I have recently returned home after a four-week visit in Pakistan. As always, I have had a marvellous experience. The secret of my bliss may have been that I have never had to deal with any government agency. Second, not being a demanding person, I am easy to please.

If I may have the reader’s indulgence, I should like to recount some of what I saw and did. My primary objective was to see family and old friends. Needless to say, the family showered upon me unbounded affection. Of the old friends, quite a few have passed away. Among those still living, even if not exactly “kicking,” I spent a wonderful day with Professor K.K. Aziz, a prolific writer and one of the country’s foremost historians. We talked of interpretations of Muslim history in the subcontinent, and then we exchanged reminiscences of our time together in Government College, Lahore, from where we had graduated way back in 1946. We talked of places and events, teachers with whom we had studied, friends we had cherished, platforms we had supported or opposed, and the “distractions” and misadventures of those younger days.

My second objective was to meet professors and students at some of our universities. I saw a friend at LUMS, and lectured at the Government College University, and the Lahore School of Economics; Islamia University and a women’s college in Bahawalpur; University of Sindh (Jamshoro campus); Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi; Iqra University and the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development in Islamabad. I also addressed a session of an international conference on Islamic civilization organized by the department of history at the University of the Punjab.

The topics preferred by the host institutions, and the ones that evoked lively interest on the part of students, included issues of regional identity and provincial autonomy; nationhood and nationalism; westernization and modernization and their interplay with democracy; “clash of civilizations”; building and preserving of political institutions.

I am happy to report that students at these institutions are alert, inquisitive, ready to question and argue if and when something other than the “run of the mill,” something exciting or provocative is said to them. Our young people are potentially just as capable of world class scholarship, innovation and inventiveness, as any other group anywhere else. One hopes those responsible for awakening their minds, and training them in the arts of scientific inquiry, do their job.

In terms of this potential women students are in no wise less promising. My exchanges with students at the women’s college near Bahawalpur were surprisingly vigorous. I discovered also that the number of women at public universities — even at places like Multan, Bahawalpur, and Jamshoro — now exceeds that of men. This trend signifies that in time they may surpass men in public employment and the professions.

I had numerous “drawing room” conversations with friends. Grievances concerning poverty on the one hand, ostentatious spending on the other, unemployment, widespread corruption, breakdown of law and order, extremism and terrorism, political instability, military’s intrusions into governance, rigged elections, absence of democracy, etc., were voiced as one might have expected.

At the end of each such conversation someone asked the million-dollar question: what is then to be done? Those given to despair said nothing could be done, and that things would simply keep going from bad to worse until we fell into utter anarchy. Then there were those who hoped that God might some day send us a “deliverer” who would set things right. (“marday az ghaib ayad wa karay bekunad.”) As the realization dawned that God did not send “deliverers” except rarely, participants became sceptical on this score.

I tried to argue that when things get as botched up as they have become in Pakistan, reform is necessarily a slow process. It is not likely to be initiated by the forces that are themselves the corruptors and wreckers of the systems that were once reasonably good and viable. Nothing will be gained, for instance, from asking the PML-Q managers to please let the next elections be fair and honest. The pressure for change has to come from other forces, the “organs of civil society,” including not only the opinion makers and professional associations but also the barons of commerce and industry and their organizations. Governance will not improve until the latter bring their power and influence to bear in aid of reform.

One can find reasons for both despondency and hope. Corruption and incompetence in government spread lawlessness. I heard of a home-owner whose tenant is getting away with default on payment of rent because his lawyer has been obtaining adjournments of the court case to evict him for the last several years. It appears to be part of an extortionist strategy to tire out the owner and force him to sell the house to the tenant at a throwaway price. This may be simply one of the thousands of instances in which influential persons are able to oppress those who are not quite as resourceful or devious.

On the other hand, I have heard also of a man who, while wishing to remain anonymous, is providing three meals every day for several hundred patients at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore. Donations to charities and voluntary contributions of time for worthy causes appear to be on the increase. An old friend of mine in Karachi and some 15 others have joined together to establish a clinic, and hospitalization, for the treatment and care of mentally or emotionally disturbed persons. They have raised a good deal of money and the facility is already in place and functioning. Good heart and generosity of spirit are not wanting among our people.

