Shahbaz Sharif says: `Despite having 100 per cent support of the institutions, the inept government of Imran Khan failed to deliver’. We were not even given 10 per cent support of the institutions” (Dawn dated October 24, 2019). When out of power, inept politicians scold the `Establishment’. In similar vein, Imran Khan gave vent to his frustration in his autobiography, Pakistan: A Personal History, October 17, 2011 edition) upon winning only one seat in first electtoral contest. Furious at `Establishment/ISI’, He wrote, “No politician in this country’s history up till then had ever beaten the establishment” (p.225). He adds, “[ISI’s Major-General Ehtisham] Zamir gave me the ISI’s assessment of how many seats each party could get in the autumn elections… Sadly this has been a legacy of intelligence agencies in Pakistan, who without a proper broad based analysis, have made decisions which have proved disastrous for our country”. He recalls, “This was my first experience of dealing with the ISI”, pages 222-223, ibid. “Consequently a lot of potentially good candidates abandoned us. The ones that were left were turned on by the ISI; its agents either threatened the Tehrik-e-Insaf candidates or cajoled or lured them into Musharraf’s PML (Q)…Some candidates gave up altogether, telling me they could not fight the ISI. They said they would be wasting their money”.
“Authority” under Pakistan’s Constitution: According to Pakistan’s Constitution (1973), “sovereignty” belongs to Allah Almighty, and “authority” is reposed in elected representatives? The Constitution, a written one, categorically spells out separation of powers between legislature, executive and the judiciary. Yet, Pakistan’s constitutional history reflects that various organs had been encroaching upon each other’s domain. Doubtless, `nothing is as simple as its looks at first sight’ (Murphy’s Law).
Civilians themselves invite military for intervention: In mid-1950’s Isikander Mirza appointed serving general, Mohammad Ayub Khan, defence minister in his cabinet. Unable to subdue agitation, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto banked on General Ziaul Haq to quell popular Pakistan National Alliance movement. During sit-ins against MNS’s government, Imran Khan, now prime minister, and Tahirul Qadri 9minhajul Quran) held meetings with army chief. Now, ahead of 31st October Long March, Maulana Fazlur Rehman met army chief.
Establishment’s Composition: What is composition of the invisible, yet ubiquitous and decisive Establishment? Ayesha Sideeqa Agha tried to map its contours in her essay `Mapping the “Establishment” (Ishtiaq Ahmad and Adnan Rafiq, Pakistan’s Democratic Transition: Change and Persistence, pp.53-71). Besides, following books try to peek into the “Establishment”: (a) Maleeha Lodhi’s Pakistan: Beyond ‘The Crisis State’ (2011), (b) Anatol Lieven’s Pakistan: A Hard Country (2011), (c) Javed Jabbar’s Pakistan: Unique Origins; Unique Destiny? (2011), and (d) Aqil Shah’s The Army and Democracy.
Civil-military discord: Lack of Establishment’s support for the PML-N government was due to divergent perceptions about foreign policy concerning India. MNS’s government launched aman ki asha, desire for peace, media campaign, spearheaded by Jang Media Group. AB Bajpayee, then India’s prime minister was given rousing welcome. En route, live size cow models were installed to show veneration for cow. The visit resulted in Lahore Accord. Re-elected PML-N government kept up its policy of rapprochement with India. The jingoist Narendra Modi developed affinity for Mian Nawaz Shareef. He even called on MNS at the latter’s Jaati-Umara private residential estate (near Raiwind, Lahore)
Military’s offish attitude towards MNS was portrayed in media as an issue of civil-military relations. But, Saamuel P. Huntington, in his 1957 book Soldier and the State views this `issue’ as `an issue of civilian control of the military. He postulated ` a good balance of civil military relations was where the armed forces are subservient to political leadership’. Feaver also thought `a good balance depended on the `civilian leadership’s capacity to punish military for disobedience’. The erudite scholars’ vision of civilian control is relevant to cultures they discussed in their works. Their ideas do not appear to sync with Pakistan’s socio-economic milieu. Pakistan’s society and polity is nowhere near even Turkey where military dominated popular ethos.
Army is unwilling to cede its space in defence and foreign affairs to civilians, who, it regards as corrupt and incompetent. A social-media rumour was that MNS wanted to divest army chief’s powers through legislative amendment. The `Establishment’ acted fast to ensure that MNS did not enjoy majority in Senate also. An Inter-Services Public Relations release is self-explanatory `if you try to clip the army’s wings, it will react. It did react to forestall MNS (Yaroslav Trafimov, `Pakistan leader’s predicament shows power of the Deep State. Prime Minister Sharif Tried to Emulate Turkey’s Erdogan, Now Risks Sharing Fate of Egypt’s Morsi’, Wall Street Journal September 9, 2014). The Journal reported `After winning elections by a landslide last year, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quickly moved to emulate another budding Muslim democracy, Turkey, in neutering the army’s political might’.
Ayesha Siddiqa Agha is of view that Pakistan’s military exercises its hegemony through not only politico-economic power but also intellectual power. The intellectual power, according to her, is exercised through `ISPR/ISI, Strategic Pans Division, military-created think tanks, military-sponsored journalists, military in universities, and partnership with ideological groups’.
Who wields `authority’: the venal politicians have any grass-root support. As such, when they are booted out, there are no tears in anyone’s eyes. The military `usurpers’ soon emerge as heroes, soldiers of fortune. History is witness to egoistic clash between bureaucracies, judiciary and the Parliament in Pakistan. It is not military, alone, but also other stakeholders vied for wresting `authority’ from contestants’ hands.
Shortly before pronouncing his verdict on Dosso case, Justice Muneer declared that ‘when politics enters the portals of Justice, democracy, its cherished inmate, walks out by the backdoor’.
The king-pins in various institutions, remained at daggers drawn, oblivious of jurist Jean Bodin’s dictum, majesta est summa in civas ac subditoes legibus que salute potestas, that is ‘highest power over citizens and subjects is unrestrained by law’. Bodin explained power resides with whosoever has ‘power to coerce’. It does not reside with electorate, parliament, judiciary or even constitution. The force of circumstance may enable bureaucrats, judge, politico, and even a praetorian ruler to usurp `authority’ excluding others, or sharing it with others’
Julius Caesar and Napoleon also harboured extra-constitutional thoughts. During his self-crowning in 1804, Napoleon said, “What is the throne, a bit of wood gilded and covered with velvet. I am the state. I alone am here, the representative of the people”. Napoleon told Moreau de Lyonne, “The constitution, what is it but a heap of ruins. Has it not been successively the sport of every party?” “Has not every kind of tyranny been committed in its name since the day of its establishment?” Take gen Zia of Pakistan. While addressing a press conference in Teheran, he said, “What is the Constitution?” “It is a booklet with ten or twelve pages. I can tear them up and say that from tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Is there anybody to stop me? Today the people will follow wherever I lead them. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with their tail wagging (ibid. pp. 87-88). Dicey said, “No Constitution can be absolutely safe from a Revolution or a coup detat”.
Alas! All the soldiers of fortune, in uniform or civvies, were mortal. Pakistan’s PM-weres and PMs-to be should take the cues. Remember Nehru said, “Pakistan, I would not have that carbuncle on India’s back”. Patel called Jinnah ‘poison’.
Sand-dune leaders: Pakistan has no charismatic leader to confront military eyeball-to-eyeball on various issues (power sharing, defence allocations, etc.). Bolman and Deal say `Great leadership begins when a leader’s world view [Weltanschanschauung] and personal story, honed over years of experience, meet a situation that both presents challenges and opportunities’. They add, `Great leaders test and evolve their story over time, experimenting, polishing abandoning plot lines that don’t work, and re-inventing those that do. Bad stories often lead to disaster, but good ones conjure magic’ (Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E Deal, How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing, 2014, Jossey-Bass, page 193). Weltanschauung is a German word which literally means `world view’. The word combines “Welt” (“world”) with “Anschauung” (“view”), which ultimately derives from the Middle High German verb schouwen (“to look at” or “to see”). It is a particular philosophy or view of life; the world views of an individual or group. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it.
Study of leadership styles across swathes of literature indicates that the two traits, a `world view’ and a `story line’ are common in all business leaders (Steve Job, Penny, Eisner, Ford, and Rockefeller). Or, in political leaders like Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Lincoln, whether you abhor or adore them. Some management texts sum up leadership styles (Robert Blake and Jane Mouton) through grids of `concern for people’ (country club, human orientation) and `concern for results’ (task orientation). The leaders share their `world view’ with people who fall in line to leave behind a legacy, a story. China’s XI, again and again, reminds his companions to tell China story, and tell it well, to the world. Pakistani pseudo-leaders have no story to tell.
