Today's ground reality

How do we evaluate the Musharraf-MMA accord? It claims to have solved the 14-month old constitutional impasse. We cannot judge it by academic constitutional rules, or by established democratic norms. Beyond the university classrooms, these have never been taught to any political party, or practised by any government in Pakistan. We have to judge it by the only standard known to us: the ground reality.

Unfortunately "ground reality" cannot be defined. In fact, no one wants it to be defined, as it will destroy the last refuge of the pragmatic breed in Pakistan. Like the famous quote of Samuel Johnson that (pretended) "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrels", this term implies the whims of the elite seeking such refuge in our 56-year-old history. So we have to apply this shapeless, faceless, nebulous yardstick.

Ground reality, a favourite phrase of all the high priests of our society, has become a sanctified touchstone for all, including the revered moralists, educated climbers and the gullible public.

It allows (a) the military dictators to take over, re-invent, re-design and re-adjust the wheel of democracy for their perpetual ride; (b) the politicians and religious leaders to prostrate themselves before the power centre for a price; (c) the judiciary to repeatedly proclaim the doctrine of necessity; (d) the bureaucrats to sell their soul; and (e) the exploited people to suffer silently and invite the repetition of history. Now the exuberant rulers and the crafty MMA justify this accord on this very basis. So there is no escape from the only standard, standing tall in the debris of other yardsticks.

Before doing that, however, we need to appreciate the basic historical reality. As a British colony we also used two components of the British constitution (written statutes and the unwritten conventions), but in our own inimitable Pakistani way.

An unwritten, but unconstitutional, convention (feudal-army axis) has been constantly making inroads into the written constitution of the country. It germinated in 1949 (only two years after the birth of Pakistan) when Brig. Akbar Khan (later major-general) started planning the dismissal of the 'corrupt and inefficient civilian government'.

The year 1951 saw its premature disclosure, fifteen arrests for trial by a special tribunal and the still undetected murder of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. The anti-constitution feudal politicians had perfected the art of survival in collaboration with the alien ruler and had tasted the Lahore martial law of 1953. They decided in 1954 to make peace with the other unconstitutional challenger allowing the uniformed Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Ayub Khan, to sit as defence Minister in the federal cabinet.

The unwritten convention was thus born seeking a permanent place in the written constitution. Half century from 1954 to 2004 is the story of a determined march from the barracks in Rawalpindi to the parliament houses in Islamabad. On the way it matured into a three-dimensional military-mullah-feudal alliance, with an enhanced capacity to exploit the masses.

The LFO accord marks the up-to-date progress of this march. Ironically it is being hailed as 'today's ground reality', without recalling that 'today' is the distilled outcome of many 'yesterdays' deformed by sly manipulations.

It cannot be properly evaluated with an isolated focus on the last link in a long chain of manipulations. It will be more logical to look for new composite realities created by the entire march at the finishing line of the LFO accord. The cumulative effect on today's scenario reveals the following new ground realities.

The first reality is that four identical innings of military dictators have forcibly converted the basic character of this unwritten convention into such firm precedents as are more binding than the written constitution.

For instance, the five-year extension granted to the fourth military dictator by the seventeenth amendment indemnifies and validates all the illegalities of General Musharraf during the last four years i.e. military takeover by force, dubious referendum, misuse of state resources and taxpayers money for horse trading and purchase of political loyalties, destruction of administrative structure to ensure victory of the King's party, rigged elections, eclipsed accountability with freedom of crime to the loyalists, corruption as a deliberate instrument of state policy, distortion of the judicial system and many other such actions.

As with the past rulers, the indemnity and validation of four precedents in quick succession in half a century allows the current and the future rulers to do more of the same with impunity. Consequently the central concept of welfare state of our earlier constitutions has been invisibly replaced by the aggressively pragmatic approach of this 'long march', which justified any means (illegal, immoral or against the public interest) to grab and consolidate power.

