NSC Bill

The National Security Council (NSC) Bill being railroaded, first through the National Assembly without much pretence of debate or discussion, and now likely to be dealt with the same way in the Senate, has been manoeuvred in a manner that disrespects Parliament and its procedures and bodes ill for democracy.
The need for such a body when a perfectly workable arrangement in the shape of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet exists, cannot be justified on the grounds of urgent necessity.
It would seem reasonable, therefore, to assume that its authors have some other agenda in mind.
The protest of the Opposition in both Houses, has been of no avail, as the opportunism of the MMA, a major component of the non-Treasury benches, in first accepting a deal with President General Pervez Musharraf to support the Legal Framework Order (LFO) and the setting up of the NSC, and now attempting to wriggle out of the latter commitment, has not done the Opposition's cause much good.
There is no doubt that the government and its allies enjoy a simple majority in both Houses, and therefore defeat of the Bill is not possible.
But precisely for that reason, railroading it through Parliament in the manner chosen leaves a bad taste in the mouth and raises serious questions about where the political system is headed.
Government loyalists have tried to represent the NSC as a safety valve that will prevent martial laws in future.
They point to the existence of such bodies in countries like the US, India, Turkey, etc, to justify its creation in Pakistan.
However, if the example of the US and India is examined, it transpires that their NSCs are civilian think-tanks with only advisory or recommendatory capacity.
Only in the case of Turkey is it a supra-parliamentary, executive arm set up during Martial Law and ever since dominated by the military.
That has not prevented Martial Laws recurring in Turkey. The military's interventionism in politics in Turkey has, only produced the spectacle in the past of an overthrown prime minister being hanged in the 1960s. Its president only escaped the gallows because of old age and was instead given a life term.
Such is the reality of the model being touted by the NSC Bill's advocates.
The composition of the NSC, in which nine seats are reserved for civilian high office holders, is only a show window.
The weight of the COAS/President and the services chiefs is far greater in our political reality than all the other johnnies combined.
Since all the services chiefs are to be ex-officio members, even the Air Force and Navy is now explicitly to be dragged into the political fray. It will be obvious to even the purblind that the real purpose and import of the NSC is the military's desire to dominate politics and all other aspects of national life.
This, however, is neither a sustainable enterprise, nor has room for an orderly and institutionalised succession from the present strongman to his successor.
It is likely to unravel when the present dispensation passes into history, as it must do one day.
In the process, of course, the people of Pakistan will have to embark on yet another search for the 'genuine' democracy promised by General Musharraf when he came to power in 1999, but which now looks increasingly like a dream unfulfilled.
This ill-advised move to create and perpetuate an NSC that will have supra-parliamentary weight, despite the cosmetic amendment by the MQM that requires any decision of the NSC impacting on political life to be vetted by parliament, will usher in yet another era of 'controlled' democracy, with the jury out whether its eventual fate will be any different from its 'illustrious' predecessors.