Inherent bias in Musharraf’s decree

By B L Kak

Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, is in the news
once again-this time with his action to bar Prime Ministers from a third term in office. Is he ruling Pakistan, the Zia way? His decree against Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharief, to be precise, has triggered a bitter controversy. Indeed, the flak it has drawn, domestically and internationally, is indicative of the inherent bias in the decree.

The decree is clearly aimed at preventing Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharief from participating in the elections Gen. Musharraf has promised to hold in October. It has put a question mark on his very intentions so far as restoring democracy in Pakistan is concerned. Critics say that, despite the promise of polls, Gen. Musharraf is trying to ensure that he retained power over any future Parliament and Prime Minister in his country.

Can the ambitious military ruler deny that by resorting to such tactics he is only weakening his own claim to legitimate power? There is no denying that nearly three years of his rule has failed to give him the legitimacy he needs to remain in power without going down in history as yet another military ruler who stifled democratic polity and institutions to further his personal ambitions. Even the referendum he held earlier this year was marred by controversy in the shape of allegations of official interference, depriving it of the constitutional sanctity he had hoped to acquire for himself through the exercise.

The people of Pakistan, as well as the international community, had, obviously, hoped that Gen. Musharraf would make amends by ensuring a free and fair general election. But his recent actions, culminating in the amendment that effectively bars the return to power of Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharief, have belied those hopes. That his decree is part of a systematic campaign to ensure his continuation in power is evident from the developments that preceded the latest amendment to Pakistan’s law.

Gen. Musharraf, had, just the other day, announced proposed constitutional amendments that would give him the power to dismiss the Cabinet and Parliament and shorten some of the terms. It does not take much intelligence to fathom the motive behind these actions. All these are steps that will give him unbridled power to conduct the polls the way he wants to, and pave the way for him to impose a puppet Government on Pakistan, while retaining full control of all authority even after the elections. In doing this, Gen. Musharraf is merely following in the footsteps of the last military ruler of Pakistan, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.

Gen. Zia had decided that he would continue to wield power only so long as he continued to don the military uniform. Gen. Musharraf, it seems, is doing precisely that. He also seems convinced that the Westminster-style of democracy does not suit Pakistan. He does not disagree with his fellow military men who believe that the Army is a political reality and to avoid regular military interventions, its role in the decision-making process must be concretized.

Pakistan had Field Marshal Ayub Khan attempting to legitimize his regime through what he termed as ‘Basic Democracy’ system and the Constitution he promulgated in 1962. The average Pakistani hasn’t forgotten that Gen. Yahya Khan had his ‘Legal Framework Order’ of 1969 under which elections were held in 1970. But before handing over power to a civilian Government he plunged Pakistan into a political crisis followed by the war which led to the separation of East Pakistan and birth of Bangladesh.

Then came the Eighth Amendment from Pakistan’s yet another military ruler, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. His obvious attempt was to retain control over the state machinery. Recently, Pakistan’s influential English daily, Dawn, recalled that all these were devices to ensure that each military ruler retained his hold on power and could not retrospectively be held accountable for his abuse of authority while in office. Whether the autocratic rulers succeeded in saving their skin after they stepped down is a vital question. But of long-term significance was the impact their constitutional changes had on Pakistan’s political, economic and social structures.

With every such phase Pakistan has experienced, matters, the publication insists, have gone from "bad to worse". Hence the public trepidation at the latest constitutional package being thrust on Pakistan. Some measures in it might be in the interest of the people of Pakistan, such as the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years. But many others, the publication has pronounced, "are definitely designed to institutionalize the role of the armed forces in the political system of the country and give extraordinary powers to the President in the new dispensation".

There is no denying that Pakistan’s is a deeply fragmented, stratified and polarised society. It is a fact that the absence of a steady and uninterrupted political process as well as decades of elitist and short-sighted socio-economic policies have left Pakistan sharply divided between the haves and the have-nots. Gen. Musharraf himself will find it difficult to challenge the fact that while there has been an increasing concentration of wealth, the masses have been steadily pauperized. Equally irrefutable is the fact that political power in Pakistan has remained in the hands of the privileged classes who have used it to perpetuate their hold on the state machinery and enhance their fortunes and influence.

Three measures among those announced by Gen. Musharraf will widen the division between the privileged and the underprivileged even further. One is the academic qualification condition for candidates desirous of contesting elections to the assemblies. The second is the mode of election of the women candidates. The third is the provision for a National Security Council.

What lies at the core of the current crisis in Pakistan is the alternative view that power rather than the high principle is the motive force of Gen. Musharraf’s military presidency that seeks to perpetuate itself. His opponents are driven by their strong belief that many of his proposals are designed to create a new Parliament which will then be used by him as a ‘rubber stamp legislature’ to legalise them with retrospective effect. And as the balance of power in the prospective National Security Council will tilt overwhelmingly in his favour as the imperious military leader, the proposal hardly qualifies to be seen as a diktat for an apolitical instrument of checks and balances in governance

Terrorism is always pure!

