State of Democracy in South Asia

DIALOGUE ON DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan, Lahore
Dates: 7 ^th & 8 ^th Febuary, 2004
Venue: Best Western Hotel, Lahore

Nusrat Ara, (Women Development Organisation (WDO), Mardan, North West Frontier Province (NWFP)): “Despite all the bonafide endeavours, civil society has been unable to bring women to the fore. Although some women members have been brought into the parliament but the much-trumpeted 33 percent women’s presence is nothing more than point scoring. In reality, they are still behind the walls. They are financially dependent on their male family members. Ultimately, they have to do what their men folk want them to do. Those who are in the parliament or in the local government can hardly play an effective role. Most of them are proxying their men and their interests”.

Professor Ismail (RISE Peshawar, North West Frontier Province (NWFP)): “It is the vision of civil society regarding democracy and its contribution that matters. For instance, the role of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) has been far more visible than that of political parties. Similar is the case of journalists. Strangely, the role of labour unions has now been adopted by NGOs, while the former have been bulldozed by the government. As far as NGOs are concerned, I prefer not to speak about their ‘democratic governance’. All they talk of is their rights not their responsibilities. Nevertheless, I will appreciate the fact that NGOs have promoted pluralism in Pakistan. The present activity is an indication in this regard. We are discussing and exchanging views in a very open and frank manner. Despite certain weaknesses, there is much strength in CSOs”.

Zia-ur-Rahman (Awaz, Multan): “The role of civil society has not been ideal. At the time of the coup, we have seen a historical split among NGOs on the issue of supporting Musharraf, who was actually looking for allies. Civil society has no face that a movement is supposed to have. Larger and influential NGOs shouldered the seven point agenda, (including the 33 percent representation of women) of General Musharraf at the cost of democracy. Now, women are there without making any difference. The military government is happy at our inaction, rather compromise”.

Angelica K. Zobade (HBF, Lahore, Punjab): “The question is one of legitimacy of NGOs. I was a city councillor in my hometown back in Germany. There were NGOs like the ones you have around, claiming that they were the peoples’ representatives, as is the case here in Pakistan. A group of NGOs was even demanding a role in the municipal administration, not as observers but as decision makers. In my view, they themselves were and still are undemocratic. They have not been elected democratically. They lack the legitimacy. Frankly, some of its leadership in Germany is as old as the NGOs themselves. They are like Czars of Russia and Shahs of Iran. Because of their power and influence, NGOs wield enough space that the states once seemed to have created to serve their own interests. For example, we find gigantic NGOs operating under the state in Bangladesh, and then there are NGOs who work like corporate giants. Had I been a parliamentarian in Bangladesh, I would have questioned their role. They are operating as a state within the state. A question of democratic legitimacy looms over them”.

Evelyn Hust, (South Asian Institute, India): “Whatever I have understood so far is that our ideals, organisations and institutions are undemocratic. It’s a mismatch between our behaviour and our ideals. I think there could be more than one route to democracy, let us say it could be through civil society action or through NGOs or CBOs. But it is education that can be the very basis of democracy, more than any other thing. That is something apart from the family where you catch the new generation very early. Countries like India (and Pakistan) lack the tradition of questioning, which is also part of democracy. What I could decipher from the discussion so far is that you lack institutions and education that can promote democracy”.
“This is exactly what India is facing now. The BJP keeps tampering with education and the syllabi. The outcome will be much more damaging than it apparently seems. Just for our relief, India is a democratic state and this practice of changing curriculum for political motives can only be contained in a democracy. Once you introduce anti-democratic values and attitudes in your educational system while keeping democracy at higher political levels, you are creating problems for your next fifty or sixty years”.

Mohammad Tahseen (South Asia Partnership-Pakistan (SAP-PK)): “It seems that the BJP has learnt these tricks from us while we are not willing to learn from the Indians”.

Professor Sarfraz (Peshwar University, Peshawar): “Partition was in a way the result of the fear of a minority from the domination of the majority. After the creation of Pakistan, the same fear persisted. In India, it was the Hindu domination. Now it’s the Punjabi domination. There had been a range of panaceas adopted by the state from Islam to Urdu language to One-Unit and inter-wing parity to curb the feelings of alienation. The state-imposed solutions only aggravated the ailment further”.

