Pakistan: Should it celebrate?

Now that the much-awaited elections of Pakistan finally took place and now that the results have clearly positioned ‘democratic’ parties to take power sidelining the much-hated military dictator, Pakistan and its people are in a jubilant mood. ‘Yes, we are once again victorious!’ they celebrate.

But should Pakistan celebrate? Is this change permanent or ephemeral? Will the old habits die so easily?

Pakistan was victorious many a times before in its history. Pakistan, very much like India, is bereft of grand achievements. While Indian media continues to artificially construct achievements for us here, Pakistan’s polity also creates its own achievements that are quite flimsy, which usually shatter within a short period of time at the first whiff of wind called reality.

When the first dictator Ayub Khan came into power in 1958, Pakistanis were victorious too. Pakistanis celebrated it as a victory against unstable democracy that preceded it. And when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to absolute power through democracy and started to indulge in some of the most undemocratic ways, Pakistan was victorious once again. It was revenge against the inept military that allowed the humiliating defeat of Pakistan against India (1971) and led to breakup of the country. Pakistan celebrated when Bhutto became an elected dictator.

Later on, when Bhutto was hanged, Pakistan was victorious once again, because General Zia-ul-Haq from the Army had negated the wrongs of the past coming from an elected leader. When Zia-Ul-Haq died in a plane crash after a spell of long Islamic autocratic rule, Pakistan was once again victorious because now they got rid of a wily dictator. When Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto came onto power, Pakistan was victorious once again partly because they were a continuation of experiments with democracy.

But when General Musharraf deposed Nawaz Sharif to install his military regime, Pakistan was victorious once again, because Musharraf’s regime kicked out extremely corrupt democratic leaders, Benazir and Nawaz on charges of blatant corruption.

A good friend of mine, from Pakistan, celebrated when Musharraf came into power. When I asked why Pakistan is welcoming a military ruler, he explained that democratic rulers were really corrupt, and hence they needed a ‘benevolent dictator’ to clean up Pakistan’s system. And he believed Musharraf was the man for the job.

Pakistan has a bad track record of celebrating its victories before the results actually come out.

Another friend of mine, a Pakistani, who was in his teens during 1971 war with India, described his own story of how Pakistanis celebrated their victories. Before the start of this war, owner of a café in a Pakistani city put the total number of Pakistani and Indian planes on a black board, and after each day’s battles he would subtract the number of planes shot down by each side, as reported in their media. Within few days, it was clear that Pakistan was winning every day. India was losing its planes in huge numbers. One day, the total number of planes shot down clearly put India’s numbers in negative, but the war in the air was going on. It was absurd. Something was grossly wrong with those reports. He just erased the whole board that day.

Pakistan was winning all the battles on each day of the war, except the last day, when they lost the whole war in a grand letdown. What followed next was sheer humiliation. They lost East Pakistan, and did not gain an inch in Kashmir. 90,000 of its soldiers were now POW.

Time and again, Pakistanis were left disillusioned. They always celebrated their supposed victories too soon and too early.

Let’s come back to the present

Benazir Bhutto, supposedly one of the leaders of ‘democratic’ parties, has appointed herself the head of her party for a lifetime. When she was killed, a will came out in which she appointed her husband as the leader of the party. Why isn’t anyone finding this funny?

How can a democratic party be a family heritage? How can one appoint oneself its leader for a lifetime? How can she bequeath the power to someone in a will as if it’s her property?

Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, et al, have now come together to defeat and sideline the evil dictator Musharraf. So, in an effort to combat the greater evil in Musharraf, they are ready to ignore the petty differences between them. That’s fine! But then they go overboard. They have dropped all corruption charges against Zardari. Now, is that democracy?

Populist democracy and Constitutional democracy

Many people in Indian sub-continent think elections alone constitute a democracy. They fail to realize that even dictators conducted elections.

They do not realize that elections alone DO NOT have the power to condone genocides, crimes against humanity, murders, corruption cases, plunders, etc.

Indian sub-continent has a funny way of exonerating its criminals. As a criminal, all you have to do is stand for elections. If you get elected, you are automatically pardoned of all crimes. People will say, ‘Look! So many million people cannot be wrong. Accept the results of democracy!’

Nobody stops to bother and ask, do elections alone make a democracy? Is legal recourse subservient to electoral process? Don’t we need a constitution, a legal system, election commission, and other institutions that make it a constitutional democracy?

The reason why Pakistanis keep getting disillusioned is because their fundamentals are wrong. They believe in miracles, quick fixes, and short cuts. They have never spent time to institutionalize democracy.