Opinion

How reliable is ‘voice of the people’?

Powerful states can survive after following popular trends, but others can only get into trouble.

Khaled Ahmed October 16, 2010

Pakistani scholar Ijaz Shafi Gilani has contributed a consistently high level of research to his enterprise of Gallup Poll Pakistan. Because of his dedication, his institution has emerged as a reliable source of pulse-taking in the country. In The Voice of the People: Public Opinion in Pakistan 2007-2009 (OUP 2009), edited by him, he has revealed some interesting popular attitudes.

Interesting, because they are finally unreliable.

The year is 2007. People said the year would be good (37 per cent) or bad (33 per cent). The question was: How much trust do you have in the future of Pakistan? A lot, said 44 per cent; only some, said 40 per cent. Yet, when asked: is the future of Pakistan secure, 91 per cent said it was. A bombshell follows in the next question: Do you think our country is generally headed in the right direction: wrong, said 73 per cent. And about economic development, only 23 per cent said they trusted it.

What is shocking is that people gave six out of 10 marks to the way state education was handled in Pakistan. They gave five marks to economic development, but a low four to moral values. What is more, only 29 per cent thought Pervez Musharraf’s rule was bad! This was said in May 2007; by November 2007, it had come up to 45 per cent. Does this mean people are fickle? In all four provinces, people thought both leaderships were “unjust”, but they thought Zardari was more “unjust” than the Sharifs.

The book says this about the Lal Masjid operation: “In April (2007) Jamia Hafsa students kidnapped a few women and children from an alleged brothel in the area and forced them to embrace Islam. Public support for their actions was reduced to 42 per cent while an equal number (46 per cent) opposed the students’ moral policing” (p.49). NB: In the same survey, 62 per cent said religion should be kept separate from politics (p.49)!

Now prepare to face the next fact: “Despite this view, in April when the students of Jamia Hafsa demanded the enforcement of Sharia law in the country, 52 per cent agreed and a significant 34 per cent disagreed” (p.49). One may add here that public view of Lal Masjid became distorted by reason of concealment of facts.

When the Lal Masjid operation got underway intelligence agencies produced two peacemakers of dubious repute on the scene: Fazlur Rehman Khaleel of Harkatul Mujahideen and Javed Ibrahim Paracha, the “Al Qaeda lawyer” known for his hatred of the Shias. What is not mentioned generally is that the persons kidnapped by the Jamia Hafsa mob were Shia. Jason Burke in his book, On the road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Islamic World (Thomas Dunne Books New York 2006), points to Lal Masjid’s “polarity” with the shrine of Bari Imam which was earlier bombed.

Burke writes: “A suicide bomber in the middle of the shrine in the spring had killed dozens of worshippers. The bomber was linked to one of the groups that Javed Ibrahim Paracha was suspected of being involved with” (p.286).

All over the world, Gallup polls influence decision-making. But what if this goes against a country’s strategy for survival? Powerful states can survive after following popular trends, but others can only get into trouble.

Another nugget from Gilani’s excellent book: on relations with India, 78 per cent said that normalisation should come only after the solution to the Kashmir dispute. The next question was: Do you think India will ever part with Kashmir? In January 2007, 78 per cent said no. Can one blame parliaments if they ignore what the people think?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th,

COMMENTS (8)

Raja Arsalan | 13 years ago | Reply more than agree with your article. Ejaz Shafi having close links with Jamaat-e-Islami may produce anything. The confusion prevailing in our society, which you regularly point out to, is the basic cause behind the present hopeless situation. I asked a girl student of one of the elite university of the country: Who is the alternative leader in our country? Her spontaneous reply was Imran Khan. I was not surprised by the answer given the young female, wearing costly western attire and surrounded by same class colleagues, because confusion is so deep-rooted and extensive, both vertically and horizontally, that it has made everyone to think anti-American. The simple reason is rejecting the change for the fear losing everything and finding a scapegoat, Americans in this case, while portraying it as an evil. Hence, it becomes easier to bin modernity instantly. Returning back to the girl, I posed another question to the lady: The same old Khan who presents tribal society and jirga system as the only solution to the mess we have. What about you and your friends? What will be your future in the plan of action your leader wants to prescribe to? Well! She had no answer and chose to remain silent because she never thought about it (I bet like millions of her counterparts) and followed the hullabaloo created by the state-sponsored media and the confused intelligentsia also looked after by the those who are at the helm of the affairs. If that girl with modern outlook thinks the way she should never have then Faisal Shehzad-like characters are in the offing and more and more. Another example: In a survey conduct by an int’l organisation last year 79 per cent Pakistani respondents rejected extremism but around 80 per cent backed the idea of ‘Islamic punishments’. There is another ‘liberal intellectual’ who says that Taliban are bad and the jihadists are the product of state necessities having no links with the masses. But he also very much ‘clear’ that the ‘strategic depth’ is matter of life and death for the country. “I would support Taliban", says the intellectual. Sir! We are confused and unreliable. This phenomenon has crossed every barrier and not limited to certain class or area or rural or urban divide or even the digital divide.

khalid.aziz | 13 years ago | Reply Khalid sb- an excellent article as always. This is the reason that govts in countries have to take unpopular decisions which gives establishment a chance to paint a democratic govt "anti people" and opportunist opposition parties to play with the emotions of people to get cheap poltical mileage. This is a vicious circle we are caught up in- as a nation. Urdu media, being pro staus quo, doesn't want to play its role to bring up the reality and this is the biggest reason of political unawareness of our "middleclass" who can afford an Urdu paper on their breakfast table every day. Poverty is a blessing in disguise- as these folks don't afford to buy and read a newspaper so they are not influenced by the "pro right" Urdu Media in general. I think this is the reason that PPP wins an election as our poor labourers, farmers are more liberal and secular in their attitude.