“There are contradictions in our society and its every day discourse. There is a saying in Pashto that ‘I am not your tenant’ or a similar expression in Punjabi that ‘I am not being fed by you’. These sayings convey the message of equality. The contradiction is that on the one hand these expressions symbolize equity, and on the other hand they legitimise marginalisation. This is the problem with Muslims of the sub-continent. The logic that governed the partition of India was the minority’s fear of the majority. If the same logic is given against another majority (Punjab) domination, they are labelled as traitors. This again is a glaring contradiction”.

“The middle class in Pakistan has proved to be a counter-productive genre regarding democracy. The size, majority and dominance of one province has always been posing a threat to others’ space. Marginalization goes down to the local and individual level. The traditional institutions of conflict resolution in our communities have been destroyed by the colonial structure while courts are too expensive for a large number of people. They are no more egalitarian institutions. Now, Maliks and Lungi holders, agents of the state dominate the Jirga. Panchayat is taken over by the inclusion of Numberdar. Same is the case with the institution of Dewan in Balochistan. We need to strengthen those elements that bring equity, and need to modify those that legitimise marginalisation of communities and individuals”.

“One possible source of change was the education system. The curriculum given by the colonial masters was aimed at producing clerks and servants. However, despite its shortcomings, it was tolerable. To our misfortune, Ayub, Bhutto and Zia tampered with the text to take it to the other extremes, resulting in conservatism, ignorance and indifference. It is a pity that people, otherwise deserving to be treated as villains, are glorified as heroes. We need to expurgate our syllabi from all such material”.

Karamat Ali (Pakistan Institute of Labor Education & Research (PILER) Karachi, Sindh): “There are certain misconceptions in our discourse. We need to define democracy in our local context. Take the case of increase in women representation in the parliament. If any civilian government had done this (33 percent increase in women seats in the legislative bodies), they would have enjoyed more legitimacy but since the military regime has initiated this process, it is less acceptable. We need to go beyond this civil/military distinction. The process of civilianisation of military rule does not necessarily mean democracy. Democracy needs to be analysed at three different levels: individual and community level, the societal level and then the state level. First, we need to do away with the myth that Pakistan was the creation of a democratic process. It even negated whatever basis it had in the well-known Lahore resolution of 1940. In fact, the Third June Plan left people with only two options of choosing either India or Pakistan. What a choice! Creation of Pakistan was against the principle of democracy. Unless we accept this reality, we cannot go further. I also believe that theocratic policies and democracy rarely go together. Whatever has been happening was a logical outcome. Whether we believe it or not, there was no promise of democracy when Pakistan was created. But it is not to suggest that we cannot build a new foundation for democracy in Pakistan. We need not blame those who created Pakistan. In Germany, people rejected Nazism and changed the system”.

“Inter alia, a lot of other problems infest our society. We must give up certain pretensions now. We hardly had any reformist movement. The only one we had was that of Khudai Khidmat Gar (Surkh Posh Movement). Now Wali Khan (being the son of Ghaffar Khan) claims to be a Khudai Khidmatgar (Servant of God), which he is not. Rulers keep repeating the mantra that we are equal or every one is equal in this society. It is a mirage. We are not. It is the oppressed that are equal. Even the so-called Jirga was never egalitarian. Democracy in this country has become just an instrument for electing leaders. Same is the case with trade unions. They elect a leader and then he becomes a super human person, no more an equal. I have been associated with trade unions in this country for long but have never seen a low social class member becoming a leader. There is no democracy in essence. The relationship is not based on equality. It is a patron-client relationship. There has never been democracy as such. This is an illusion that it is the military rulers who take it away, or derail democracy. Political parties too cannot afford the luxury of consistency in their political stand. Even in Britain, the Conservative Party proposes anti-labour laws and the Labour Party adopts them in turn. As long as the society stands void of democracy, so will the state. One to one relationship is not the concern but it is the dynamics that counts. Equality calls for eradicating the caste system but discrimination in all spheres of life is pretty common here”.

“European nations banished religion from the state. It is not that religion has disappeared, but its influence on state policies has been minimised. We shall have to be decisive about the choice between religious ideology and democracy. Call it secularism or anything, but religion should be disassociated from the affairs of the state. Religion should be accepted and religious rights should be granted to all. No one should be discriminated on the basis of religious beliefs”.

