The central issue in the tussle between a government elected by the people and an external force is the challenge to the status of parliament as the symbol of legitimate self rule.

But before we discuss the subject, let me recall a story the late A. K. Brohi was fond of telling.

After India’s military debacle of 1962, Prime Minister Nehru welcomed a debate in the Lok Sabha on his government’s defence and external policies. He made it a point to be present in the House to receive whatever his critics could throw at him. While this debate was going on President Ayub asked Brohi, who was Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Delhi, to convey an urgent message to Nehru. The latter had obviously no time to meet the Pakistan envoy. After much persuasion he agreed to receive Brohi during his midday leave from the House for yoga and lunch in his barely furnished room in the parliament house.

After Brohi had delivered Ayub Khan’s message, he suggested to Nehru that instead of sitting in the Lok Sabha to listen to his opponents’ invective, he could hear the proceedings while relaxing in his chamber for which arrangements had been made. Nehru’s answer was something like this:

"Brohi Sahib, we have not done much for the people of India but we are trying to make sure that whoever wants to rule over the people of this country must come to this House and face its members."

Incidentally, even at that time all the Indian MPs were not clean politicians and a majority of the population was howling against neglect of their interests.

India is not a model democracy. Its record as an agent of change in favour of the under-privileged is poor and there is lot of corruption there and many stories of plunder by elected representatives. But India has survived with considerable dignity by ensuring that its parliament keeps the doors to change of guards and greater social justice open. All this is due to the lessons the Indians, and Pakistanis too, to a small extent, had learnt during the long struggle against the colonial rule.

The subcontinent’s struggle for freedom threw up two parallel narratives. One of these was developed by people who worked through the elected bodies the British created under various constitutional reforms. This may be described as the parliamentary route to freedom. The other narrative was developed by activists who called for direct action to overthrow the colonial yoke. This route was advocated by champions of civil disobedience movements, armed revolt and terrorists (the only good terrorists the sub-continent has known).

There were occasions when pro-parliament politicians briefly crossed over to the direct action camp and vice-versa. A notable example was Jinnah who left Congress when it adopted Gandhi’s direct action plan and then himself gave a call to direct action by his followers in the Muslim League nearly two decades later.

The Indian Congress started talking of non-cooperation and boycott of imported cloth in 1906 but it was not until Gandhi had consolidated his position as a dynamic leader that the first proper civil disobedience movement was launched in 1922. It was extremely short-lived as after the Chauri Chaura incident, in which a mob had torched over two dozen policemen to death, the movement was called off. Gandhi accepted his responsibility for all acts of violence and gladly went to prison for six years.

A second civil disobedience was launched by Gandhi in 1930 when he undertook a 240-mile march to Dundi to defy the Salt Act. This movement attracted a large number of activists and bore fruit in the form of Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931. The movement was called off, and Gandhi went to London to attend the Second Round Table Conference (1931) as the sole Congress representative.

The direct action advocates were not above relying on hyperbolic rhetoric.

For instance, Maulana Mohammad Ali Johar told the British at the first Round Table Conference (1930): "Give me freedom or give me death." The British did not give him freedom but God heard his prayer; he died during the conference and the Pan-Islamists honoured him by providing a grave for him in Bait-ul-Muqaddas (Jerusalem).

In 1942, Gandhi had convinced himself that the British were going to lose the war. While moving the Quit India resolution in the Congress Working Committee he made a speech quite uncharacteristic of him:

"I therefore want freedom immediately, this very night, before dawn, if it can be had. You may take it from me that I am not going to strike a bargain with the Viceroy for ministers and the like. I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. Here is a Mantra, a short one, that I give you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The Mantra is ‘Do or die’. We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery."

Mahatma Gandhi lived a little more than five years after this peroration and the people of the subcontinent had to wait for the same period before they won freedom and this via the parliamentary route. However, the view that freedom would have been more meaningful if it had been gained through direct action has not died.

So far as Pakistan is concerned, there is no doubt about the parliamentary route the leaders of the movement for its creation followed. This country came into being by the votes of Punjab, Bengal and Sindh assemblies, and alternative mechanisms employed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

The subcontinent’s love for parliament’s supremacy, regardless of the choice between the presidential or prime ministerial systems, is derived from humankind’s long experience.

Ever since human beings started dreaming of their right to self-government parliament has been considered the fundamental institution that can secure, defend, and promote this right. And throughout history the principle of self-rule via parliament’s supremacy has been challenged by monarchists, military commanders, and dictators of various dispositions.

The tussle between forces that stand for parliament’s supremacy and the forces advocating progress through one-man absolute rule continue to this day. So far, the former have always been the ultimate winners. The greatest tribute to the universality and permanence of the value of parliament as the final guarantor of self-rule is the fact that all revolutions have culminated in, and legitimised themselves by, the establishment of representative parliaments (the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions, and one may also mention the US War of Independence and Turkey’s rebirth under Ataturk’s leadership.)

In the 20th century, the system of parliament’s supremacy was severely tested by fascists. The Italian fascists used Black Shirt hooligans to beat up democrats in the streets and the Nazis formed Brown Shirt gangs for similar purpose and began their assault on democratic forces by burning down the parliament. And General Tojo had respect neither for the Emperor of Japan nor its parliament.

The huge sacrifices the people of the world had to bear in the fight against fascism are still fresh in their minds and so is the foremost lesson learnt from the World War II -- that it is the right of all people to be governed by parliaments comprising democratically-elected representatives.

Pakistan started with the premise that authority vested, at the federal level, in the federal parliament, and, at the provincial level, in provincial parliaments. The system has not grown to maturity because since 1953, when the Nazimuddin ministry was dismissed, powerful vested interests have continually prevented its consolidation.

All enemies of the people’s right to democratic governance -- Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq, Pervez Musharraf -- have tried to legitimise their wars against the people by denouncing parliaments and demonising parliamentarians. Remember the Ayub dispensation? Until he expropriated the Muslim League gaddi for himself, his ministers could not be members of the National Assembly and the government was not answerable to it.

Was Pakistan not split into two by Yahya Khan’s refusal to give the parliament elected in 1970 its due? Ziaul Haq downgraded parliament by creating a majlis of his favourites and camp-followers. And he and Pervez Musharraf both mocked parliaments of their own creation by deriving their right to lord over the people of Pakistan from shamelessly manipulated referendums.

As a result of the frequent attacks on the institution of parliament Pakistan’s dominant mindset has developed a tendency to acquiesce into extra-constitutional usurpation of the people’s right to representative rule. The latest attempt in that direction we are currently witnessing.

Of course, Pakistan’s parliaments have had their enemies within too, especially those who abused parliamentary majorities to make anti-people laws and policies. But parliaments are allowed to correct themselves and they can be corrected (not destroyed) by civil society and the people at large in a fair debate.

The argument relied upon by detractors of parliament’s supremacy is the system’s assumed incapacity to save the people from a bad government. The whole case is based on a myth; there is no situation for which the constitution does not have an answer. If the government has lost its right to stay in power the people have the option to force the members of the parliament in their constituencies to replace the government or refer the matter to the electorate.

Any other course is a recipe for anarchy and amounts to substituting civil discourse with brute force to determine what, in a given situation, is the best option.