Something good about us

Side-effect

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.

Amidst all intellectual bankruptcy, ethical challenges, social fragmentation and emotional turmoil, there is something good about us that we retain as a people. Those who are deeply concerned with the declining state of affairs – and I am one of them – and who keep questioning, crying, criticising and lamenting perpetually, are right in our own accord.

There is so much we have seen in this country and society that has been disfigured, mutated, deteriorated and destroyed over the years and even so much more in terms of progress and prosperity that was certainly achievable but could never be achieved. However, there are a few things that have happened over the past few weeks and months that offer a glimmer of hope and can be seen restoring our confidence in democracy.

How come? The cynic will ask. Let me attempt an answer by giving a few examples from the Panama Leaks, the PIA Bill, the push for pro-women legislation at the centre and in provinces, and the struggle for political power and the conduct of and voter responses in the general elections and subsequent by-elections over the past eight years. Mind you, I can’t help mentioning and criticising what is going wrong even while making a favourable argument. But still there is a need to appreciate the ground we have covered as a nation when it comes to incrementally strengthening democratic dispensation in Pakistan in what I still call a post-martial law period.

The difference between an elected leader and a dictator is that an elected leader is responsible and accountable, transparent and open. Democracy is about negotiating interests between different classes of people, segments of society, federating units and political positions. The Panama Leaks has done two things for us. First, our incumbent prime minister had to immediately come out and officially speak to the nation to clarify his position and establish a commission to investigate into the matter of him and his family benefitting from offshore investment companies, besides legal or illegal transfer of funds generated in Pakistan abroad to set up those companies. He was soon to be taken on by the opposition within and outside parliament.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan of the PPP, in his eloquent speech made on the floor of the parliament during a joint session of the two houses the other day, confirmed the utility of and value in having a democratically elected parliament in the country. Likewise, earlier and later, Imran Khan, the chairman of the PTI, in his characteristic onslaught on the ruling party and the Sharif family asked for both a resignation from the prime minister as well as an independent judicial inquiry with financial experts assisting the judges.

Consequently, ministers and parliamentarians loyal to the ruling party rebuked and rebutted the claims made by the opposition, ranging from offshore investments of charitable funds raised for Imran Khan’s Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and the LNG quotas awarded to the family of Aitzaz Ahsan.

The PPP is never spared by the institutions run by the affluent and not-so-affluent but aspiring middle class including most media houses. The PTI will sooner or later find itself in the same boat once the longest surviving euphoria about their leader being the only messiah is over because there are skeletons in everyone’s cupboard. But on this particular occasion the cabinet ministers of the PML-N perhaps know in their hearts that the counter-allegations they level on the opposition have little significance compared to what can possibly transpire from the Panama Leaks.

But no one is spared in a democracy by the other side, whether there is a plausible explanation for an act committed by someone or there is none. The prime minister now is left with little choice but to expedite a high-level inquiry into the matter which is seen to be independent and just by most stakeholders.

The second thing we have gained out of this controversy is whether an investigation into the Panama Leaks finds the prime minister guilty or not, the debate generated as a result in political and journalistic circles will largely, if not entirely, pre-empt any such occurrences in future. Rich Pakistanis with political ambition will think twice before siphoning off money outside the country or making illegal investments elsewhere. This, in my view, is a much bigger gain in the long run. It has far-reaching effects on our economy and polity. If those in power will be unable to conceive undue financial gains by stealthily investing outside, the legislative framework and its application within the country will substantially change over the coming years.

Coming to the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Conversion Bill 2016, which became an act of parliament last Monday and turned PIA into a private limited company, there is a lot that can still be scrutinised and rejected from the point of view of a people’s perspective against privatisation. But the way the government was not given a walkover by the opposition to park PIA’s accumulated liabilities and surplus staff with a new entity, and the withdrawal of notices of suspension and termination against hundreds of PIA employees, is to be commended.

The government may have had the requisite majority in parliament to get this and other bills passed but the other view could not simply be sidelined or ignored. Democracy is not simply about majority’s authority based on vote count or number of seats won; it is equally about accommodation of minority views and taking criticism from them.

As far as pro-women legislation is concerned, it is cause for great distress among many of us that the passing of anti-rape and anti-honour killing bills were again scuttled by a lack of consensus in the joint sitting of parliament due to an adverse reaction from the religio-political parties. In Punjab, the implementation of the law passed by the provincial assembly on curbing violence against women was recently thwarted by the same parties and the Council of Islamic Ideology. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, led by Imran Khan’s PTI but hugely influenced by their junior coalition partners, the Jamaat-e-Islami, was smart enough to pre-empt any difference in opinion from their allied right-wing groups and sent a similar draft bill first to the CII, which stalled it as expected.

While the political pendulum in Pakistan has shifted considerably to the right with both the PML-N and the PTI being right-of-centre parties, there still is a serious attempt by mainstream political parties including these two to introduce pro-women laws in Pakistan. Religious parties, as a consequence of their conduct in public and parliament, are being continually exposed. Their position on women and the weaker sections of Pakistani society are now being exposed to all and sundry.

Finally, if we look at the struggle for political power, the last two general elections and the by-elections, there are some interesting observations to be made. Parties were voted in and voted out rather smoothly. Whenever there was a perception of a party trying to invoke undemocratic means to destabilise a government or another political party to assume power, its efforts were frustrated. The PTI’s sit-in lost its traction when people and other political parties started perceiving that a section of retired or serving military officers and civilian bureaucrats was supporting Imran Khan in his bid to gain power. Later, local government polls in Punjab further strengthened the PML-N.

Similarly, the MQM regained the constituents it was fast losing when the PTI was perceived as a representative of the forces that wanted to restrict or cut to size the political power of the MQM in Karachi by either getting direct support from these forces or using the atmosphere created by the operation of paramilitary or civilian armed forces against the MQM. Enter Mustafa Kamal and Anis Qaimkhani. The next round of elections will confirm how people perceive them.

The lesson for the Pakistani establishment is that people hold the military in high esteem but reject politicians who are perceived to be either used by them or using them to gain political power.

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com