How to hold a grand national dialogue

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

A grand national dialogue is an urgent imperative because the institutional arrangements designed to serve the people of Pakistan have now become so heavily burdened with the animus of individual and group interests that they are no longer working.

Parliament’s functioning is compromised, to say the least. The judiciary’s hard-won independence and stature has been undermined by scandal and recriminations. The executive can tweet, but it struggles to get things done. The bureaucracy (as an institutional mechanism) is almost completely incapable of operating outside of the ‘rules of business’ that protect individual and occupational group interests at the expense of the Pakistani people. Most worryingly of all, the military, one that has secured peace for this country after more than a decade-long conflict with violent extremists, is seen as politically partisan.

Any one of these conditions represents a serious institutional crisis. But all this is happening simultaneously. The alternative to a grand national dialogue is to muddle along, continuing to allow the Pakistani people to stew in a potpourri of post Covid-19 economic stasis and internecine Pakistani elite warfare. An exit ramp that allows the system to cool down and restart with a new compact for how to keep it going is really the only way forward.

As I wrote in part one of this proposal earlier this week (‘Urgent: A grand national dialogue’, Dec 8), there are three pillars of Pakistani governance that need to be rebuilt and reinforced through a grand national dialogue aimed at serving the Pakistani people: parliamentary democracy, federalism, and pluralism. These pillars are the synthesis of over seventy years of Pakistani institutional history. They can be jettisoned (and they have been in 1958, 1977 and 1999) but they will come roaring back. They are the blueprint that Pakistan will return to over, and over, and over again.

Now, how to conduct a grand national dialogue? Four key questions need to be answered. First: what are the objectives of a grand national dialogue? Second: who participates in the dialogue? Third: who organizes, hosts and moderates the dialogue? Fourth: what incentives system will ensure compliance of individuals, organizations and ‘institutions’?

The objective of a grand national dialogue is to recalibrate the Pakistani republic to its purpose: serving the people of Pakistan. This service is built on two platforms: security and prosperity. At the present, the arrangements to protect people from threats are so weak that the military is involved in everything from the Covid-19 pandemic response, to the monitoring of social media, to the provision of electricity, to the negotiation of peace in Afghanistan. Conversely, the civilian mechanisms meant to protect people from threats, including courts, prisons, policemen, local government and basic health units, are all so broken that every major function of the republic has been replicated by the private sector – largely unregulated.

Economic opportunity is nearly impossible to create in such circumstances. From poorly managed negotiations with the IMF, to naive assertions about corruption, to fantasies of a tourism boom in a dry country where anti-woman hashtags trend uninhibited for days on end – the republic has almost zero capacity to increase the size of the pie, and certainly even less to help distribute it judiciously.

Why reiterate security and prosperity as the objectives of a grand national dialogue? Aren’t these obvious? Not really. If a grand national dialogue is about saving Imran Khan, or springing politicians out of jail, or getting rid of Usman Buzdar, it is not a grand national dialogue. It is a renegotiation of the terms on which the Pakistani elite share power with each other. So, renewal of the capacity of the Islamic Republic to protect its people and to enable them to achieve their potential has to be reiterated as a core objective. This means major reform, especially of public administration and the civil services. Absent such reform, a grand national dialogue will not be about the people.

Who participates in the dialogue? The ruling party, the opposition parties, the judiciary, the military and the bureaucracy are the obvious candidates. The military must be represented openly, ideally by serving officers. As both a guarantor of the outcomes and a stakeholder in them, there should not be any ambiguity about its legitimate role, and the boundaries of it.

But a grand national dialogue that is made up of only middle-aged and old men that live in Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi is not worth the tea and samosas that will be served during the talks. A grand national dialogue must reflect Pakistani demography and diversity. The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, the Women’s Action Forum, the Awami Workers Party need seats at the table – not because they have numbers (they don’t), but because the fact that they don’t is inorganic. Groups like Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, remnants of now disbanded violent extremist groups that renounce violence, and other religious extremists need seats at the table – not because anyone likes what they do to our discourse, but because what they can do sitting outside the tent is worse than what they can do in it. A grand national dialogue must have many women participating in it, and at least a third of the participants must be below the age of 35. This country belongs to its young. A grand national dialogue without young people will be a farce.

Who should organize, host and moderate a grand national dialogue? The prime minister and his cabinet are too toxic, the opposition has sought to match that toxicity, the judiciary and the military are already far too exposed in the public domain, and the bureaucracy is a sub executive and has no grounds to host such a dialogue.

The republic’s most senior official – the president of Pakistan – is a lifetime PTI member, but has a track record of capability to be a negotiator and reconciler. The opposition is likely to balk at his role as host of such a dialogue. This would leave the option of hosting-by-committee. Key leaders among the 27-member Committee on Constitutional Reforms (that helped negotiate the 18th Amendment) included Raza Rabbani, Afrasiab Khattak, Haider Abbas Rizvi, Naveed Qamar, Ahsan Iqbal, and Dr Abdul Malik. Sartaj Aziz helped shape the Newly Merged Districts into Pakistan. General Jahangir Karamat and General Waheed Kakar enjoy enormous respect across the spectrum. President Arif Alvi, along with four others from among these ‘elders’ may jointly host the dialogue. The hosts would only be moderators, and not participants, but their word would be the last in terms of closing threads and starting new ones.

Finally, how would the outcome of a grand national dialogue be ensured? This is where the idea of a grand national dialogue would be tested most rigorously. We have had, allegedly, recent instances of legislation by compulsion, in which both the treasury and the opposition benches lacked the requisite will to compromise, but were coerced to sign off anyway. Why should the outcomes of a grand national dialogue not be legislated? The superior judiciary, if it does not directly participate in the grand national dialogue, can be taken into confidence throughout the process, to ensure that its outcomes will not be the subject of challenges in the courts – but rather that it will enable compliance and adherence.

All such efforts produce only temporary changes in behaviour. A grand national dialogue is a reset – not a wholesale reform. But there are changes to public administration and the civil service that must be enacted through such a dialogue that are permanent. The existence and proliferation of government bodies that can be deployed as tools of political oppression, rather than public service, need not only discussion but conclusive consensus. Anti-corruption or national security have been abused as political tools for so long, that half or more of the country (those agitating for change at PDM rallies, or expressing a disconnect from normalcy at TLP rallies, or chanting slogans about the army at PTM rallies) do not take them seriously any more.

The vast majority of the people of Pakistan must be invested in Pakistani institutions, not weary of them. A grand national dialogue is the path forward.