Henceforth, these identical precedents will determine the governing style instead of the idealistically written text of the constitution. Since this protection has consistently remained available to the military dictators only, and never to civilian governments, it will encourage and facilitate military takeover as an exclusive right created by the frequency of the same precedent.

The second ground reality is that the combined effect of this accord plus other similar accords in the past have now given an irreversible and nearly-permanent role to the army without a formal declaration. A uniformed president, invisible perks and protections for defence establishments, military heads of top civilian posts, and a parliament willing to surrender at a signal from the GHQ define the parameters of the new parliamentary / presidential hybrid setup, which is democratic in name and dictatorial in spirit.

Guarding the flanks will be the National Security Council (NSC) to be created by a parliament which does not have the courage, or even the will, to debate and decide policies but is merely "taken into confidence" after the president has taken a national, or international, decision in consultation with his military constituency, in and out of the NSC. The president and the NSC appear to have a combatant status, while the "sovereign parliament" will be treated as a non-combatant.

The third reality is that democracy remains the permanent loser. The first obstructive wall to democracy erected by Gen. Ayub Khan in 1958 is now four-storey high in 2004, with very little chance of shrinking, unless demolished by mobs.

The statement by Gen Musharraf that in this accord there were no losers or winners, applies to the two power-sharing parties only, who got their respective pounds of flesh. The loss of democracy is not being counted because it was never considered a party in the deal. It was merely used as a deceptive camouflage.

Nor was the citizen, whose continuously mounting deprivation is the fourth ground reality created by this 'long march' and the LFO accord. By now he has been permanently banished from statecraft, either as a voice or as a beneficiary.

He is there to be exploited merely to provide the broad base to hoist high the apex cone of the pyramid. After their loss of faith in the judiciary the jilted citizen and the deserted democracy are like two abandoned orphans in the carnival of power.

The fifth odd reality is that the so-called 'parliamentary democracy' unleashed by the military-mullah-feudal unholy alliance has no real opposition in the parliament. No doubt, the ARD is opposing the triple alliance in the house, but this opposition is tactical, rather than democratic. It is about price, and certainly not about democracy, because both the PPPP and the PML(N) avoid democracy like plague in their internal organization.

Their price is also well known i.e. end of the exile of their life-long/hereditary leaders with a total freedom to repeat the crimes of the previous two innings. They want the same indemnity and validation of their misdeeds as is always available to all the military dictators.

It is likely to be paid in part or in full depending on the ground realities of tomorrow and the course of plea-bargaining. Let us not forget that it is the fond hope of some quarters that future may see a completely monolithic house of treasury benches only, without a hand raised in opposition. It will indeed be a glorious destination of a long march.

The sixth sad reality is that the LFO accord never considered the subject of good governance. So it will continue to slide down from today's bad to tomorrow's worse. The government will be too engrossed in dishing out patronage to preserve this unstable marriage of convenience.

Similar accords in the past have given us more than three thousand suicides in the country during 2003 (Dawn, January 3) due to poverty, unemployment, injustice and other logical fall-out of bad governance. "Suicide is not a crime", says the police, and quietly hands over the dead body to the family. "It does not threaten us", thinks the leader, and continues with his power game of sham democracy versus genuine dictatorship.

e-mail :mmufti@apollo.net.pk

And now a novelist

I have known Muhammad Saeed Sheikh for years but mostly as a man of letters rather than as one belonging to the bureaucracy. He came into prominence as a short story writer and was so prolific in the genre that it did not take him long to present four collections of his work to the reading public.

The fact, however, remains that many of his short stories, and subsequent novels, were based on his experiences and the knowledge gained as a bureaucrat. But why pinpoint him in this respect? After all, Masud Mufti and Tariq Mahmood, two prominent names in Urdu literature, are also victims of the same syndrome. Now who other than a district administrator could write a novelette, Fard-i-Jurm, which Sheikh has penned to stun the readers by telling them that fifty per cent of those sent to the gallows happen to be innocent.