Hitler, otherwise viewed as a psychopath, explains his `world view in Chapter 1 of his autobiography (Weltenschauung and party, page 298) Mein Kampf (My Struggle). He says `Thus we brought to knowledge of public those first principles and lines of action along which the new struggle was to be conducted for the abolition of a confused mass of obsolete ideas which had obscure and often pernicious tendencies’. In his autobiography (written in prison), Hitler reviews all aspects of German life, the World War I defeat, collapse of the Second Reich, `the mask of Federalism’, `propaganda and organisation’, `German post-War policy of alliances’, and Germany’s policy in Eastern Europe’. His efforts to forge alliances with adversaries reflect that he was a rational flexible man. Napoleon’s `world view’ (like Julius Caesar’s) is less pronounced than his lust for `power’ and contempt for `constitution’ (a la ZA Bhutto, Zia, et al). Pakistan’s prime ministers and prime-ministers-to-be forgot French jurist Jean Bodin’s dictum `majesta est summa in civas ac subditoes legibusque salute potestas, that is ‘highest power over citizens and subjects is unrestrained by law’ (Roedad Khan, Pakistan: A Dream Gone Sour, p. 179.). Napoleon told Moreau de Lyonne, “The constitution, what is it but a heap of ruins. Has it not been successively the sport of every party?” “Has not every kind of tyranny been committed in its name since the day of its establishment?”
Today, we have no leader, like Quaid-e-Azam, with a `world view’, no `story line’ of sustained committed struggle. MJ Akber rightly observes `The [Pakistani] political leaders act like sand dunes. They move in the direction the wind blows’ (Akber, In Pakistan Today, Mittal Publications, New Delhi, p. 216). John R. Schmidt agrees, ` The mainstream political parties in Pakistan can best be viewed as patronage networks, whose primary goal is seeking political offices to gain access to state resources, which can then be used to distribute patronage among their members’ (The Unravelling, Pakistan in the Age of jihad, pages 36-37). Why it is so? Stanley A. Kochanek unpuzzles the conundrum by pointing out `Parties in Pakistan are built from the top-down and are identified with their founders. The office holders are appointed by the leader. Membership rolls are largely bogus and organizational structure exists only on paper’ (Interest groups and Development, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1983, p.64). `Most political parties are non-democratic in their structure, character and outlook. The process for leadership selection is not by election, but by nomination. Political parties have no links with policy process as personalities rather than issues matter’ (Saeed Shafqat, Contemporary Issues in Pakistan Studies, pp. 247-256).
Street power: Our chequered political history tells that street power is more important than parliamentary supremacy. A political leader without such power is a wasp without a sting, or maybe, to his denigrators, a snake without fangs. Here I quote from Roedad Khan’s Pakistan: A Dream gone Sour. The author is witness to palace intrigues from Ayub Khan to General Zia. While musing over Bhutto’s execution, he says, “The fatal mistake made by the PPP leadership was to fight the battle for saving Bhutto’s neck in the court room only (p. 69). Zia told the author, “It is his neck or mine… Instead of mobilizing street power, the PPP concentrating on collecting appeals for mercy from foreign heads of government..Agartala Conspiracy Case was withdrawn not because prosecution case against Mujeeb was weak, but because over a million people were out on the streets of Dhakka (p. 70).’Bhutto had betrayed the common people who regarded him as their champion and who shared his ideals and dreams. With the loss of that base, he was totally isolated and at the mercy of the khaki [army] (p. 78).
Right to revolt: Do the people in a land of sand-dunes have the right to revolt? Liberalist philosophers suggests there is a limit beyond which obedience to rule of law is no longer sacrosanct. Locke suggests when government no longer fulfils its duty to provide for the common good, individuals have the right to rebel against it; the [social] contract has been broken’. Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Were he a Pakistani, he would have swirled and swooned in his grave to see life-like caricature of his dictum here.
Lip service in manifestos and Constitution: Manifestos are fanciful mementos, eclectic product of religious dictates and fancy provisions in our constitution. They have short life of one-political term unless truncated by praetorians.Article 37 of our constitution relates to `Promotion of social justice and eradication of social evils’. Clause 37 (e): provides `reduce disparity in the income and earnings of individuals…’ (differentials of wealth of an ordinary citizen and a politician?). Article 38 is about `Promotion of social and economic well-being of the people’.
Clause (d) directs `provide basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical relief, for all such citizens, irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race, as are permanently or temporarily unable to earn their livelihood on account of infirmity, sickness or unemployment’ (what about others who work without enough money to make ends meet or get medical treatment?). What about across-the-board accountability?
Plight of Pakistan’s Federal Government `Services’ Hospital: FGSH is the only hospital to treat civil servants and their families in Rawalpindi Islamabad area. For political expediency, the government has `entitled’ general public to this hospital. As PIMS charges fees for lab tests, so the whole population from Rawalpindi to Murree Hills and even Azad Kashmir with ICT/Rawalpindi CNICs falls swarms upon this hospital.
After outbreak of dengue, this hospital became `unserviceable’ for civil servants, including over 70 years’ old retirees like me. There is no window to serve elderly civil servants in labs, clinics, Emergency or at medical store. They too have to queue up for long hours like `general’ crowd. The officers’ ward is occupied by unauthorized `sifarshees’ with little room for officers.
In an emergency like Dengue outbreak, all hospitals, civil or military, private or public, should share patient load equitably. Alternatively, the handful of civil servants and their families should be entitled to general treatment at military hospital through some insurance-based or revolving-fund mechanism.
Plight of Defence Paid Servants: Upon retirement, such servants are disentitled from the medicare they had been receiving during service life. They are not entitled to allotment of plots or flats by Defence Housing Authority. As such, after retirement they find themselves poorer than Church’s mice.
Compassion demands that `civilian officers paid out of defence service estimates’, and their families should, at least, be entitled to same treatment as admissible to their serving brethren. I, for one, was shocked to find that after 39 years’ service, I had been disentitled from medical treatment I enjoyed during serving years. My daughter fell sick, and was practically denied any treatment at civil-government medical facilities. I fell back on Ali Medical who charged me non-reimbursable, hefty 80,000 rupees.
Do revolutions come from Heavens? Human beings created a social contract wherein they bartered some of their naturally derived freedom to get security from a sovereign ruler. They did so as in a state of nature they were `solitary, poor, nasty, brutish …’ (Hobbes). Locke suggests when government no longer fulfils its duty to provide for the common good, individuals have the right to rebel against it; the
[social]
contract has been broken’. The US Declaration of Independence a’ la Locke provides that it is citizens’ duty to throw off a despotic government and provide new Guards for their Security.
An average Pakistani believes that revolutions are not made, they come about from Heavens. He is unmindful that a revolution, revolt or rebellion is `as natural a growth as an oak’ (Wendell Phillips). Yet, the bitter truth is that `a government which is united’ [by mafias in every sphere of life] `cannot be toppled’ (Plato). Apathy had been a feature of pre-partition society also. Till 1857, Moghal `emperors’ lived on British dole, less than one lac (Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah: Partition, India Pakistan). History of intruders is no history (Marx).Only a handful of rajputs committed johar (suicide en mass like Jews at Masada) when besieged or defeated.
The masses remained silent spectators to War of Independence (Sepoy Mutiny 1857) and isolated uprisings in Bengal _ Faraizi movement 1830-57, Santal Pargana 1855, Indigo districts 1859-61, Tushkhali 1855, Indigo districts 1872-75, Pabna 1873, Chhagalnaiya 1874, Mymensingh 1874-1882 and Munshigang 1980-81. David Hume, not any Indian, created Congress followed by four English presidents.
Aware of selfishness of the Indian people, the British created a class of chiefs (chieftains) to suit their need for loyalists, war fund raisers and recruiters in post -`mutiny’ period and during the Second World War. Peek into the pre-partition gazetteers and you would know the patri-lineage of today’s’ tiwanas, nawabs, pirs, syed faqirs, qizilbash, kharrals, gakhars, and their ilk. A gubernatorial gazetteer states, `I have for many years felt convinced that the time had arrived for the Government to try to introduce some distinction for those who can show hereditary services before the Hon’ble Company’s rule in India ceased. I have often said that I should be proud to wear a Copper Order, bearing merely the words `Teesri pusht Sirkar Company ka Naukar’ (servant to ruling East India Company for the third generation).
Some pirs and mashaikh even quoted verses from Holy Quran to justify allegiance to Englishman (amir), after loyalty to Allah and the Messenger (PBUH). They pointed out that Quran ordained that ihsan (favour) be returned with favour. The ihsan were British favours like titles (khan bahadur etc.), honorary medals, khilat with attached money rewards, life pensions, office of honorary magistrate, assistant commissioner, courtier, etc. A tiwana military officer even testified in favour of O’Dwyer (Jallianwala Bagh massacre) when the latter was under trial.
Health-care for all: Pakistan could learn a lot from Ayusman Bharat and Thailand’s success in achieving universal healthcare in 2002. Thai lesson is importance of tight control within very limited resources at their disposal. They initially excluded high cost treatments such as renal dialysis and organ transplantation. They then went on to build a careful architecture which allowed them, through their Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program, to clearly specify medically validated protocols and associated prices for all the available services, including diagnostics and medicines.
Born slaves: Population in the Sub-Continent has a slavish mentality. They are change-averse. Gandhi astutely perceived psyche of the Indians (Pakistanis included) (a la Tolstoy’s A Letter to a Hindu) that Indians themselves allowed themselves to be colonized for their own material interests. Otherwise there was no way 30,000 `rather weak and ill-looking Britons could enslave 200 million `vigorous, clever, strong, and freedom loving people (Stegler, 2000). He lamented that Indians had become `sly sycophants and willing servants of the Empire thereby proving to the world that they were morally unfit to serve the country. Gandhi’s ethos sound reverberated in revolutionary ideologies of several revolutionary movements. If government and people are nationalistic, there would be no need to overthrow them (Lincoln’s dictum `Government of the people for …’). SunYat-sen (China) translated Lincoln’s principles into nationalism, democracy and socialism. Marx theory of society postulated that economics determines the socio-political realities. Marx visualized god as creation of human hands, rather than His hand guiding the humans. Lenin envisioned a professional core to lead the revolution.
Mao like Gandhi was rueful at passivity and docility of people. He wanted people to struggle (douzheng) to smash prevailing social inhibitions in such a dramatic and traumatic way that participants could never again re-establish their pre-struggle relationship. Mao says `If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience’. `A person learns to swim in the water not in a library’ [of how-to-swim books] (Paulo Freire). Sanerro Luminoso (the Shining Path) also advocated Mao’s ideas of prolonged guerilla warfare as the only way to overthrow the government. Paulo Freire points out “To affirm that men and women are persons and persons should be free and yet do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality is a farce’.
Ayub Khan added the chapter of 22 families to the English-raj aristocracy. About 460 scions of the pre-partition chiefs along with industrial barons created in Ayub era are returned again and again to assemblies. Pakistan’s successive ruling coteries are a miracle that defies common sense and principles of political science.
Conclusion
Politicians in Pakistan should do soul searching. Why people do not come on streets when the jackboots kick them out. It is because they have no grass-root support. They should at least provide for health-care, now in shambles. The politicians go abroad for medical treatment. As such, they do not care a fig for shabby medi-care in Pakistan.
Jubilant PTI should take a cue from Bhutto’s fate. It should shun clientele politics and do some pro-poor legislation. At least come up with a national healthcare and education policy. Waterston in Development Planning suggest `nucleus’ approach. Let government attend first to neglected handful of defence-paid civilians. Thereafter, a universal health-care, probably insurance based, be evolved. If Thailand could do it why can’t Pakistan? Let’s pray our sand-dune rulers come up with, at least a uniform education, healthcare and housing policy.
None of the scholarly works, being second-hand accounts, circumscribe the `Establishment’ fully. They remain esoteric mumbo jumbo. I, for one suggest, that Shahbaz/MNS, together with Imran Khan, with invaluable inputs from fall-guy Chaudhry Nisar, should, for the benefit of posterity, write a first-hand expose of `obnoxious actions of Pakistan’s Establishment’ (RK Kaushik, Pakistan’s Establishment a migraine we must live with , The Statesman February 21, 2019).
Let India loosen pressure on Imran Khan to enable him to fulfil his lofty promises. After all, he is not really “an ISI stooge”, or “a cobra in India’s backyard” (News. Statetimes dated July 29, 2018).
