Rule of law

On a TV programme last week I happened to be with two of our brightest minds who are avid democrats and committed liberals. They are avowedly opposed to army’s role in politics whether through takeovers or while keeping in the shadows which is how most democrats will want given our current spate of anti-establishmentarianism – the liberals sense a kill and don’t want to miss the chance. Except that these two are intellectually brilliant and academically inclined and implicitly open to alternate views. Far from it. The host had planned an academic exercise to define Establishment and taken the pains to develop an abstract which he shared with us – unique and rare in itself in a very salacious media. It didn’t go as planned.

The rout began early. The host wanted the Establishment defined in the general sense. Do other countries have it? What all and who all constitute an Establishment? What purpose do the establishments serve? It was an entirely academic and comparative exercise which inalienably would pull in references to Pakistani establishment. That much was known and granted. Bilawal Bhutto had included other pillars of the state beyond the military in its wider meaning when speaking to the BBC in an interview. The PDM too had touched the subject in its internal deliberations that morning where the debate apparently hinged on whether individuals or the institution or the generic Establishment may be used in references to army’s role in politics.

My contention that every state had an Establishment rooting out of it, acting at its ‘minder’, raised hackles. I explained – America has two; one in the shadows composed of intelligence agencies keeping the state, the society and the government in synch without threatening the larger construct of the state. The other: the political establishment, Democrats and republicans, equally robust, given to keeping the political status quo without excessive discretions away from agreed mechanisms, checks and balance, and respect for rule of law and tradition. It is interesting that regardless of how Trump acts out his loss and reacts to his defeat, the larger sense is that both parties and their establishments will not permit deviations from the established norms ordained in the law and the constitution. All others, the Supreme Court and the military will stand by law and the constitution. That is the American establishment. It keeps democracy going; individuals are dispensable.

England has its royals; Japan and Thailand have the Kings; China has the Party. Democracies will have institutions minding application of law and the Constitution. When Americans got stuck with choosing a President in 2000, the Supreme Court stepped in. In Thailand the army is the implementing arm for the King who and his state will not be brought to controversy. There is always an institution deriving out of the state which will by law or tradition become the minder on behalf of the ultimate authority. In Pakistan that ultimate authority is the people who inherit sovereignty derived from the Almighty. For the first eleven years of Pakistan’s life the bureaucracy minded the interests of the state. As their effect waned the military emerged as the dominant influence to keep state interests foremost. This was interspersed with judicial intervention. When politics de-tracked from its sublime purpose, of minding both the state and the society in the decade of 90s, one saw the military and the judiciary joining hands in reverting to order. The democratic experience from 2008 has been different and unique of a no uncertain push-back by the political governments which now are an establishment by themselves. Imran Khan is an outsider to this establishment, hence the hullabaloo of chucking him out if the house is to be saved from being burned down.

What the political establishment now needs is credibility. Their record reeks of neglecting the state and the society while pursuing personal, familial or tribal interests. They seek validation in correlation with other pillars of the state but without a credible record of performance to support their claim for singular eminence. So they take on other elements of the state to pull those down. In the current angst the politics has taken on the state as an open and declared adversary while it has left the society and the people neglected for decades. In this backdrop politics has its task cut out. Instead it makes even more a case for an arbiter’s relevance. A ‘minder’ on behalf of the people and the state who could save both from such rapacity.

The essence of politics is in ‘public service’, not in arrogating power to one’s self. An electoral exercise endows a ‘term of engagement’ to a few – not power – to govern the state and the society per the agreement between the state, the people, and the government, ratified in the constitution and the law. Respect for law underwrites their conduct in office and dispensation of allocated responsibility to the best of their ability their political credentials. Without these essentials guiding the political conduct it only turns into a fiefdom or a kingdom. Even those have rules. Without these qualifying criterion politics will only be a game of thrones. Our politics is farthest from any of these attributes yet claims the centrality due to a performing democracy.

And that’s the rub. The military in our political history has exceeded its remit. No doubt about it but do spend some time reviewing events which brought the army to a point of intervention. The effect is painful but the cause always neglected. And that is the bane of Pakistan’s political discourse. Most political commentators in Pakistan cannot bring themselves to rise above this narrative of historical excess by the army and always at the cost of the other half – the people – whose rights are mauled by shameful neglect of those in power. Laws and constitutional domains need a universal application to all power wielders especially when those exercising it are elites blamed for capturing the state into serving their interests at the cost of those of the people. These distortions and dichotomies need to be resolved across the board and not selectively. The constitution provides the answers but these need to be respected by all not by one part of the state alone.

When the army made public its findings of the ‘Karachi incident’ a gleeful gloat went around in ‘I told you so’ commentary. To some it was a reinforcement of the rhetoric that the military does in fact exceed its domain. In this case apparently some did and were called. And yet in this exuberance over accepting ‘overzealousness’ of a few we all forgot that a law had indeed been broken; that a complaint of a citizen could not be entertained because those involved were people of power and means entitled to frequent absolution from law; that even an IG would not authorise a citizen’s report; that a provincial government encouraged the police officers to rebel en masse with mimicked leave applications. When exceptions and absolutions become rampant the laws of a state are the first to be disrespected. That is when anarchy takes root and beckons non-political intervention.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2020.

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