By Dr. R.L. Bhat

Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani is seen as a levelheaded person who would be least bothered with the semantic sophistry that characterizes the Indian politician today. Those verbal refinements commonly become fine-tuned obfuscations to defeat the Indian State in tackling the issues in any effective way. The maze of theorizing, not uncommonly coloured by the underlying politicking needs, have often deflected this State from fulfilling its promise. Ordinary crime is seen as a class intent, plain offenses are coloured with political tints and the result is that ordinary application of law and order becomes a political issue that neither gets implemented not applied but provides enough grist to the political mill for more politicking. It may not be said of all the cases but much of the derailment of the idea of India has come about through this sideways shunting of the intents and actions. Indeed, the promise of BJP was that it would not go around the bush beating imaginary ghosts but would bring in an air of action. That was what the 'party with difference' was taken by most to mean. That promise has not come about. And after a goodly stint in power we have as earthly a person as Advani curling his phrases with fine turns.

Thus his declaration that the recent Rajiv Nagar massacre was 'pure terrorism' shows that there is either a misunderstanding of terrorism in the highest echelons of power in this country or an intension to shift the meaning of terrorism itself. After being confronted by the menace of terrorism for years one expects India to be clear about the meaning and intent of terrorism. Terrorism is not an ordinary crime. During the recent debate on the Prevention Of Terrorism Act, that was what the whole confusion was all about. The argument that the Government had enough laws to deal with terrorism was flawed at the base because terrorism in not a usual crime. It is a super crime, a class by itself, which does not recognize or follow the course of the normal crime. It accordingly would not be, has not been, tackled with the normal laws. One can think of mafia-type of crimes, which closely resemble terrorism but they are still different. At the very least the mafia don wants to live in the society, attain to the ideals the society respects and wants to be accepted by the society. The norms and notions of society matter to him though he may flaunt many of these in his criminal acts.

Terrorism is beyond society, beyond reckoning. The approbation of the society is not what a terrorist seeks. The terrorist is out to wreck the in-force law and order machinery, upturn the polity and enforce the ideas, which motivate him. The terrorism that India and the world is presently confronted with, is derived from an exclusivist fundamentalist idea that seeks to transform the whole world or at least the part it can in the way it has decided are the best. It leaves no space for tolerance, for accommodation or for compromise with the other polities or societies. It would not relent, would not come to agreement except on its terms, which imply on its dictations. There, of course, are many ideologies that carry this tent o self-righteousness. Many of them also consider themselves to be the exclusive in their truths and dispensations. Those that employ terror as the mans to coerce other human beings into following their thoughts and dictums are what we know as terrorists. They want to bring about the changes, which they deem are the best and ordained, by simply silencing the opposition with the terror.

All who do not go their way are the opponents. All who seek to teach or talk of the tolerance and brotherhood of mankind are either cowards or else conspirators, in their eyes. There are only followers and enemies in their reckoning. The enemies are to be killed; the followers must be ready to do that holy job. They are out to demolish all opposition to their cause and idea, with the power of guns or the annihilation of the atomic bombs if available. That is their devotion, that their motivation. Everything that furthers the idea is a nice strategy, a suitable weapon for them. That all-out finality of decision and truth is what makes terrorism a challenge for the world. It seeks to snuffle all the other ideas in the world and to enforce its singular pattern of thought and act. That is the reason there simply are no alibis, no reasons, no justifications for terrorism. It is fully and certainly settled on its 'truth'. It is equally settled about its weapon the terror. That truth of terrorism has to be seen in its full implication if the world is to be one in eradicating it.

The world's total abhorrence for the Nazism came because it had similarly exclusivist premises and conceptions. But terrorism is even more threatening because it does not to feel even the need to 'prove' itself or its pronouncements. It has no seeming need to invent alibis for the superiority of its thoughts or to substantiate its truth. It, therefore, would not do to confuse it as simple or complex, pure or impure. Terrorists may indulge in destruction, loot and rape but these are neither its essentials nor its intent. Mohammad Atta spending the night before WTC-attack in purifying himself or the drugged-drunken Fidayeen who mounted daredevila attacks in Kashmir mean little there. Nor do the bank robberies, the foreign funds, and other 'incentives'. They are all instruments, means like the guns to facilitate item in wrecking what they have decided upon. That is why there are no good or bad terrorists. That is also why the American distinction between 'their terrorists' and 'ours' is a betrayal of the world resolve to wipe out terrorism. It certainly would not to confuse, or misunderstand, or mistake terrorism for what it is not, what it can't be.