A long way to go

“An incomplete democracy”, a headline in the international press in October. Opening sentence: “Pakistan’s military continues to cast a long and often dominant shadow over the state.” Well, in view of the national reaction to an event late last month — a reaction continuing into this month if the columns of newsprint dedicated to the event are anything to go by, what could possibly be more accurate?

The world moves on, but the Islamic Republic that is Pakistan seems to find it an insurmountable task to move itself out of its set torpor. The free media, after weeks and weeks obsessing over the drone issue — quite uselessly as willy-nilly the drones are going to be around for some time — swiftly took up another, but by no means unusual, obsession, the change in army command. Banner headlines and much discussion, editorial and otherwise, greeted the last minute naming by the country’s prime minister of the new man, and the same a day later for the actual heavily ceremonial and publicly aired physical changeover. The international media also got into the act, firmly indicating where the real power lay in the republic. A dominant shadow indeed, which has little to do with things democratic. But as they say, old habits die hard.



Much praise has been lavished upon the outgoing chief, his pros occupying far more space than the cons, though in the still un-final analysis, no one has been able to come up with anything he did that was beyond the call of duty, beyond what he was paid to do, or trained to do. Little emphasis was put on what he did which he should not have done. But then, in the chaotic and perennially dysfunctional state that is Pakistan, with wrong rather than right being the norm, any individual who does not stray too far off the beaten track is almost sanctified.

The new chief, unknown to most, has received his share of praise for being unknown, but via sections of the media, we have been regaled with stories of his childhood and, in pop-star style, interviews with his relatives. Well, in all this, let’s say great for the army chief — the dominant shadow is not Pakistan’s military, it is its army. The air force and naval chiefs come and go in due time, as they should, with barely a mention, a brief news item somewhere or the other records their ins and outs — poor chaps. How many of us can even name them?

And in this present incomplete democratic set-up, for that matter how many of us can name the now president. For sure, the average citizen, urban and rural, will at the drop of a hat trot out the name of the army chief of the day, but most of them now will have no clue as to who sits in the presidential palace. For five years, roles were reversed. The presidency was the source of political (for what it is worth) power and no one was really interested in who sat in the prime ministerial mansion. Consistency, outside the army, is not a strong point. Political power can be seamlessly switched with no botheration, which can hardly be a democratic norm.

Civilian or military governments have little to do with democracy, which admittedly comes in varied shapes and forms. It becomes more and more obvious by the year that the democratic form adopted by Pakistan is not working out. That said, for the foreseeable future, even if by chance we fall upon a stronger civilian government, this will not denote a stronger democracy. Whoever, whatever, be the army chief of the day, a civilian government will, it seems, defer to the army when it comes to security or international issues. A sad truth, but that’s how it goes when there is one institution that has been allowed, since the country came into being, to hold unto itself undisputed power.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2013.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.