The referendum that lasts

Side-effect
The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.
On December 19, 1984, Gen Muhammad Ziaul Haq, chief martial law administrator and self-appointed president, held a referendum to elect himself as president for another five-year term before going for general elections in 1985. Although these elections were to be held on a non-party basis, parliament was to be elected by popular mandate, instead of being handpicked as before. The general did not want to risk his power even from a toothless parliament and therefore the situation necessitated a direct referendum, which involved massive rigging in order to further consolidate and establish the dictator’s grip on political power. After imposing martial law on July 5, 1977, with the commitment to hold free and fair elections within 90 days, Gen Zia had already stayed at the helm of affairs for seven-and-a-half years by the time he called for a referendum.
The general and his coterie of advisors wanted to play it as safe as they could. Stuffing of ballots with ayes was not to be the only means of ensuring his mammoth victory. The question that was asked on the ballot was carefully crafted. By any standard, it was a complex statement. For many religious people, it offered no other choice but to vote yes. The statement was: “Whether the people of Pakistan endorse the process initiated by Gen Muhammad Ziaul Haq, the President of Pakistan, for bringing the laws of Pakistan in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and for the preservation of the Islamic ideology of Pakistan, for the continuation and consolidation of that process, and for the smooth and orderly transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people.”
An affirmative answer in the referendum was to result in a five-year term for Gen Zia as president. When the results were announced, the people of Pakistan were told, of course, that the answer was overwhelmingly affirmative. Gen Ziaul Haq became head of the state for another five years by so-called popular vote, with the claim that the people of Pakistan have endorsed his policy of Islamisation and entrusted him with a fresh mandate. December 19, 1984, thus became one of the darkest days in the history of Pakistan when a pure lie was unashamedly made to sound like a universal truth.
Gen Ayub is accused of rigging the presidential polls in 1965 when he fought against Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah. Gen Musharraf held a referendum in 2002 which was marred by similar issues. Elections held in between to elect civilian governments witnessed pre- and post-poll discrepancies, besides rigging in certain constituencies on the polling day. However, no one cheated the nation as blatantly as Zia did, in the name of Islam.
The disservice to the majority faith of Pakistan, fragmentation of citizens who believed in it, the descent into the abyss of greed, hypocrisy and falsehood, shabby treatment meted out to the poor and the systematic marginalisation of the weak and oppressed sections of the society that began in the period of Gen Ziaul Haq continues in one form or another. The concocted results of the referendum that was held 28 years ago today have lasted to this day. Pakistan had a chequered political history even before. The country had seen two dictatorships, constitutional crises, wars with India, border conflict with Afghanistan, dismemberment of its eastern wing, and so on and so forth. However, the way Gen Zia changed the character of the Pakistani state and the fabric of the society is unparalleled.
I maintain that we live in a country founded by Gen Ziaul Haq. First, the Constitution of 1973 was abrogated and Zia termed it as a mere piece of paper that can be torn and thrown away. When he had to restore it due to political compulsions, he got it negatively amended to perpetuate his power. He made new laws or introduced subsections and amendments to existing laws that were inherently discriminatory against women and religious minorities. We continue to see the fallout of such laws and procedures. He not only made the Objectives Resolution, passed after the death of Quaid-e-Azam, a substantive part of the constitution, he even amended it and took away the right of other religious communities to freely practice, preach and profess their faiths. He messed up with the judicial system by creating a parallel Federal Shariat Court and introducing his brand of Shariah laws which could be invoked by people from the session courts to the higher levels.
When the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) already existed and no law could be made against the injunctions of Islam, the creation of an additional judicial system was redundant and unnecessary. He messed up the educational curriculum and made it confused, unscientific and sectarian in nature. He promoted a certain lifestyle and retrogressive values on the state media, censored newspapers and magazines, curbed political freedoms and had his political opponents publicly whipped.
Worst of all, Gen Ziaul Haq drugged and militarised Pakistan. Heroin and other drugs were made available like loaves of bread and we saw hundreds of thousands of people being addicted to lethal drugs. ‘Kalashnikov’ and ‘TT’ became household names. Political, religious and criminal gangs and militias had unprecedented access to firearms. That access was swiftly put to use. Sindh was divided along ethnic lines, Balochistan witnessed tensions between Pakhtuns and Baloch living together for centuries, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became a sanctuary of international militants who were hosted to fight the Soviets in neighbouring Afghanistan, Gilgit-Baltistan saw sectarian riots on a massive scale, Punjab also experienced newly found tensions between the Shia and Sunni sects.
Gen Ziaul Haq introduced development funds for parliamentarians because he wanted them to indulge in municipal and small-scale development activities, rather than doing legislation. He promoted corruption and financial misappropriations by his favoured politicians, the civilian bureaucracy and military generals. He banned student unions and made the national exchequer give out millions of rupees to undeserving students in the name of Qarz-e-Hasna to appease them and keep them away from demanding their right to association. On the other hand, he let different student groups arm themselves to the teeth and kill their opponents.
The interfaith disharmony, the sectarian strife, the ethnic tensions, the inter- provincial and intra-provincial mistrust, the warped sense of history of Pakistanis at large, the paranoia in the face of the rest of the world, the false sense of superiority in the name of Islam, the moral bankruptcy, the inherent hypocrisy and the insistent backwardness of thinking and ideas observed today is the coming of age of Gen Ziaul Haq’s Pakistan. You see these phenomena playing out in all institutions of the state and all walks of life. The effect is far-reaching. The manner in which a state runs itself and governs its citizens has a cascading effect on society. Dominant societal trends and social norms affect communities that live within that society. Communities define the parameters of conduct for a family. Individuals are shaped by their families.
It is Gen Zia’s politics, legislation, policy direction and view of the world that define us today. The choice we have today is not between Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan and the Taliban’s Pakistan, as articulated by some. The real question is how to undo Ziaul Haq’s Pakistan and create a modern, rational, pro-people state with an inclusive, pluralistic and tolerant society – a nation free from hypocrisy and ignorance.
Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com