“We exploit religion for our personal drives. We exploit ethnicity for our ulterior motives. When it comes to the distribution of resources, it is on ethno-national basis that one gets a share. Punjab has a larger population and so it gets a greater share. The rest of them get their share according to their ethno-national identities such as Pukhtuns, and similarly Sindhis and the Baloch. We are divided into four nations. But when we want to deprive provinces of their resources, we become one Pakistani nation. If we are talking of democracy then we have to bring equality and eradicate all forms of discrimination. Basic decisions need to be taken about the basis of the state of Pakistan”.

Tasleem Zounr (South Asia Partnership-Pakistan (SAP-PK), Lahore): “There could be as many definitions of democracy as there are people around and there could be as many experiences of democracy as there are countries around but, it is not to suggest that we should be subjected to whatever experiment is carried out in the name of democracy. For example, General Musharraf has given a new concept of ‘controlled democracy’, which he calls true democracy. It is not the question of minimal and maximal or any other form of democracy in between, but to me it is very simple to understand that democracy either exists or it does not. It does not mean that there is no consensus on the notion of democracy. Let us not underestimate peoples’ wisdom. We must not forget that there are certain people who try to confuse the concept of democracy”.

Miss Salma, (Bargad, Gujranwalla, Punjab): “There is a stark contradiction between what we say and what we practice. We rarely believe what we keep saying and rarely practice what we assert. We are not ready to admit the mistakes we keep committing. Most of the times, it is the material interests that shake our ideology. Economic interest is the core deriving force that has swept aside all the values of democracy. The rest is the story that needs no repetition”.

Nusrat Wafa Umrani (Women Development Organisation (WDO), Naseerabad, Balochistan): “Some of the friends here talked about the issues confronting Balochistan. Equality is the fundamental principle of democracy but as far as women are concerned, Balochistan is the worst case in this regard. The Baloch women are socially non-existent. We are even deprived their basic rights, just by being the other sex. Women’s liberty is curtailed at the pretext of protecting tribal and religious values in Balochistan. They receive treatment no less than what is appropriate for sheep and goats. After destroying the honour and liberties of the half among us, how can we ensure democracy in this country?”

Professor Ahmed Zeb (Dera Ismail Khan, North West Frontier Province (NWFP): “Such is the state of suppression that a child who is naturally inquisitive to learn and ask questions is not allowed to ask about any thing seen around. Asking questions is an unpardonable sin in this society. I would like to share a joke here that would be more in terms of food for thought than laughter. ‘Two dogs somehow got befriended at the border area of India and Pakistan. The Indian dog was quite hungry and skinny while the Pakistani dog had put a lot of fat around. Exchanging views and news from either side, the Indian dog said, ‘You appear to be well-fed and comfortable on your side, while here in my territory there is hardly enough to keep the body and soul intact. There is a lot to eat and drink over there, I suppose’. Graciously enough, the Pakistani dog suggested, ‘why don’t you cross over and settle on this side of the border? You can eat, drink and be merry in this part of the world. Accepting, the Indian dog began to cross over briskly. On his very steps, the Pakistani dog yelled, ‘Halt! You can cross it over but with one condition. Here you can eat and drink as much as you like but cannot bark’”.

“Actually there is no space available to question the state of affairs. Everything is shrouded in secrecy and gruesome silence. We need to initiate a process that encourages the people to speak up whatever one feels for. We need to develop a culture of the right to know and to question”.

Andrew Jilani (South Asian Voices, Lahore, Punjab): “It is somewhere in the 1990s that UNESCO (United Nations Economic and Social Council) came up with a slogan of ‘education for all.’ Thus, education became a right both for boys and girls. However, the state of female literacy still lurks around the marginal levels. The system of education we follow is quite elitist. The role of education based on equality is the essence of education, which, sorry to say, is being negated here. Education is not egalitarian in Pakistan. We are imparting a class education to our younger generation. This is why we cannot provide a home to democracy in Pakistan”.

“Lacking in tradition, we could not manage to install a political system of equality as in India, hence there is this mess. The education system needs to be rebuilt from scratch. A system of education that cannot eliminate biases, prejudices and discrimination is worthless. It is pathetic that the education system is hyperbolising the prejudices and discrimination to dangerous heights”.

“Let me quote an example here. My nephew refused to go to college the other day. When asked, he quoted several instances of discrimination and prejudices of his fellow students, right from eating and drinking to friendship and association. ‘I am sick of this hate-laden society’, he said. ‘If I find an opportunity, I will quit this country and will never return. I hate this society’. The problem is that we are instilling the attitudes of difference and inequality on religious and several other grounds into our students. This ultimately affects the politics and policies of this country”.

