SMOKERS’ CORNER: EVAPORATING GOVERNANCE
In the mid-1990s, I attended a seminar on ‘Anthropology and Politics’ at a hotel in Karachi. One of the speakers was a professor of anthropology from Germany, but unfortunately I have completely forgotten his name. Recently an off-the-cuff anecdote shared by a colleague reminded me of the anthropologist — rather about something he had said about anarchy. The anecdote that my colleague shared was about his father. He said that back in 1971, just days after the country lost its eastern wing (East Pakistan), someone stole the back tyre of his father’s motorbike. His father visited a nearby police station to report the incident but found the station extremely quiet. He said the cops were just loitering around, doing nothing. What’s more, the SHO refused to register a complaint against the tyre theft.
The SHO told his father that even if he did pen his complaint, it will remain on his table because “there is no government left.” My colleague was told by his father that everything seemed to have ground to a halt. Yet, there were no riots or looting. This little piece of information reminded me of the German anthropologist’s lecture during which he had explained that when a state collapses, and it seems there is no government left, a country does not immediately fall into anarchy. He added that it may actually take months for a collapsing country to slide into total social, economic and political chaos.
According to the anthropologist, this occurs because even though governance and the state itself have collapsed, the perception (in people’s minds) of their being strong institutions and in control remains ingrained for months. It is when this perception begins to erode that the country plunges into anarchy. The anthropologist had given examples of Bosnia and Somalia, saying that in these countries the state and government’s writ had begun to corrode and evaporate months before these realms eventually plunged into complete anarchy.
When there seems to be no government left, a country does not immediately fall into anarchy
I had initially not thought much about what my colleague had related to me. But after recalling the German professor’s lecture, I did wonder, what the SHO had meant when he told my colleague’s father, “There is no government left.” When did that happen in Pakistan?
I could not pinpoint such a claim anywhere when I looked through old newspapers from December 1971 or in books written about the immediate aftermath of the East Pakistan debacle. But only last week, while going through Hamid Khan’s excellent book Constitutional and Political History of Pakistan, I was taken aback when (in a chapter on the East Pakistan civil war) he writes that between December 18 and 20, 1971, “The country was virtually without a government.” Had this situation triggered riots and violence, I am sure it would have been more robustly documented, but the country had remained calm. This can also be explained by the German professor’s theory and observation that even when a government or state collapses (thus creating a huge political and social void) society does not immediately fall into this void. The mind takes some time to register the collapse because it is initially conditioned to believe that there is always someone on top in control.
But what exactly happened between December 18 and 20, 1971? Hamid Khan writes that by mid-December, Pakistan had clearly lost its eastern wing. The state had been defeated. Gen Yahya Khan, who was the military chief and president during the martial law regime at the time, was expected to step down. He didn’t.
Both Hamid Khan and also one of the founding members of the PPP, Dr Mubashir Hasan in his book The Mirage of Power, suggest that though Yahya Khan refused to resign, he was completely cornered and rendered powerless by a group of angry officers. Hamid Khan writes that Yahya Khan “was more or less a prisoner” (of these officers). Dr Mubashir writes that on December 17, 1971 two senior military officers, Gul Hasan and Rahim Khan, visited Yahya Khan and told him that the officers and soldiers wanted him to step down. Yahya Khan refused.