The social contract

Official discourse in conflict-stricken societies often returns to one word: loyalty to the state. In Pakistan, loyalty to the state is presented almost as an automatic duty of every citizen. Serving and retired officials, often speaking from secure and comfortable spaces, tend to equate loyalty with unquestioning compliance with Article 5 of the Constitution. That article says loyalty to the State is the basic duty of every citizen, and obedience to the Constitution and law is an inviolable obligation.

The phrase is repeated in lectures, round-tables and official meetings. Resource persons remind the "wayward" or "misguided" youth of these provinces that Article 5 is non-negotiable. But the question is rarely asked in reverse.

Can the state demand blind loyalty from citizens while failing to fulfil its own obligations to them - the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 8 to 28?

These articles contain the state's promise to protect individual liberties, ensure equality before the law, prohibit discrimination and uphold human dignity. Article 14, in particular, declares the dignity of man and the privacy of the home to be inviolable, and bars torture for extracting evidence. The Constitution, then, is not a one-way sermon. It is a compact. It carries an unmistakable quid pro quo: the state's obligations on one side, the citizen's rights on the other.

Let us consider the following first:

While ordinary citizens are jobless, underpaid or poorly resourced, they see the kith and kin of political rulers prosper, often regardless of merit or qualification. Citizens in vast parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and southern Punjab suffer hours of power outages in punishing heat, while those who can afford it generate their own electricity. A majority of citizens have limited access to clean drinking water, while those with means buy it privately. Public healthcare and quality medicine remain out of reach for many, forcing ordinary people into private hospitals or pharmacies they can barely afford. Every now and then, VIP movement holds up thousands of commuters on the roads, often in scorching heat.

The partial closure of Islamabad during visits by foreign dignitaries is a case in point. It is difficult to understand why such high-profile visits must inconvenience tens of thousands of citizens - commuters, litigants, workers, businessmen, passengers and patients - in Islamabad and the northern fringes of Rawalpindi.

Several Red Zone government offices, including the Islamabad High Court and the Federal Constitutional Court, cancel judicial work. Major arteries leading to the Red Zone remain partially closed, directly affecting businesses, daily routines and the movement of ordinary people.

International cricket matches offer another example of massive disruption to movement and business, directly affecting workers, shopkeepers and daily-wage earners.

What is the cost when state institutions arbitrarily disrupt the lives, work and businesses of already strained citizens?

Justice is delayed by another day. Essential services are suspended when some may need them urgently. Business hours worth tens of millions are lost. Supply chains are interrupted. Access to hospitals and necessary services within Islamabad is restricted.

State institutions, in the name of protocol, keep violating their fundamental obligations but offer no compensation. Is this the way to instill loyalty in people who lose business, wages or work because of such closures?

Instead of being a protector, the police often appear to ordinary citizens as extortionists, treating them with contempt and suspicion on the road.

The common citizen has little security, while VIPs - many of whom can afford private security - receive multiple escorts at public expense.

State officials ask citizens to challenge "anti-state groups" while hiding behind layers of security.

Officials of state entities such as the FBR and CDA hound small shopkeepers, vendors and service providers, but hesitate before those making tens of millions a month.

Loyalty may be an abstract idea, but citizens judge it through the visible conduct of state institutions. It is not validated by speeches. It is validated by fairness, protection, dignity and the daily experience of being treated as a citizen rather than as a subject.

Article 5, therefore, cannot be switched on automatically, especially when the state fails to honour what the Constitution promises as citizens' rights: Article 3, the elimination of exploitation; Article 9, security of person; Article 14, dignity and privacy; Article 15, freedom of movement and residence; and Article 18, freedom of trade, business or profession.

For social and political thinkers such as John Locke, loyalty to the state is rooted in the social contract. Citizens owe obedience to a state only as long as that state protects their fundamental rights - life, liberty and property. If the state breaches that contract and becomes arbitrary or tyrannical, loyalty is no longer morally binding in the same way. Modern scholars such as Michael Walzer also view citizenship as a reciprocal arrangement: citizens sustain the state and its institutions, while the state guarantees civil, political and economic rights. It is not surrender. It is mutual obligation.

The loyalty-to-state debate becomes even more intense in Balochistan because of the province's peculiar circumstances. Many young Baloch see the rulers as enablers of corruption, misgovernance and exclusion. They attribute much of their helplessness to the collusion between sarkar and sardar - the government and the tribal chief.