On Friday, President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Women Protection Bill into law. This law, passed by the Senate and National Assembly about a week ago, relates to harassment of women at workplaces. It amends both the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) to enhance punishment for the crime to three years in prison and a fine of up to Rs500,000.

Considering the overall status of women in our society, particularly of the women of the under-privileged sections, the Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill 2009 may be seen either as being revolutionary or just cosmetic. But these measures do underline the imperative for a progressive social change that will have to focus on the emancipation of women.

Incidentally, the alleged murder of the 12-year-old maid Shazia in the house of a well-known lawyer of Lahore has recently attracted a lot of media attention and a number of demonstrations have been held by political and civil society activists. Irrespective of the circumstances in which the poor Christian girl lost her life, we are again reminded of how domestic servants are treated and how children who ought to be going to schools have to work almost like slaves.

Anyhow, while signing the Women Protection Bill at the Chief Minister house in Karachi, President Zardari said that it was a major step to protect women from harassment and make them feel more secure. On the same day, however, and in the same city, a seminar was organised by the Aurat Foundation and the National Commission on the Status of Women on ‘Crimes in the name of honour and a parallel legal system’. It particularly condemned political parties for not allowing the women to vote in the Swat by-elections.

Now, I had not intended to write about the plight of women in this week’s column. Instead, I wish to raise the subject of another damsel in distress — democracy. This is so because on different occasions this week, I was engaged in discussions that relate to the status of democracy in Pakistan. And this has truly been a mystifying experience. What we have in the country at this time is surely to be defined as democracy, even if it is as adulterated as some of the medicine that is dispensed at government hospitals.

At the same time, we have to be wary of the conflicts that are building up in the context of a possible threat to the present democratic process. Or is the crisis only about the person of the president who, somehow, personifies some of the darkest shades in which the portrait of democracy can be painted in a country of low political culture? Many difficult questions also arise about the linkages that a democratic system must establish with the oppressed masses of Pakistan.

First, I may be excused for an analogy between our democracy and a damsel in distress. Obviously, I hit upon it while using the news report as a peg. Perhaps it is not entirely inappropriate because our democracy does look harassed and apparently unable to defend itself. I made a hasty reference to Wikipedia and this is what I have: “The subject of a damsel in distress or a persecuted maiden is a classic theme in world literature, art and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or a monster [the establishment?] and who requires a hero to dash to her rescue.” Our democracy may be likened to a damsel in distress because she deserves to be vindicated, at least in the fictional sense.

When I say that I have been rather preoccupied with thoughts about democracy, it is not the media that has made me do that. The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) has constituted a Democracy Assessment Group and I happen to be one of its 25 members. The group had its first meeting on January 13 but this week, on Monday, PILDAT held a national workshop on the Framework for Democracy Assessment in Islamabad and representatives of various political parties were also there to deliberate on the seemingly esoteric subject of how to assess the quality of democracy in Pakistan.

It was an educational and detailed exercise in which the entire range of emotions, happy and sad was expressed. Largely, it was a matter of pining for what is not. Incidentally, there is also this initiative to make a quantitative assessment of democracy by scoring a long list of questions between one and five. Naturally, a score of five would denote a “very high, very good” response and one would be “very low, very poor”.

As a sample, try this: How far is the rule of law operative throughout the territory? It would be interesting how the ardent supporters of the present government would mark this questionnaire, which consists of more than 70 questions on such sectors as Citizenship, Law and Rights; Rule of Law and Access to Justice; and Civil and Political Rights. As for the harsh critics of this government, we can imagine what the score would be.

Then, on Thursday, I was on a panel to discuss ‘internal dynamics’ with reference to human rights and religious issues at the National Institute of Management, formerly NIPA, in Karachi. The audience, of course, was a batch of senior government officers selected for promotion to grade 19. It was good to have Justice (retired) Nasir Aslam Zahid also on the panel and we could not avoid a debate on the prevailing state of governance and the administration of justice.

On Friday, I was in Lahore to participate in the national conference on “Institutionalising Democracy in Pakistan”, sponsored by Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO). Again, the idea was to not just analyse the present conditions but also identify the kind of structural reforms and political institutions that are needed to negate the idea that democracy cannot survive in Pakistan.

Attending this conference were social activists from all parts of the country and one can imagine the shrill voices that would be raised at such a gathering, reflecting the anger and the alienation of activists who belong to various regions that are under-developed. I sometimes feel that these grievances have become so antagonistic that a meaningful dialogue, the essence of a democratic process, is becoming almost impossible.

So, how would I sum it up? That our democracy is a damsel in distress may not be disputed. Does this mean that we are yearning for a saviour — the thought that is associated with a dictatorial dispensation? Or can the people, the ‘awam’ play a heroic role and rescue democracy from its many adversaries? Unfortunately, the lives that are led by the awam offer little scope for either hope or struggle.

The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail .com