December 2: As a cricketer
I toured India several times between 1977 to 1989 and
I felt that it was a country going nowhere, with its highly
centralized and over-bureaucratized inefficient governance
system. I had never seen such poverty anywhere in the
world. The infrastructure was decaying and Delhi and Calcutta
were so polluted that playing cricket there was not a
pleasant experience.
Compared to India, Pakistan looked a developed country.
Our economic growth rate and per capita income had been
higher for the previous four decades. Though Pakistanis
were crazy about Indian films, our television was far
superior, and we would thrash them regularly at hockey,
squash and cricket despite being seven times smaller.
Not surprisingly, the Indians had a Pakistan complex.
In the last year my two visits to India have come as a
bit of a shock. India has overtaken Pakistan in per capita
income while its economy is growing robustly at 8 per
cent. Delhi is being cleaned up, while Bombay is one of
the most expensive real estates in the world. Poverty
is decreasing. But above all and what is most striking
is the growing self-belief of Indians. The Pakistan complex
is gone and the Indians see themselves as a future superpower,
as, indeed, does the world. They view their future with
optimism and hope.
India has achieved this remarkable turnabout due to the
strengthening of their democratic institutions. The self-corrective
mechanism inbuilt in democracy has led to the evolution
of two vital institutions: the Election Commission and
the Judiciary. The other great quality of democracy is
its capacity of debate and consensus building. Hence,
around a decade ago, the political parties came to a common
economic policy consensus to open up the stagnant socialistic
model that had existed since independence. This insulated
the investors from the political process and paved the
way for investment and growth.
Secondly, the weakening of the Congress party and the
emergence of regional players allowed decentralization
and devolution of power enabling provincial chief ministers
to compete against each other for investment. It was this
healthy competition that led to the emergence of Bangalore
as a software-exporting city.
Additionally, and unlike Pakistan, India has no political
uncertainty as a powerful independent judiciary and Election
Commission have always ensured a smooth transfer of power.
In this year’s election some 350 million people
went to the polls, knowing that their vote mattered. Only
three constituencies complained of irregularities and
a sitting government gracefully conceded defeat.
In stark contrast, since the 90s Pakistan has been going
around in circles and heading nowhere. Our institutions
and our democracy are sadly in an advanced state of decay.
According to the UN Human Development Index Pakistan has
slipped 20 places to 142 behind Nepal (which had 1 per
cent literacy in 1947) and Bangladesh. During the 9/11
Commission hearings in the US Senate, it emerged that
Pakistan’s state school structure had collapsed.
According EFA (Education for All), Pakistan has not met
any of its targets and is bottom of the pile along with
sub-Saharan Africa. In my constituency, Mianwali, out
of the 470 government schools, 20 per cent exist only
on paper (i.e. there is nothing on ground), while 50 per
cent are closed, as there are no teachers. What future
does a country have which does not invest in its people
while the tiny elite hogs all the country’s resources?
Additionally, while every country in the sub-continent
has reduced its poverty, in Pakistan it is rising sharply
– especially in the last few years. The governance
system too is deteriorating as reflected by the finding
of Transparency International; according to it corruption
has gone up 20 per cent in the last one year. And there
is not much chance of governance improving when ministerships
are not given on merit but dished out as political bribes.
India, with its huge size has 26 federal ministers to
Pakistan’s 136 army of ministers and those holding
ministerial status.
The way things stand today there is little hope. We have
a military dictatorship with a democratic facade propped
up by its civilian collaborators. When a military dictator
tries to gain political legitimacy he can only do so by
destroying all state institutions – in the process
doing far more damage than a straightforward dictatorship.
Hence the constitution can only be mutilated through a
pliant judiciary that endorses the Doctrine of Necessity.
The Election Commission could only rig the elections to
get the desired results by first installing a discredited
election commissioner. When the National Accountability
Bureau (NAB) is used for keeping crooked politicians in
line and victimize the opponents, it means another institution
bites the dust.