Two events took place during my stay in Pakistan that I found to be both perplexing and disturbing. The MMA had called for strikes and street demonstrations to express Muslim anguish and anger at the publication of cartoons denigrating our Prophet (PBUH). These became violent and protesters destroyed the property (automobiles and buildings) of their own fellow citizens, notably, in Lahore and Peshawar. Gangsters, thieves, and robbers infiltrated their ranks and plundered stores.

Orators from the pulpit declared that Muslims loved the Prophet more than anyone else in the whole world, and that they would die defending his honour. A bewildering notion of love and honour was involved here. Normally when you love someone you do what he/she asks you to do. Muslims will kill and get killed if someone disparages any of the Prophet’s sayings or actions, but in the actual conduct of their own daily affairs they will feel free to disregard or violate his advice, recommendations, and injunctions. They will die but not live for him.

Seeing the intensity of the protest, the MMA leaders took the wrong leaf from the book of PNA’s experience in 1977. They decided to channel the anti-cartoon public sentiment into a nationwide movement to overthrow General Musharraf. The protest lost steam after a few days, but what would have happened if it had continued, and if the MMA had succeeded in its design? In 1977 the Islamic parties in the PNA sought to convert the protest against electoral rigging into a movement for enforcing Islamization (“Nizam-i-Mustafa”). As a result, they gave the country not Islam but Ziaul Haq’s 11 years of tyranny and corruption. One may wonder what makes the MMA spokesmen think that the results would be different this time, and that any anti-Musharraf movement they may launch will bring us real democracy, parliamentary supremacy, and all the other good things.

On March 3 President Bush came to Islamabad following his longer visit in India. I shall say more about his visit another time, but suffice it to say now that he had nothing to tell us that he had not already said any number of times since 9/11. General Musharraf goes to Washington several times each year to hear that Pakistan is America’s vital ally in the war on terror. As in earlier encounters, Mr Bush asked the general to do “more” to stop cross border terrorist infiltrations into Indian-held Kashmir. It is possible he told Bush his government was doing all in its power toward this end. Conceivably (even if regrettably), he may have promised to do even “more.”

That Mr Bush spent part of his one day in Pakistan watching, and playing cricket is enough to show that he did not have much to discuss or do here. Why did he come at all? A few years ago, President Bill Clinton went to India for an extended visit. He did not wish to come to Pakistan, but someone from our side bent on his knees to plead with him. On his way back from India he stopped in Islamabad for four hours, and that only to scold the Pakistanis for their various failings in a television address taped while he was still in India, and which our government had already agreed to broadcast. Why did we want Mr Clinton to come at all?

Did Mr Bush come to Pakistan on March 3 because our spokesmen had begged him, or because he thought we would feel slighted if he did not? Why could we not have told him that we were mature enough to understand that America had its business with India, that it had its business (of a different nature) with Pakistan, that visits had to be related to business at hand, and that we would not feel bad if he went back home after concluding his business with the Indian prime minister without playing cricket in Pakistan? General Musharraf is now telling us that we should not be “India-centric.” That is good advice but I hope that not only the Pakistanis at large but he and his ministers will also heed it.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US. E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

GENERAL Musharraf may say ever so often that the system he has introduced represents the very essence of democracy and good governance. However, neither the people of Pakistan nor the world at large see this as the reality. This scepticism at home and abroad is not without a basis.

Gen Musharraf amended the Constitution and enacted laws as he wished, yielding little ground in the process to the religious groups who had made it all possible for him. Yet he continues to perform functions and exercise powers beyond even the limits that he himself had set for the office of president. His concept “real” democracy has not diminished his dominant role either in public life or in the power structure.

Governance too, whatever its quality, remains more of the president’s responsibility than that of the cabinet or the prime minister. Because he is also head of the armed forces, the army commanders are involved in governance more than the parliamentarians or civil servants.

In short, credit is given to the president wherever something goes right once in a while, — the economy for instance, and when things go wrong, which is often, only he is blamed as in the case of the bloody insurgencies in Waziristan and Balochistan. This rule applies to foreign policy as well and with greater emphasis. The whole situation has the appearance of president’s rule in a continuing national emergency.

