Regardless of what the hired denigrators say about Pakistan’s consistently marginalised and vigorously maligned civil society, its contribution to the defence of democratic politics has been second to none. The history of civil society organisations’ efforts to resist anti-democratic tendencies and to promote the principles of representative rule can be traced with satisfaction and, indeed, with a certain degree of pride.

Let us recall the political climate on the morrow of independence. The Muslim League had won Pakistan on the strength of its victory in the general elections of 1945 and 1946. Electoral democracy was at a high premium and the people’s allegiance to it shaped the fledgling civil society’s democratic preferences.

The province of West Punjab was basking in the glory of the civil disobedience movement of 1947 that had forced the Khizar government to resign. That the civil society put the defence of civil liberties high on its agenda was the most natural thing to do.

The sub-continent’s freedom movement had a strong anti-imperialist ring. The Muslim League had regularly espoused the cause of the Palestinian people. The Quaid-i-Azam had firmly supported the Indonesian and Vietnamese struggles for freedom. He had also based the country’s foreign policy on the principle of friendship for all and malice towards none.

Thus, in the early years of freedom civil society’s conscious elements were committed to three ideals -- democratic government, respect for civil liberties, and pursuit of an independent foreign policy.

Since civil society implies by definition existence of organised and active groups and associations its concerns were voiced by progressive political parties, especially in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa -- who called for a democratic federation -- organisations of writers (such as the Progressive Writers’ Association) and journalists (Sindh Union of Journalists and the Punjab Union of Journalists, before the creation of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists), labour unions, Kisan Committee, students and lawyers.

The environment was hardly conducive to the rise of a civil society worth the name. The newly-created state was the sole deity in the national pantheon. The disputes with India over Kashmir, canal waters and division of assets, the influx of refugees and the problems in establishing a new state machinery created an environment in which defence became the highest priority. Those who demanded respect for democratic norms, federal principles and basic rights or called for an independent foreign policy invited censure not only from the custodians of power but also from the public at large.

A classic case is the Postal Employees Union’s strike of 1948. The cause was legitimate -- demand for enforcement of the pay award of 1947 -- but in the peculiar circumstances of the country the step was described as adventurism even by labour’s friends. The president of the union, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, himself was worried. And, as Syed Qaswar Gardezi often pointed out, those who called for land reforms that had been promised in the Punjab Muslim League’s manifesto of 1945-46, were brick-batted by those very tenants for whose benefit the demand was made.

During 1947-1950 a clear polarisation took place. The state authorities found it convenient to use the challenges faced by them as a justification for reneging on the pledges made during the freedom movement. The state launched an attack on basic freedoms by banning a number of publications, sacking elected provincial governments, issuing the Security of Pakistan Act and reviving the Governor’s power, under federal approval, to impose governor’s rule in his province.

Broadly speaking, it could be said that while the custodians of power had chosen to forget the pre-independence ideals and promises, the civil society was landed with the difficult task of standing up for democracy, basic rights and an independent foreign policy.

How was this duty discharged?

In 1949 a Civil Liberties Union was formed in Lahore to protect the people’s rights. The union didn’t set the Ravi on fire but it offered the people one great lesson -- that all citizens without distinction of caste, creed or colour had a right to civil liberties and that people belonging to different schools of political thought -- from extreme left (the communist party) to extreme right (Jamaat-e-Islami) -- could join hands to secure their rights. A notable example was left leaning journalists’ denunciation of curbs on rightist papers -- Tasneem and Nawai-i-Waqt.

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The early 1950s saw trade unions organising themselves for workers’ rights, and students associations started struggling for the right to freedom of association and civil liberties. The Democratic Students Federation and its activists were trail-blazers in the real sense of the term.

Democratic elements opposed the moves for the Baghdad Pact and the SEATO as part of their campaign for an independent foreign policy. The state tried to stop civil society’s interest in promoting the people’s political rights by outlawing the Progressive Writer’s Association (1954) and putting restrictions on workers’ trade unions.

Denied their rights under the law, labour leaders like Mirza Ibrahim and C. R. Aslam could be arrested under the vagrancy law. Yet, by the mid-fifties the students’ unions had established national platforms for raising their issues in the context of the people’s democratic rights. The public preference for an independent foreign policy found a robust expression in big demonstrations against the Anglo-French Inversion of Egypt (1956-57) and the Pakistan government’s support for the aggressors.

The civil society’s direct involvement with democratic politics began with the imposition of the martial law in October 1958. The lead was taken by the journalists’ union, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, which firmly rejected the arbitrary military rule. The union also made its name in history by opposing the Ayub regime’s seizure of newspapers and later on earned the distinction of carrying out the first and the only nationwide labour strike (1970).

