Democracy’s best revenge

As candidates visit their constituencies, video clips have emerged showing them being accosted by their constituents

Among many of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s celebrated works a short story titled One of these days often fails to find an honourable mention. But a gem of a story it is. In it a dentist living in a town ruled by a corrupt mayor responsible for murder of many is forced to treat the very same mayor. He tells the mayor that he will pull his rotten tooth without anaesthetic because it is abscessed. And when he is about to pull the tooth he tells the mayor “Now you’ll pay for twenty dead men”. These lines have stayed etched in my memory since the day I first came across them decades ago. A small man’s revenge. Momentary and fleeting though it seems, the common man once in a while also gets a chance to get back at the system.

An opportunity seems to have finally presented itself. And people seem to be riding to the occasion. As the elections approach and candidates visit their respective constituencies, a torrent of video clips has emerged showing them being accosted by their constituents. One scion of a political dynasty when thus confronted was found lecturing the voters about their obligations to their tribal chieftain and how the little piece of paper (read ballot paper) meant nothing. But since then the trend has grown leading to a public debate. And in these mad times when there is no dearth of speculation about conspiracies, real and imagined, it has contributed immensely to an all-pervasive climate of paranoia.

Now I am not someone who takes perverse pleasure from seeing influential being publicly humiliated. Quite to the contrary. But I am all for this trend. And there are reasons. Genuine reasons. I will elaborate in detail shortly. But first let us address the elephant in the room. The purported role of the country’s establishment or deep state, a euphemism for the country’s military intelligence complex, in these actions.

The widespread speculation and conspiracy theories you see in society are proofs of its degeneracy and descent into a full blown post-truth society. Our facts have always been shaky but there still was enough sense in the political culture to tolerate your views, albeit grudgingly. But now many folks they are entitled not just to their views but to their facts as well. And a combination of both is considered an absolute truth. There is no gray anywhere. It either can be white or black. And that creates problems for the analysts of a nation where the entire history seems to have been written in gray.

The role of the country’s defence establishment in history can never be denied. Only ten years ago a general president ruled this nation. Also the 2014 sit-in fiasco can be seen through the prism of the country’s troubled civil-military relations although the role of the top man in uniform I broadly misunderstood. But does it mean the claims of such an involvement at this juncture are correct. I cannot disabuse you of any long-held belief but if it is about empirical evidence I have seen none so far. As a journalist who has spent two decades in the field we have witnessed empirical evidence in the past cases when there were visible signs of political concern. Somebody would reach out and try to advise us not to take this party’s side or that one’s. Of course it didn’t affect our work but serious attempts were made. Now you might have heard of people being approached by unidentified individuals but the possibility of fakery or the case of few isolated corrupt incidents cannot be ruled out. What you overestimate is the capacity of what passes for the country’s establishment to act as one indivisible monolith. Even during Musharraf’s time, even during the run-up to the four months of sit-ins that bit was not true.

What you underestimate is the ineptness of the political class and the corrupting lure of crony capitalism. Without going into details of any specific cases we know several instances where big businesses have the power to pretend as the country’s establishment and have enough low-ranking officials in pocket to insinuate just that. On the ineptness of the political class I have said and written enough. For evidence you can take a look at the countless crises that we encountered in the past ten years and ask yourself had it not been for the country’s underappreciated thinking class, the bureaucracy and why even the judiciary and the governments could survive with such huge and often suicidal mistakes?

So that’s that for these speculations. Listen to everything. Just don’t believe anything without any discernible and verifiable evidence.

Now let us return to the episodes of voters confronting the candidates. It is a nice thing to say that a voter should speak through his vote not personally accosts politicians. But it misses a crucial point about elitism in the country. This is about the only time when a common voter gets enough face time with a candidate. Most of them are affluent and do not believe in much public contact once elected. If you want a voter to develop some measure of ownership you will have to let him vent his anger. Of course use of violence and violation of personal space has to be vociferously opposed. But if a voter cannot ask his candidate what he has done for people this can hardly be called democracy.

Then there is the matter of the sense of entitlement. Arrogance of the political leaders is before you. Not only do they take the voters for granted, they expect absolute, unwavering and often slavish loyalty from them. A loyalty they are inherently incapable to reciprocate. It is only yes men and sycophants then who are acknowledged.

I have mentioned one example of this sense of entitlement. Here is another. When a party leader learned of defection of an entire wing of his party, he said on record that they should be tried under Article 6 of the Constitution. Article 6 in case you don’t know deals with high treason and trial under it can lead to death by hanging. That entitled. No matter how well educated and cultured they are, our leaders have not been able to master the feudal impulse.

I know it is not much but this desire for the voter to confront and hold their candidates accountable will not change much in the short run. But like Marquez’s doctor they will at least be able to derive some satisfaction by pulling the metaphoric tooth without anaesthetic and remind leaders that they will have to face this lot again. Democracy, then my dear sirs, is indeed the best revenge.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2018.

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