Volunteers for guillotines?

So, a majority of Pakistanis doesn’t like this government? What should we do? Get the jokers out? How?

The “how” is important because perched on the tip of this needle is the issue of la règle du jeu. Consider. We don’t like military dictators. In fact, the domestic narrative never tires of listing the ills Pakistan has contracted because of being under the jackboot for half of its existence. The movement against former President Pervez “Facebooking” Musharraf was marked by a clear desire for constitutionalism and the return to democracy, as it should have been.

And return we did to “democracy”. With Musharraf out, in walked President Zardari. Wondered many why Musharraf should have been replaced by Zardari. Wrong approach this to the entire concept because it betrays the feeling that democracy is some kind of panacea. It is not, thank you.

Political science has increasingly debated what democracy means — is it about the form and procedures or does it relate to substance? And if it is about both, which comes first? Should a people wait to learn what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the art of associating” and which presumably provides the substance before they try out democracy, or should the practice of procedure be expected to take them to the point where substance appears for everyone to live happily thereafter? The jury is still out on this.

Neither does democracy, leaving aside the procedure versus substance debate, ensure efficiency and good governance per se. There is no necessary a priori linkage between the two. In countries like Pakistan, where the political landscape is generally cracked and fractured, aggregation of interests quite often means sacrificing efficient policymaking on the altar of compromise politicking. Kalabagh Dam is a good example, as are many others.

The point being, let us first understand clearly what it is that we want, and what, within what we want, is desirable and what doable. And there is always a gap between what is desirable and what doable.

Do we want dictatorship with its short-term efficiency in some areas but a major itch down the line or do we want the dust and din of democracy that makes us look like a headless chicken? Tough choice this, but one we have to make because there are no other choices.

One can argue, as some in the intelligentsia do now, that at least select areas can be handled through sound policymaking. True. True also is the fact that there is a general sense of inertia and that can be, and is, very frustrating. But the question remains: how does one get rid of a government that has come into being through an electoral process and is found wanting? Correct answer: through another electoral process.

Continuity is the most vital ingredient of any process. In this case, there is also another issue, equally important — the succession principle. How should a country transition from one government to another? In ancient days one contender would normally put to sword the others and poison the rest. It is unlikely that we would accept that “procedure” as desirable nowadays. And yet, quite a few among us are already looking for a putsch, the modern equivalent of that ancient practice.

Some of us believe change is in the offing; perhaps even inevitable. Quiz them a little and one finds that they may not have thought deep and hard about what kind of change they want. There are no models that haven’t been tried and tested. Been there, done it. The one left is the concept of a social revolution, with storming the Bastille being the metaphor. Well, for them revolutionaries, here’s some advice: in a social revolution, Bastille and Sans-Culottes become a reality. Any volunteers for the guillotine?

If there are none, then there’s perhaps a need to look anew at the good old English gradualness. It sucks; it is painfully slow too. But it doesn’t kill people by the millions. And it even allows the sages and the pen-pushers like the present writer to regularly haul the current inefficient government over the coals without fear of disappearing.

That, if nothing else, is reason enough to stick to this troubled democracy.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2010.