Who are the stakeholders in Sharif’s ‘Charter of Pakistan’?

Who are the real stakeholders in a democracy? Only the masses! The people of Pakistan!

Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif has been advocating for a national agenda which he calls the ‘Charter of Pakistan’. He claims the panacea he has been suggesting is “the only solution to all the evils ailing the country”.

One cannot question the sincerity and earnest desire of Sharif to make the country stable and prosperous. But his identification of stakeholders is rather intriguing. Perhaps, because of finding himself in a secluded, political space and the fear of being left alone in political wilderness, Sharif has been grappling with ideas to keep his support in particular classes and groups intact. Certainly, he has a support base in the so-called educated urban, social and economic middle-classes in big cities of Punjab, who could be receptive to the idea, or rhetoric, of the national agenda developed with the consent of armed forces, the judiciary and the media.

The stakeholders he has identified, besides political forces i.e. the army, judiciary, the civil society, the media etc., comprise urban middle-classes with specific thoughts and an ideology regarding the Pakistani state and polity. The judiciary, the so-called civil society and the media, in particular, have emerged as new power centres in the country during the past few years, overshadowing, in fact, challenging, the power of the masses.

Ironically, Sharif has included the armed forces in the stakeholders to chalk out a national agenda for 25 years. Perhaps he forgot that the role of the armed forces in politics was denied in the Charter of Democracy, signed by him along with slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. When asked whether formulation of the proposed national agenda would be something extra-constitutional, he vaguely responded that the supremacy of the constitution and the parliament would be maintained.

But the question is: Who are the real stakeholders in a democracy? Only the masses! Who are the creators of the parliament and subsequently of the constitution and hence their guardian? The people of Pakistan! If anyone desires to rewrite the social contract i.e. the constitution, he or she will have to seek the will of the people of different regions, both rural and urban, and of different cultures, languages and identities, and will have to develop a modus operandi to know their aspirations.

The mother of “all the evils ailing the country” is denial by the state, or by the establishment controlling all the affairs of the state, of cultural, economic, political and constitutional rights of the regions and peoples constituting the State of Pakistan. Workers, peasants, women and minorities make up the majority in the country, and they are also the stakeholders of any national agenda being chalked out in their name. Without their participation, no agenda could be dubbed as ‘national’. If people do not matter, why should a nation matter? An agenda prepared by interest groups or power brokers can prolong the status quo but cannot bring any qualitative change in the lives of the people.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2010.