analysis: Unfinished business —Salman Tarik Kureshi

Although the worst of Musharraf’s distortions have been removed, the hypocritical innovations of the illegitimate Zia regime still continue to work their malign effects on the nation

“Observe the end of work; contrast, The petty done, the undone vast” — Robert Browning.
After massive efforts and the mighty heaving of multiple political muscles, the omnibus 18th Amendment has finally become the law of the land. The parliamentarians to whom the people entrusted the nation’s destiny (most notably, the good Senator Raza Rabbani) have taken a giant stride towards restoration of popular sovereignty and federalism. That more steps still need to be taken does not in any way detract from the achievement so far, although one could well query why it has taken so much time, more than two years, to accomplish. Even at this point, we observe that these 102 Amendments, devised by an elected political elite, have already been tangled and tied down by members of an unelected establishment, the military-bureaucratic-judicial-professional elite that actually runs things in Pakistan. The advantage presently enjoyed by the former over the latter stems from the establishment’s military sword arm being (a) embarrassed by the inane foolishnesses of the Musharraf years, (b) deeply involved with tackling the horrific threat to the country’s very survival they had themselves nurtured and unleashed on us, and (c) perhaps working pragmatically towards a more valid strategic vision.

Simply put, the military has better things to do, what with the ongoing counter-insurgency campaigns and the strategic dialogue with the US, than to throw its muscle, covert or overt, behind the fulminations of Qazi Anwar and his colleagues. Ergo, the 18th Amendment will be finally implemented, even if after adjudication. But, let me suggest to both Prime Minister Gilani and Senator Rabbani, the triumph of its implementation must be seen as only a starting point of so much else that needs to be accomplished.

Democracy, as I have said before in these pages, is after all a process, a mode of travel, not a destination. There is a raft of constitutional, economic and ideological transformations that need to be seen through. That these should fall to the lot of this particular regime is entirely fitting, since this President, this Prime Minister and these Assemblies are the ones that our sovereign people have actually selected from the choices history gave us.

The accomplishments of the 18th Amendment are in four areas: restoration of the sovereignty of parliament, reduction of the powers of the president vis-à-vis a prime minister responsible to parliament, restoration of the quantum of provincial autonomy as in 1973, and abolition of the Concurrent List. Now, in relation to the first two, let us clearly understand that, although the worst of Musharraf’s distortions have been removed, the hypocritical innovations of the illegitimate Zia regime still continue to work their malign effects on the nation. The 7th, 8th and 9th Amendments enacted by that usurper are untouched. The Objectives Resolution of 1949, added to the constitution in 1977, stays there. So does the 2nd Amendment of the ZAB era, which enthroned intolerance. And what about Nawaz Sharif’s appalling 15th Amendment?

As regards increase in the quantum of provincial autonomy, implementing the autonomy provisions may not be simple, since there are confusions of understanding, stemming from instinctively centrist habits of mind among those in authority. In all honesty, people are concerned about what would happen if there were a different law on the same subject in different provinces. This is at best a naïve question; this does in fact happen in federations around the world and is not usually considered pernicious as it permits different regions to focus onto their specific problems, strengths and cultural preferences. There is also the immediate question of funding the subjects to be passed down to the provincial level. With a measure of goodwill, these issues can be resolved. But, as we have witnessed in the Hazara-Pakhtunkhwa eruption, that goodwill may not always be present.

More to the point could be the question: how much autonomy is enough? What is felt to be adequate by Punjab may not be considered good enough here in Sindh. And what is acceptable here, because there are two Sindh-based parties in the governing coalition at the Centre, may still leave the people of Balochistan unsatisfied. The citizens of this smallest-in-population but largest-in-area province are seriously alienated from the rest of us. It is doubtful, for example, if any Pakistan-preserving arrangement could assuage the intense bitterness of Brahamdagh Bugti or Khair Bux Marri.

Moving northwards to the rather clumsily renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, we confront the demonic distortion afflicting the people of that province. I refer, of course, to the Band of Lawlessness known as FATA/PATA. On the pretext of “respecting tribal customs”, these badlands have been maintained as primitive, quasi-barbaric holdouts from human civilisation by practically every Pakistani government. For most of our national history, they have constituted an entropic legal space — a massive criminal turf, where the deadliest of thieves, smugglers, kidnappers, drug barons and murderers have sheltered…and flourished.

Now, our military can throw the best of its men into the battle for our survival as a society, and it is doing so. But the point is that this ‘Region of Chaos’ will continue to fling destructive tendrils out in every direction, into Pakistan, into Afghanistan, into all surrounding countries — indeed, even across the oceans, as we have seen — until such time as it ceases to exist as a separate political and administrative entity. Where are the constitutional amendments that are needed for this, Prime Minister Gilani? Senator Rabbani? Chief Minister Hoti?

These are not the only questions. The status of Gilgit-Baltistan province is still unclear. Azad Kashmir remains unrecognised by almost the entire world. And the peoples of Hazara, Bahawalpur and (why not?) Karachi are raising their own issues of identity.

Nor, by any means, is the immediate (and vital) agenda confined to constitutional matters. There are economic issues, such as the power crisis and the balance of payments crisis, which are themselves only manifestations of our perennially skewed priorities and failure to develop any kind of valid economic vision. I will comment on this another time. For the present, let me only suggest that our out-of-kilter economic balance sheet is, like so much else, of a piece with the national psyche that favours guns over butter, tanks over schools, bombs over power plants, so-called honour over justice and ideology over human life.

The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet