Pakistan: Beyond the Khaki, Green and the Black Label

Words are so well rooted in the collective consciousness of a people belonging to a given region that their meaning is instantly clear to the hearer sharing their received sense. One such term that came immediately to mind is “Giddarbabki”. This after reading about General Pervez Musharraf’s reported threat of the possible use of the atom bomb in the event of a war over Kashmir. “Giddarbabki” is a word difficult to translate but well understood in this part of the world. It implies an empty sound. A gap between appearance and reality. A threat not grounded in reality or realistic thinking. A fake challenge. A bluff. Such a term is likely to bring in its wake a smile of comic relief though one must add that so horrible is the very idea of the use of nuclear weapons and so devastatingly tragic their waste potential that even vaguely toying with the possibility of their future use should be taboo.

The late Jawaharlal Nehru used to state words to the effect why think of war, why not of peace. A man ahead of his times, Nehru really understood the antithesis to war’s destructive force. The moral counterforce that peace can unleash.

The subcontinent needs peace than war. Prosperity than poverty. A civilised environment than hatred and war jingoism.

An opinion piece by Mahir Ali in The Dawn of April 3, asks a wishful question. “Is there any scope for a khaki-free future?” While regretting that no regime in Pakistan’s history had displayed interest in building up or consolidating democratic institutions, it points to the military government’s vested interest in limiting the extent of popular involvement in choosing the nation’s rulers.

Referring to Musharraf, says the opinion piece, “he is a dictator who is seen to be seeking avenues of perpetuating his power, possibly by cloaking himself in a veneer of legitimacy. Zia failed in a similar attempt…and came to a fiery end…Musharraf does not deserve that sort of fate. But he must remember that notwithstanding the democratic disasters of the 1988-99 period, Pakistan must learn to do without would-be saviours in khaki.”

And further,

“Yet another parliamentary façade with ultimate power residing with GHQ, will do nothing to build up the democratic institutions Pakistan so desperately requires, nor enhance the self-esteem of its citizens.”

Though politicians are equally to blame, the difference is “that politicians can eventually be voted out of power.”

The Khaki has become Pakistan’s bane. The feudals hold on to their wealth, the fanatical religious leaders seek opportunity to consolidate their stranglehold on the people. On top is the army. Each time the rot sets in under an elected civilian government, the army steps in to impose its authority to begin afresh what might be called a dynamics of hope and disillusionment to which the people of Pakistan have been subject during the last 55 years.

With the scotch-sipping upper class holding on to their privileged position and the army in control, there seems little scope for democracy except exercising its empty forms with little of substance to improve the people’s plight. The army, the religious

right and the feudal lords and bureaucrats are the people’s given.

There have been spells of military rule that alternate with elected governments with metronomic regularity. While the average man, shut out of the country’s political and economic mainstream, chafes at the Macbethean control of the army, corruption and sycophancy further marginalize him.

General Musharraf would do well to remember that three military dictators came before him. They came to power as if amidst popular approval and lost it amidst popular disgust. A sense of déjà vu is likely to haunt the fourth General repeating the process.

More and more and news items dovetail into the general picture. The referendum exercise, for instance, brings together vested interest and those whose support is vital to the continuation of status quo.

According to a write-up in The Guardian of April 6,

“General Musharraf has allowed Pakistan’s courts to free several religious clerics jailed during protests at the start of the US military campaign in Afghanistan. In another sop to the religious right he has discreetly told the state-run Pakistan Television to tone down broadcasts of dancing women. Some believe Gen Musharraf’s softening attitude is aimed at splitting opposition ahead of the October polls,” says the report.

According to another report (The Guardian of April 4,) “Pakistan’s military regime has set free several leading Islamist clerics and at least 1,300 of their supporters who were arrested during a wave of pro-Taliban street protests after September 11.” And we are told,  “Many of those detained belonged to sectarian and guerrilla groups which are banned either in Pakistan or abroad…Some believe Gen Musharraf is softening his attitude to the religious right, as other Pakistani leaders have done before him.”

“ A delegation of Ulema and Mashaikh belonging to all schools of thought from all over the country called on President General Pervez Musharraf here and assured the president that they and their followers were fully behind him.” This according to a report datelined Islamabad.

The sharpest comment opposing the referendum comes from Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief who reportedly termed the speech of General Pervez Musharraf   “as an abortive bid of a guilty conscious to cover his lust for power.”

An opinion piece in The News tells us how lucrative civilian jobs go to senior military officers (mostly retired). The policy of accommodating senior military officers in the government and semi-government corporations or autonomous bodies goes back to the time of Ayub Khan. And though this practice was terminated in 1963, we are told, contractual appointment and rehiring of military personnel for government and semi-government jobs continued. Yahya Khan continued with the policy and Zia-ul-Haq “distributed the rewards of power more consistently and extensively…”

And further, the Pakistan military authorities continued with the British practice of allotment of agricultural land to service personnel as a reward for military service. We are also told that a number of senior officers benefited from the military government’s decision to allow the top brass to import one high priced luxury car each free of custom duty, other taxes and surcharges…In September 1997 the National Assembly revoked this facility.

And we are told that the government has decided to grant university status to selected madrassas. Warns an editorial in the Frontier Post

“The government should not be seen as institutionalising madrassa education. Whatever its perceived advantages or tradition, this system of education cannot be sustained because it thrives on a parochial mindset that may have gone into hibernation but can strike back if given the slightest opening. This mindset is a by-product of the reaction created in the underprivileged class in the wake of iniquitous distribution of resources.”

The edit tells us that the system (established under the tutelage of various religious schools of thought) has been imparting lessons of hate and bigotry. General Zia-ul- Haq who, we are told, “used religion as a tool to perpetuate his rule, provided them his patronage.”

It was Zia once, it is Musharraf now. At the end of the day all military rulers after an initial euphoria are bound to hear a one-line dismissal from the public. “Jave dictator, Jive democracy” (Quit dictator, long live democracy).

New Delhi, April 12,2002