Since 1958 the three areas in which civil society organisations have been active are: opposition to arbitrary military rule, promotion of fair electoral processes, and creation of space for women’s increased role in politics.

A strong section of civil society has always been in the field to resist military dictatorship. During the Ayub regime, students and journalists, backed by a small group of lawyers, sustained the opposition to autocratic rule. During the Ziaul Haq regime the leadership of the civil society struggle against dictatorship was taken up and successfully carried out by bar associations and their leaders, from Mahmud Ali Kasuri to Abid Hasan Minto. Even Gen. Musharraf, who had succeeded in wooing some civil society members with chants in favour of enlightenment and women’s freedoms, had to face strong opposition from several civil society organisations.

During the late 1980s and 1990s the civil society organisations promoted democratic politics by urging the politicians to stop trying to gain power with the help of armed forces. Several agreements to this effect preceded the historic signing of the Charter of Democracy by the late Benazir Bhutto and Mohammad Nawaz Sharif.

The civil society made two extremely significant contributions to the development of democratic politics in the country. First, they waged a long struggle to get the pernicious system of separate electorates abandoned in 2002, though discrimination against the Ahmadiya community still continues. Secondly, civil society organisations won the right to observe the elections and they have contributed more than anybody else to the promotion of fair election values.

The cause of women’s participation in politics, without which Pakistan cannot claim to arrive at a democratic dispensation, has been championed by both the feminist movement that emerged in strength during the dark Zia decade, and other human rights organisations. Despite the unfortunate split in it on the desirability or otherwise of taking up political issues, the Women Action Forum’s role in mobilising women for political struggle cannot be ignored. Even its purely social and economic initiatives fed into the movement for political rights.

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Following the expiry of the system of reserving seats for women in legislatures in 1990, the women organisations, backed by some progressive males, developed a consensus on demanding one-third representation for women in elected bodies at all levels of government. Their success in achieving their target to a significant level is one of civil society’s main contributions to the growth of democratic institutions and practices in the country. And today, who is fighting to undo the rape of democracy in Lower Dir? The civil society.

It goes without saying that the civil society should have done more, not only for successive campaigns for the restoration of democracy in the country but also for the establishment of democratic conventions and practices. And the reasons for its failure to do so need to be examined.

Pakistan at its birth had a very small civil society. The few charitable societies that were active mainly in the field of education could be counted on one hand’s fingers. The state also had little political capital and nominal experience of democratic management of affairs. Throughout the years of independence the state has preferred autocratic rule to the democratic path, secret government to transparency. Obviously, then it has consistently denied space for interaction with civil society. Such efforts have gained strength for the past several decades. As a result, Pakistan’s civil society is still under-developed and is handicapped not only due to officialdom’s cussedness but also because of its narrow talent base and limited public backing.

Along with suppression of politics, the Ayub regime launched a massive campaign to hegemonise the civil society organisations by extending state control in the media (including cinema and television) and professional associations of lawyers, doctors, writers and businessmen. The mechanisms created for this purpose still survive, in part at least.

General Zia pushed the country many decades back by depoliticising society through non-party elections, by strengthening anti-democratic religious forces, by trying to push women out of public space, and by fostering the cult of violence at the cost of rule by consensus.

The state was hostile to the labour’s role in politics from day one and through a variety of measures it succeeded in persuading organised labour to eschew politics altogether. Similarly, it barred academics from exercising their right to promote democratic politics. These roadblocks to democratic politics are still there.

The demonisation of politicians, elected bodies, and politics itself by the power brokers from 1953 to date has adversely influenced the people’s capacity to make the correct political choices and large segments of civil society have also been infected. Some of these elements have, wittingly or unwittingly, become tools in the hands of anti-democratic knights.

The growing militarisation of state institutions and the retreat of civilian political leadership, combined with the rise of quasi-religious forces that are fiercely hostile to democracy, has created on environment in which taking up of democratic governance is becoming increasingly hazardous.

The politicians’ complaint that non-government organisations have drained off some of the talent that should have been available to them for fighting the cause of democracy is not without a basis though political parties’ incapacity to attract the talent they need also cannot the ignored.

Thus, civil society organisations are not in a position today to promise an early relief in the form of democratic consolidation. Yet, there is reason to keep optimism alive because the anti-democratic forces are trying to swim against the current. Besides, they do not have the means, intellectual as well as material, for satisfying the growing hordes of people who have become conscious of their democratic entitlements and their right to secure them.