The local government system too has been created to support
the military dictator rather than devolve power to the
grassroots. Not only has the system failed to empower
the grassroots but it has also resulted in being far more
corrupt and inefficient than the previous system. In India
the governance system has improved considerably through
a genuine devolution of power from the center to the provinces,
to the districts and right down to the village level.
However, the greatest damage done to the country is when,
to perpetuate military dictatorship the establishment
chooses ‘controllables’ to fill the top slots
in the country. Since the easiest to control are crooked
politicians whose files are lying with NAB, they have
been installed in the most important positions. Also controllable
are those who are incompetent or who do not have any power
base in the country.
How can any country or even any institution work if such
are the criteria of those running the show. Are we surprised
today if there is a moral collapse and the message to
the youth is that crime pays? No wonder the law and order
situation is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
Perhaps the most damaging blow dealt to the country’s
self-belief and self-esteem is the shameless way our leadership
has abandoned its sovereignty and forced a reluctant nation
to be co-opted in a phony and immoral war on terror.
Since the days of the Cold War the US realized that it
is much easier to control, pressurize and manipulate dictators
to serve their interests rather than democracies. Hence,
while lecturing the world on the merits of democracy the
US has supported, amongst others, all four Pakistani military
dictators. But even the US government must have been taken
aback by the way the current military dictator obliged
to fulfill every US wish.
Hence the fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens were
violated as they were picked up and handed over to the
FBI without allowing them to appear in a court of law
to prove their innocence. There were extra-judicial killings
of others, while under US pressure our own soldiers and
our own citizens are being killed in Waziristan every
day in the so-called war on terror with far reaching adverse
consequences for our federation.
All this is being done under the Musharraf ‘no choice’
doctrine. The nation is being scared into submission and
told that unless we bow to every US demand we will be
‘Tora Boraed’.
Moreover, to serve US interests and accept total subservience
and loss of sovereignty, a new terminology has been invented
to put to rest troubled consciences and moral outrage
at the injustices being done against Muslims in Iraq,
Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir. New terms like ‘Pakistan
First’, ‘pragmatism’ and ‘enlightened
moderation’ are being coined to make slavery more
palatable.
In its attempt to convince the West that we are a moderate
country the regime is promoting the blind aping of western
culture. Hence a modern Muslim is not who has an enlightened
understanding of Islam like the Great Iqbal but who is
a western clone. Both Raza Shah in Iran and Kamal Ataturk
in Turkey tried such superficial attempts at modernity
by forcing western clothes on their people. Both failed.
Can a country ever modernize when there is no quest for
knowledge and when its education system is decaying?
Since 9/11, through the servile behavior and fear-driven
policy U-turns of our current leadership, national self-confidence
has been badly shaken and is at its lowest ebb. In fact,
the very reason for the creation of Pakistan is being
questioned.
A few days ago while visiting India the leader of a major
coalition party in government rubbished the Two-Nation
Theory and hence the reason for our existence by claiming
that the partition of India in 1947 was a great injustice
to the people of the sub-continent. Such is our state
of demoralization today that even the custodians of our
‘geographical and ideological frontiers’ are
silent at this outrage by a leader of the coalition cobbled
together and patronized by them.
India, on the other hand, fiercely protects its sovereignty
and allows no interference by the US in its internal affairs.
When some US official visits India they meet only their
counterparts in rank, while in Pakistan they are received
by President downwards and every official literally falls
on his knees to pay his respects. Can a nation without
a clear vision, self-esteem and self-belief have a future?
Our country is extremely viable and has great potential
only if our establishment realizes that our future lies
in strengthening our institutions and not by destroying
them by manipulation to concentrate all powers in one
man. Sadly, our establishment has learnt nothing from
its past mistakes and is condemned to repeat them again
and again.
Hence, the opposition has a vital role to play. It should
cast aside its differences and fight for the independence
of the three vital state institutions; judiciary, election
commission, and the NAB to pave the way for democracy,
political stability, and economic progress in the country.
