Musharraf first

The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.

Because nothing really matters in this country, therefore, a former military dictator’s departure abroad in the midst of serious cases pertaining to murder and treason has not become an earth-shattering event. In fact, it is practically lost in the miasma of cricket mania and a host of new-old issues that fill long, idle hours on national and local media.

Predictably, in a week or so more, General Pervez Musharraf’s nocturnal flight out of Pakistan may not even remain a distant memory. He would only come to life as a figure of debate when, driven by his insatiable desire for publicity, he contrives some other strange scheme to ‘reform’ Pakistan and attempts, yet again, to become the star attraction. Otherwise, the Musharraf episode is all but over. Even the opposition that sees in his departure a lot of ammunition to hit the government with would soon be getting down to doing other things.

But this inevitable fading out of sight of Musharraf-related events does not mean that his leaving Pakistan like a normal citizen, unencumbered by legal responsibilities and facilitated by everyone – his parent organisation, the Army, the judiciary, the government and the entire political class that decided to look the other way as he packed his bags – is an insignificant event. It is not. Going purely by its implications, Musharraf’s freedom has sent several key messages about the state of democracy, civil-military relations and, most important, rule of law in the country.

Let us take the state of democracy first. Leaving aside the personal side to holding Musharraf accountable for his trashing of the constitution, the Nawaz Sharif government looked most qualified to proceed against him. Third-time in power and enthused by a large national mandate, Prime Minister Sharif could tackle the question head-on as to who represents national aspirations even in a national security state like Pakistan. And whether the right to rule and take over power comes from the barrel of the gun or springs from the vote box.

Settling this key question was important because of the constant barrage of propaganda that seeks to equate performance of duties for national security with some sort of a divine right to take over power and claim privileged position in decision-making. Parallel to this runs another stream of suggestions that, while a representative system is mandated by the constitution and reflects national consensus on how this country is to be governed and by whom, there is nothing sacrosanct about its continuity. It can be disrupted under the duress of circumstances, and the decision to do so shall be taken by twelve men rather than 200 million people.

Musharraf’s take-over and his imposition of the so-called emergency (the second coup) touched these core arguments for and against a democratic order in its present parliamentary form. To have made him pay for trampling upon the will of the people and for mocking a system that, for all its faults, is the only yardstick to assess public’s choice, was critical to settling this debate once and for all. Or, at least, taking a giant step in settling this debate once and for all.

But now that he has been allowed to leave, this simmering contradiction about security considerations overriding national political choices has been allowed to persist. After his departure, democracy as we know it has dwarfed in stature and its esteem has been devalued. Shadows have lengthened of the idea that something superior to people’s mandate can govern the body politic, and that nothing can arrest that force.

Let us now turn towards civil-military ties. We can all drop the pretence that the civilians and the military are great buddies. They look to be so, but they are not. The generals’ conduct during the days of the dharna – which was actually a quasi coup – did not inspire any confidence in democratic-minded people as to which side of the argument they were on. If circumstances had not taken a fortuitous turn and Imran Khan had not stumped himself so frequently in the first two weeks of the episode, the present system would have been history. The civilians would have been out, the military would have been in.

We all remember how, at crunch-time, the army’s spokesperson had started to talk about ‘two parties’ instead of a legitimately-elected government vs an opposition that was bent upon bringing it down by hook or by crook. That episode set the tone for civil-military relations afterwards. Trust level has been down since then. Problems abound, which require constant management, and the threat of a popular general (how popular will be adjudged once he has retired) overwhelming an elected government circles in the air endlessly.

To a great extent, the Sharif government itself is to be blamed for expansion of the theory that this country is still a diarchy and not a democracy. If the government were competent in decision-making, if it had chartered a clear course of action for development, and if it had reformed modern state and governing institutions in its tenure then it would have been in a position to claim greater space in governance matters.

Unfortunately, the present democratic dispensation is what it is – slow, below par and exceedingly compromised on the scale of transparency and merit of positive action. That only enhances the government’s dependence on the army for carrying out tasks that the security forces are not fit for and which as a result gives them a stronger toehold in decision-making. Within this framework, holding a former chief of army staff accountable was a challenge that this government simply had no power to follow up on.

So it chose the easy course: abort ‘mission accountability’ and switch on the survival mode by letting him fly out. With this action the government has also closed all doors on a possible probe in factors behind the dharna, and has taken the strategic decision of accepting the red lines laid down by the army. The government has institutionally accepted the fact that Pakistan’s politics is a bipolar world and these are not exactly poles of equal size and weight.

For the law, propriety of legal procedure and sanctity of the constitution, General Musharrf’s flight beyond the country’s borders creates a long-lasting embarrassing precedent. It unequivocally suggests that power politics operates above the legal realm, and that the more powerful and pronounced the crime is the weaker the application of the law becomes. General Musharraf did very strange things to the constitution.

He did even stranger things to politicians and the judiciary. No less odd were things that he did to this own institution (imagine writing a book full of national secrets while still in uniform and indulging in personal misdeeds publicly, which would have ruined anyone’s career). He did other things too. He openly invited foreign intelligence and military interests in the country and allowed the country’s soil to be used for attacks on neighbouring countries. He paved the way for systematic carnage in Karachi and ruined peace in Balochistan. But in the end he went scot-free, happy and satisfied with his many achievements in an eventful life.

If you see his actions, he looks every bit a traitor. If you see his treatment by the state, he looks every bit a patriot, a national asset. The law that could have decided how history should treat Musharraf has not been allowed to function. Musharraf has been allowed to defeat the constitution the third time in a row – hardly a precedent we build national repute on. Clearly Musharraf comes before Pakistan – a Pakistan governed by law and constitution.

Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com

Twitter: @TalatHussain12