truth is that
it is not Pakistan but its military leadership and its hangers on who are
not ready for democracy.
Since 1958, the generals have refused
to let politics take its course. Training at the Pakistan Military Academy,
the Military Staff College and the National Defence College drills the
simplistic notion in army officers' head that they alone are Pakistan's
saviours. Successive generations growing up in military cantonments and
in civil service residential estates have been brought up to think that
the English-educated Sahib log are superior and better-equipped to run
the country than earthy politicians representing the poor uneducated masses.
It is no coincidence that most of the technocrats and columnists supporting
the military over the past three decades are themselves the children of
military officers.
Musharraf's assertion that Pakistan
is not ready for democracy might lead the world to ask how a nation unprepared
for democratic governance can be prepared to maturely deploy its nuclear
weapons or to absorb large amounts of foreign direct investment. If Pakistan
is ready for the most destructive weapons technology available to mankind,
why is democracy the only contemporary system its ruler feels it cannot
sustain?
Soon after taking over, Musharraf
claimed that he planned to lay the foundations of a democracy in Pakistan
with changes in the legal and political system. But now he is suggesting
that changes worked out by his National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), headed
by his handpicked retired general, have not solved the country's problems.
The one thing he and his fellow generals do not seem consider is that it
is in their identification of Pakistan's core problem that the mistake
is consistently being made since 1958. The military's attitude towards
governance, and the assumption that generals alone know Pakistan's national
interest, needs a drastic revision than the one proposed by NRB in the
constitution and election rules.
(The author is a Visiting Scholar
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He
served as adviser to Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and
was Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka.)
