COMMENT: Respect —Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain

Popular respect for the army as an institution plummeted with the 1971 debacle in East Pakistan and was further undermined when General Ziaul Haq took over and eventually hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Of all things that afflict Pakistan, the most serious one in my opinion is a total breakdown of what we might call ‘mutual respect’. No one, individually or as a part of an institution has any real respect for anybody else, with minor exceptions like some respect within the family hierarchy, though the age of the internet has put even that under great stress.

As a child growing up in the early days of Pakistan I saw that most people had respect not only for their family elders but also for their teachers and older people in general. This sense of respect extended to the institutions of state and was even present within the different branches of government. It also extended to people of different religions or ethnic backgrounds.

The first major breakdown of this sense of mutual respect occurred when Governor General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the Constituent Assembly and it became worse when the apex court sided with the Governor General in the Tamizuddin case and legitimised the dissolution of the assembly. It is well known that Ghulam Muhammad and the coterie of civil servants surrounding him held most politicians in disdain.

Unfortunately, by this time the two most important politicians in the evolutionary history of Pakistan were dead, Jinnah from tuberculosis and Liaquat by an assassin’s bullet. The Pakistan Muslim League that had brought Pakistan into existence had disintegrated and most of its leaders were either discredited or those from East Pakistan left it to form other parties.

Of course the remaining politicians gave horse-trading a bad name. Changing party affiliations for political power became the norm, culminating in the overnight creation of the Republican Party after West Pakistan became ‘One Unit’. As such the people of Pakistan steadily lost all respect for politicians. This set the stage for an army takeover in 1958. Originally the people had great respect for the army and during the early years of martial law people were pleased with what was done to clean up the system.

Support for General Ayub Khan ended when he decided to contest elections that were rigged in his favour. This also undermined the respect people had for the army as an institution, a trend that accelerated with every subsequent military takeover. Popular respect for the army as an institution plummeted with the 1971 debacle in East Pakistan and was further undermined when General Ziaul Haq took over and eventually hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The ‘judicial’ murder of Bhutto diminished respect for the senior judiciary almost to rock bottom. This loss of respect for the judiciary worsened, if that were indeed possible, when the Supreme Court legitimised the rule of General Musharraf when he dismissed the Nawaz government and on top of it gave Musharraf the right to amend the constitution.

Another major institution that was respected a lot in the early years of Pakistan was the senior bureaucracy. This respect was well deserved since it was the senior bureaucracy that kept Pakistan going in its early years. However, the bureaucracy became progressively politicised, a trend that accelerated during the days of Ayub Khan and continued most markedly when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in power. By the time General Zia took over, the bureaucracy had become completely corrupted and acted as the ‘handmaiden’ of whoever sat in the ‘presidency’.

The ‘democratic’ interregnum of the 90s did nothing to reverse this loss of respect for the institutions of state among the people. Politicians by now had become totally consumed with power and its accompanying ‘financial’ benefits. National interest became a secondary and distant goal not worthy of pursuit. Once again because of their own ‘misbehaviour’, politicians lost all respect allowing Musharraf to take over.

Musharraf’s rule duplicated Ayub Khan’s rule; he was popular in the beginning but he lost all respect when he tried to get elected as president through a patently rigged referendum. His eight years were particularly egregious. First, he recruited politicians to support him and in the process the people lost all respect for these politicians. Second, he completely destroyed any remaining independence that the bureaucracy had left and finally, he transformed the army from a ‘fighting’ force into a commercial enterprise.

Fortunately for Pakistan, Musharraf fired Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry of the Supreme Court and Justice Chaudhry refused to resign. This started a mass movement against Musharraf, not quite like the one that happened almost four decades ago against Ayub Khan but nevertheless broad based enough to undermine Musharraf’s legitimacy as president. The rest, as they say, is history.

That then brings us to where we are today. The people in general no longer have any respect for state institutions and consider them corrupt and inefficient and often rightly so. The politicians have no respect for the judiciary and the opposite is equally true.

The army under General Kayani has re-established its primary role as a fighting force and its actions against the terrorists have made it a respected institution once again. The Supreme Court has also done much to undo its past reputation as a facilitator of autocrats and dictators. But the politicians and the bureaucrats are still not considered worthy of much respect and have done little to deserve such respect either.

As far as the people are concerned, we are now in a bad way. We no longer respect the law, the government and worse, each other. It is perhaps appropriate to say that we no longer even respect ourselves as individuals or the country that we live in. Frankly the worst Pakistan ‘bashers’ today are Pakistanis themselves.

What can be done to make things better? We have already tried enough Ataturk wannabes with disastrous results. What we need perhaps is to muddle along through a few more elections and hope that democracy will eventually improve things once people become active participants in governance and ‘accountability’ becomes a reality. Maybe.

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com