Oh, democracy!

amina.jilani@tribune.com.pk

Masquerading as a democracy, the state of Pakistan is far from alone in the world of deception. Most inhabitants of this world do not yet live under a system even remotely approaching democracy. Yet democracy is acknowledged to be, if not perfect, the least imperfect system of governance. The most authoritarian and piratical of regimes, bowing to this belief, style themselves people’s democracies or republics.

Pakistan is a highly imperfect democracy, though in spite of its myriad sins, it boasts even under its military dictatorships that it is a democracy. This present dispensation is particularly prone to claiming democratic credentials, albeit it well knows that even its constitution does not recognise all citizens as being equal in the eye of the law or in the collective eye of its various communities. There are gross inequalities which are constitutionalised and institutionalised in the national mindset.

Women and minorities are the main sufferers, with highly discriminatory laws on the statute books that encourage and sanctify violence being used against them by the state and by their fellow citizens. In which democracy are there such laws as the blasphemy law, as it is manipulated in Pakistan to be used by citizen against citizen, or the Hudood Ordinances which prescribe the totally undemocratic, even barbaric, treatment of women?

Crude religious extremism and militancy, the cynical exploitation by politicians, of all hues, of religious sentiments for personal ends are ongoing and prevalent. No efforts have ever been made, from the very beginnings of this country, to instil or protect a democratic culture — poverty, feudalism, fanaticism, violence and religious intolerance have never been addressed by our venal politicians in or out of khaki. Rather, these vices have been used to perpetuate the occupation of the beloved kursi.

What is now known as the ‘restoration’ of democracy has simply meant a return to corruption and incompetence of the country’s past. Elections alone do not denote democracy, particularly when they are riddled with corruption and even criminalisation. Our political parties themselves are far from democratic, being as most of them are family run concerns, which hold no internal elections. The election commission is a joke, hamstrung and pathetic. The power and legitimacy of the political parties stem from an ignorant, largely illiterate, pliable and bribable electorate.

And then, hand-in-hand with democracy, we have accountability, a prime factor. How fares Pakistan on that score? Well, it makes feverish noises on odd occasions and various regimes have targeted previous regimes, mainly unsuccessfully and in cases where examples have been made, they are trumpeted to be politically motivated. The state has never been a beneficiary of accountability processes, undertaken as they have always been a form of revenge, far divorced from what is actually justice.

The judicial system has been problematic from the early 1950s downwards and no government, including this present one, has been able to tolerate an independent judiciary. We are now in the throes of witnessing the struggles of a judiciary that deems itself to be independent, and is striving to assert that independence over a government and parliament that would rather have it subservient.

The writ of the state is limited. There are vast areas over which it has no control. And what are the functions of a democratic state — it is set up to provide law and order, national defence, justice and to grant to its citizens, inter alia, the right to health facilities, education and the protection of their lives and properties. This state fails on all counts, and worse, by its cowardice and reluctance to take a stand against the obscurantists that run riot, it must claim responsibility for far too many lives lost.

All very gloomy, but if that is how it is, we must face up to it. And when elections come around again, all things being equal, what change will, or can, they bring in?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2012.