A political environment in which the prime minister, the cabinet and the parliament do not determine the direction of state policy nor bear the ultimate responsibility for its good or bad results cannot be called even a rudimentary democracy much less a quintessential one as Musharraf would have us and the world believe. The same is true of governance. A system in which permanent civil servants — experts and generalists alike — are not the decision-makers in day-to-day government affairs and are not able to advise the parliamentarians on state policy, is not an example of good governance even if, for a time or on occasions, it is more effective and less corrupt.

The more Gen Musharraf asserts that the country has never been more democratic or better governed than now, with him as the president, the more his detractors insist that it is a strong dictatorship in a weak state where the administration represses political opponents but is unable to provide relief or justice to the common man. The confrontation between the government and the opposition, whether it is viewed as a fight for democratic rights or a power tussle, will end one day — maybe through general elections or a showdown on the streets. But until that happens it lies in the government’s power, more specifically President Musharraf’s, to lessen tensions.

The country has a parliamentary form of government and it remains that way, notwithstanding the power assumed by the president to dissolve the parliament and dismiss the government. While validating Gen Musharraf’s extra-constitutional intervention in 1999 the Supreme Court, too, had ruled that the parliamentary character of the Constitution would not be changed.

Through amendments to the Constitution but more by the public posture and actions of Gen Musharraf, the parliamentary character of the system has indeed been impaired. He is being taken here and abroad as head of state and government. By restricting himself to the constitutional role of the president he would be reducing the tensions which have been exacerbated by the fact that he has chosen to continue as chief of the army as well. The opposition would feel at ease in dealing with the prime minister for they still view Musharraf as an army commander rather than as a political leader.

An incidental, though important, advantage of Musharraf withdrawing from the affairs of the government would be that the army would be spared the criticism it has had to face because of the decisions he makes in his capacity as head of government. As head of the state, President Musharraf can always advise and warn the prime minister but the decisions — whether relating to dams, insurgency or elections — must be taken by the prime minister and his cabinet. At least, it should appear so to the public.

The problem here is that there are too many ministers and advisers with conflicting political affiliations and personal agendas to constitute a cohesive and competent cabinet. Most of them have been appointed to secure a majority in the National Assembly rather than to make policy and run the affairs of the state.

The first essential step towards restoring the primacy of the cabinet and the parliamentary system would be to have a cabinet of 15 or so ministers. Other ministers/advisers may stay on to serve the original purpose of their appointment but a cabinet that the prime minister can reach only through a public address system in the hall cannot consider national issues nor make decisions that must remain confidential.

The cabinet, once it is trimmed to a workable size, would be effective only if its members are advised and aided by career civil servants conversant with the rules of business and precedents. Even in Britain, the mother of parliamentary democracy, the laws are made in Westminster and policy decisions at 10 Downing Street but the knowledge and guidance comes from Whitehall — the home of civil service whose independence and security are guaranteed by law and tradition.

The independence and security of Pakistan’s civil servants have been all but destroyed by the legislative and executive actions of successive governments. The death blow was delivered by Gen Musharraf soon after he assumed power. How the civil services have ceased to be the career choice of the educated youth is obvious from the result of the latest competitive examination conducted by the Federal Public Service Commission.

Among the 224 successful candidates, only two belong to urban Sindh and that too way down the merit list which would, if at all, get them into junior service. On the other hand, young men and women in hundreds from Karachi and other cities take up banking, law and other professions every year. There was a time not long ago when a candidate from Karachi was among the first 10 to get into civil or foreign service. The rest had to be content with the lower services. The choice of the candidates at the top now is the police. They may not prove their merit even there because the lower cadres in the police are all backed by political appointees.

Gen Musharraf has the benefit of being advised by army officers who are still selected on merit, are professionally trained and protected against arbitrary action. Not so the prime minister. A parliamentary government would not be able to dig roots here unless the president and the prime minister work together to create an environment in the government which induces the educated youth to forego the financial rewards of the private sector for the dignity, independence and security of the public service. Gen Musharraf should not be averse to this idea now that his army career is drawing to a close and he makes no secret of his ambition to start a new one in politics.

When all has been said, in the final analysis the government and the opposition would be able to get along and work together only if an assurance exists that departing from tradition the next elections in 2007, may be earlier but not later and would be free and fair and open for all to vote and contest without discrimination or harassment.