We are not good at reading tea leaves. We can speculate on Maulana's motives but have no idea what particular 'freedom(s)' Azadi March is in search of.
Is the March only about freedom from one set of actors; to be replaced by another? It is, of course, in the name of the 'people', but haven't we heard that before? If it is about freedom from an elite-dominated system, well, we haven't heard it.
There is little hope of government of the people, by the people. Our elite have seen to it. Lineage of our parliamentarians is illustrative. The 'chosen representatives' are not from amongst the people. They are aristocracy; they are pedigreed. It is like family business.
Every government promises a government for the people - as the Constitution ordains. But each time 'the people' are found fighting over 'trickled down' morsels as the gravy train speeds away. (For that fleeting moment of ZAB's early years people-centricity glittered?)
Inclusiveness is an enticing slogan. In practice, however, there is strong evidence of exclusionism. If anything, people - the ordinary folks constituting the bottom 80% and in whose name all governments purportedly act -are positively discriminated against.
Inclusiveness demands rule of law, equality of opportunity, an equitable burden sharing - and tolerance for dissent.
Rule of law means law should apply equally to all. We don't need to go looking for empirical evidence to know this is not the case - by a long shot. Even the superior judiciary is heard lamenting there is one law for the powerful and another for ordinary mortals.
The street scene leaves one in little doubt: it is mostly the motorcyclists who get pulled over by the traffic cops, while land cruisers run the red light with a practiced nonchalance. For the ultimate proof of discrimination all you need to do is visit a police station.
Equality of opportunity is a non-starter given our 'hybrid' schooling system. The elite top up what is imparted by the well-heeled schools with private tuitions. The Courts want to check the fees charged by these schools - to make it lighter on rich pockets - but don't order them to have a quota for the under-privileged (as is done in India).
The distance between the official and national languages marks the goal posts of opportunity. Courts, government offices, corporates, 'influencers', conspire together to put vernacular-wallahs at a disadvantage. The cutest are the 'gentlemen's' clubs, sprawled out on state land, where the the lingua franca vindicatesMacaulay: Indian in colour but English in taste....
Our overbearing reliance on indirect taxation has skewed burden- sharing in favour of the rich. As a proportion of their income the less advantaged contribute more to taxes than the better off! If we use Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality we are worse off than India, Bangladesh, and China - no paragons of equality them!
The Constitution enjoins upon the State "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work". Fortuitously for the elite, this has to be done "gradually'. Let the disparities to grow!
Choking dissent is elite's way of robbing the masses of 'voice'. Either you kowtow to their narrative or 'hold your peace'. The silencing innovation began with students and labour, the traditional agents of change. Today, student unions are tabooed and trade unionism is reduced to 3% of labour force. Voice stands muted.
Assuming, perhaps recklessly, government for the people is what the nation wants, what will it take to traverse the substantial distance between hope and realization?
It will be easy to say we should first set our electoral system right - to get a political leadership that is more representative; a leadership that can pro-actively pursue and promote the pro-people agenda - and stall Parliament's headlong race to redundancy.
Or, create a groundswell of support by working on the school system - inculcate in the leaders of tomorrow a genuine sense of ownership of the rights of people at large; telling them how cancerousa growing sense of deprivation - already manifesting itself in ethnic, linguistic and sectarian divides - can be.
In our view, desirable as these initiatives are, even necessary, neither will work on its own. We need a much stronger undergirding. We need to create sustainable demand - an incentives structure, if you will - for greater inclusiveness.
At the end of the day it is society itself that can guard its rights. When people take to roads in Paris (yellow jackets) or London (BREXIT) they see it as a civic responsibility - an odyssey of inclusionism; to let the government hear the other side, to establish the writ of vox populi.
Out there the Prime Minister resigns when the crowds call him a thief. Down under PM gets pulled over for a driving offence and says 'sorry, officer' and collects the ticket. It is the power of public opinion on display.
But to become more muscular society needs help - from the media, judiciary, and the bureaucracy.
You put the media in chains and you have the tyranny of the single narrative - an invitation to authoritarianism. The answer to an irresponsible media is not shackles. The answer is a more transparent government and a media that self-regulates, which it will if allowed to proliferate. Let a thousand flowers bloom for people to tell yellow from white; to distinguish fake from real, truth from alternative facts.
Iftikhar Chaudhry Court, flush on the victory delivered to it by public opinion, moved fast and far to rid itself of executive and parliamentary fetters. But did it fight more for its own liberties than people's?
Like justice, independence of judiciary not only needs to be ensured but also seen. The cause of people cannot be served without a truly independent judiciary.
A neutral and accountable bureaucracy is the ultimate mainstay of people's rights. Unfortunately, the rot that has set in has not been properly addressed by the task force on institutional reform. It seems to be more focused on inter-se service matters than the core issue of service to the people; or for that matter, how to check political oversight morphing into over-lordship.
Elite have the most to lose if government does not work for the people. They risk getting buried under the burden of their privileges.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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