For the last few years, Muhammad Saeed Sheikh has expanded his vision and started to write novels. Again showing his prolificacy, he has produced four novels in a short time. Accepted eagerly by the readers, these have drawn favourable review from literary critics. Writing about Sheikh's Aik aur Darya, the leading critic of the country, Dr Anwar Sadeed, said after going through the first few pages of the novel he could not leave it until he had gone through it from cover to cover.

Personally, I was more attracted by his novel, Rang-i-Jahan aur. I was particularly appreciative of the way he had graphically presented the character of Malik Ayaz. The story also revealed many hidden aspects of the ways of the bureaucracy.

However, it was Sheikh's novel, Eik aur Darya, published in 2002, which was unanimously adjudged for the prestigious Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi award for the year. The panel of judges comprised Intezar Husain, Amjad Islam Amjad and Shaheen Mufti.

To celebrate the occasion, Muhammad Saeed Sheikh invited a host of friends to dinner at his residence. The response was good. Although the assembly was delayed because of a literary function being held simultaneously in the Alhamra Arts Centre, the proceedings started as soon as Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi arrived at the venue.

The gathering happened to be a mixture of bureaucrats and literate. The retired accountant-general, Wazir Ahmed Qureshi, was there and so was the income tax commissioner, Ansar Javed. Former information secretary Syed Minochehr was also present, but then he happens to belong to a family of literary people and is the son of renowned poet Syed Abid Ali Abid.

The proceedings were ably conducted by Aizaz Ahmed Azar while Shahnaz Muzammil, Amjad Tufail and Saood Usmani spoke about the book and its author. They appreciated the dexterity with which events had been portrayed in the story and the trend of realism in the narrative. Someone also remarked that the novel was an inside story of our society.

With so many literary personalities present on the occasion, it did not take long for the sitting to develop into a literary session. Syed Minochehr read out his sort story, Takmeel, which was well received. And then the poets joined the fray with Bushra Ijaz, Shahnaz Muzammil, Saood Usmani, Zahid Hasan and Aizaz Ahmed Azar reciting their verse. And while they were still at it, in walked Murtaza Barlas, Amjad Aslam Amjad and Khalid Iqbal Yasser. The poetic recital session was, therefore, prolonged and only ended when dinner was announced.

I remember the initial days of the literary organization, Adab Serai, a brainchild of Shahnaz Muzammil, which met every month in the Model Town Library. At the time, the library was under her charge. The proceedings of those sessions used to be conducted by Karamat Bukhari and Dur-i-Anjum Arif was one of its prominent regulars. Somehow, she has disappeared from the scene since.

Following the transfer of Shahnaz from the Model Town to the Quaid-i-Azam Library, the Adab Serai has been meeting at the residence of Shahnaz Muzammil, punctually on the second-Monday-of-the month. As I landed there this time, I got the welcome news that the Adab Serai had completed 16 years of its existence. No wonder I found Shahnaz beaming all over. To celebrate the occasion, a birthday cake was cut before the start of the proceeding. But Nida Sargodhvi, who walked in when the session was coming to a close, was also carrying a cake which he presented to the lady of the house.

The poetic recitals that evening were quite interesting, but it seemed that everyone was bent upon reading long poems and consuming more time than was bearable. Even Ameen Ludhanvi, so good at the ghazal, came up with a nazm that day. Some even insisted on reciting a ghazal after having done away with a nazm. That tended to be annoying. It was nice to hear the 'tarranum' of Syeda Tauqir Naqvi and the Punjabi/Urdu poetry of Arifa Baseer. She definitely seems to be improving. Prof Hafeez also came up with a nazm but had a good reason for that; it was by way of a tribute to Adab Serai for having remained up and doing for sixteen long years. Iqbal Sahar Ambalvi presented a ghazal in parts in the classical vein while Karamat Bukhari came up with a stunning opening verse (matla'a):

Mera dast-i-dua mehfooz rakhhey
Khudaon se Khuda mehfooz rakhhey