Irfan Mufti (South Asia Partnership-Pakistan (SAP-PK), Lahore, Punjab): “We have languished through the centuries of colonial rule and then there are the martial rules. Martial Law is nothing short of colonial rule. Traditionally, our rural communities worked differently but the colonial rule changed its dynamics and values. The reorientation of the liberal economy deprived the individual and the indigenous communities of the means of reaching consensus. The colonial masters created a subsystem of perpetual rule that survived their departure but the superimposed and alien political structure has abolished the traditional system of governance from the people of this area”.

“There are still remnants of pro-people local institutions that could stand for their rights in testing times. Let us take the example of the Mazareen (tenants) struggle against the oppression and hegemony of the Punjabi Government and the military. This struggle received unequivocal support from diverse sections of the society across the country. Thus, what was necessarily a local struggle had spill over effects. This is an ideal instance of the peoples’ struggle for exercising their commune power. The actual problem lies in the existing paradigm of power and governance. A collective paradigm of power needs to be evolved because enforcing the very idea of democracy without making it compatible to the local systems and institutions is also an elitist style of introducing a new phenomenon. Mainstreaming the paradigm of mass power will create a popular demand for democracy”.

Akash Ansari (BRDS, Badin, Sindh): “I believe that we do have some collective vision of democracy. This is why we are sitting here together but something crucial to the reality is still missing. We see the status quo strengthened on and on. The society has become a salt lake that munches through the very foundations of its existence. All of us want to do something about this sorry state of affair in the country but we are not actually doing it. Something needs to be done. We may need some principle-governed political parties. There is a consensus on the need for improvement. Problems are not beyond management. There are still hopes to improve the situation”.

Zubeda Birwani (Shirkat Gah, Karachi): “I have a dissenting opinion. We the people of Sindh have lost every attraction in democracy. Has it given anything valuable to the poor and marginalized people of Pakistan? Don’t we see what the same system of governance did to our Bengali brethren? What is there for the ethno-lingual minorities? A particular group of elite has driven away a significant majority on democratic demands. This state ignores the resolutions passed by three of the four assemblies calling for giving up the idea of the Kalabagh Dam. The key question with regard to democratic practice in Pakistan has nothing to do with majority and minority. The same ruling clique is ubiquitous beyond time and space”.

“What is called democracy is not a safeguard for the rights of the people. This state robbed us of the promises of democracy. Setting aside the ideological issues, this state failed to provide the trifling amenities of life, which an efficient municipality could have solved otherwise. To add insult to injury, the state is confiscating whatever people already had. Natural resources are being sold out to the corporate bidders. Democracy breathed its last in 1971 when a democratic majority was brutally crushed out”.

Muhammad Tahseen (State Affiliation): “I would appreciate if our respectable intellectuals now come to the working and outcome of democracy in Pakistan. I will just request you to be more precise and focused so that we can move forward sequentially and analytically”.

Nazeer Memon (Member of Water Committee, Sindh): “Political parties, to our misfortune, lack this kind of orientation as regards taking stock of any serious issue in this country. I appreciate South Asia Partnership-Pakistan (SAP-PK) for organizing such a lively and dynamic dialogue. Here, I will speak of my own experience. As a political worker, I have been taught the concept of democracy as ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. We never dissected any element of this belief. Who will fix the rules of the game? Let us say we start democracy from our home. Let us see what we have in store? Our constitution has been suspended thrice. The will of the people was crushed with each suspension of civilian government and assemblies. Zubeida (a dialogue participant) was right in saying that the unanimous resolutions passed by three assemblies more than once were not deemed important enough for consideration. If I am deprived of any of my basic rights, the courts are supposed to come for redress but when the whole nation is wronged, whom should they turn to. What to talk of individuals, even water rights have been denied to whole communities. No one listens. No one cares. Such is the federation of Pakistan. It is anything but democracy”.

“The Constitution provides that in case of any disputed claims among the provinces, the Council of Common Interests (CCI) will take up the issue in order to reach a settlement. The Constitution has been restored but CCI is still in abeyance. While running the campaign for the Kalabagh Dam, the government is ready to go beyond the Constitution to get it constructed. The federal government takes Sindhis for granted. We have at least the right to be heard as Pakistanis in the light of Pakistan’s constitution. Now tell us where to go? Mullah’s Islam too has no solution for such problems. Should we appeal to Allah? There is no democracy, particularly in case of Sindh. It is only the Sindhi media (both electronic and print) that is siding with the people of Sindh”.

Gul Rahman (Muttihidda Labour Federation, Peshawar, North West Frontier Province (NWFP): “I would suggest that, in order to be more focused, we need to identify the benefits of even the minimal democracy, if we have any. No civil government has ever been interested in restoring the local government system. It is the third time that the military rulers reintroduced the local government system in this country”.

“As for justice, in Charsadda (NWFP) there was a dispute between labour unions and the mill owners. We approached the court and the court gave a verdict vindicating our claim but it was never respected by the feudal-industrialists. We filed a petition of contempt of court but the court, despite standing up to its own words, rebuked us saying, ‘It is entirely your fault. Industry owners always stand for the economic interests of the country’. Courts are so powerless that they cannot have their judgments respected. So I have sympathy with my friend Nazeer Memon. Where to go?”

Rashid Rahman (HRCP, Multan): “Institutional behaviour is inevitably aimed at excluding people to maintain the perpetual power of the ruling elite. Courts and institutions in reality perplex people raising this and that objection every now and then. People are forced to observe stupid formalities in the process of litigation. This is not a strange thing for us. What is new is that now President General Musharraf has brandished his fist towards us. God knows what message lies in this gesture? It is the state institutions that are responsible for the indifference of the people towards political and democratic processes. This government is run by a single pillar of the state, i.e. the executive. The Judiciary and the legislature are almost crippled and the executive authority, I would again say, rests on exclusion of the people”.

Peter Jacob (DCHD, Lahore): “Every system has minimal goods, my friends! As an international obligation, Pakistan was asked to constitute some commissions. One of them to be constituted was a national HRCP while another was a National Commission on the Status of Women and Minorities. Enough time has lapsed. The first one is still lingering on while the second one has at least delivered some goods. It is a different matter that its recommendations are not being incorporated. Just bringing in an array of new institutions at the behest of international pressures will rarely result in solid changes”.

Attique ur Rehman (Social Activists Forum, Turbat): “When Pakistan came into being, the Balochi people were not part of the bandwagon. Those who were part of it did not even get to the Promised Land. We now even abhor talking of our rights. You know that every law goes against us. Authorities are out there to victimize us. We have been impoverished. People are more interested in a bag of flour than the right to cast their vote. There are no technical institutes and engineering universities in Balochistan to produce manpower with technical acumen to be employed in the Gawadar Port, Mirani Dam or other huge projects”.

“We (in Balochistan) have more than one hundred types of date fruits cherished by the world but there is no system of processing and transportation. Hence, the farmer is bound to sell it to the brokers from Karachi at throw-away prices. People in Balochistan feel that their Pakistan is actually Iran. It is Iran that provides us water, grain, edible oil, petrol etc. Pakistan gives us Rangers (paramilitary forces). It is a common phrase in Balochistan ‘Anda Iran Ka Danda Pakistan Ka’. (Literally translated as: egg from Iran and stick from Pakistan.)”

“Democracy, for us, is a thing of an alien planet. To our relief, some NGOs tread upon these areas, which were so far inaccessible for others. And they are attempting to deliver some services. They are a new entry, and to be very honest, they are utilizing resources properly. I would rather suggest that not enough money is being spent in the Mekran belt (the southern most coastal belt of Balochistan). Democracy may benefit some political expedients from Balochistan but it delivers little benefit to the common people”.

Akash Ansari (BRDS, Badin, Sindh): “There has never been democracy even for a moment in Pakistan. Quaid-a-Azam himself was an autocrat. The national press (I mean Urdu Press here) keeps harping that politicians are bad and the generals are no less than Hatims of Tai (a literary legend famous for his generosity). The burden of blame should not be placed entirely on the politicians. Politicians have time and again been kicked out from the political arena by the military. Only the vassal politicians are given a space to play on. In Sindh, ‘rent a government’ is the order of the day. Sindhi people have always been struggling for a federal and democratic Pakistan because of this rightful demand, they have been labelled as separatists and Indian agents”.

Peter Jacob (DCHD, Lahore): “I would like to share an Urdu Couplet.

Javed Ahsan (Writer-Poet, DG Khan, South Punjab): “I agree with Peter Jacob on the point of looking at the minimal good within the system. There is no alternative to the democratic process, this is true. Crisis is inevitable in every democracy.