Speakers at a seminar on 'National Security and Constitution-Making in Pakistan', scathingly deplored the establishment for repeated interventions in national politics and held it responsible for distorting the country's constitution to its advantage. They said that military and civil bureaucracy monopolised power from Day One and never allowed a true democratic culture to flourish in the country.
The establishment badly affected the sanctity of the country's constitution by abrogating it time and again and making several amendments to their advantage, they said. Mairaj Mohammad Khan said that British parliamentary type of democracy required a particular geo-political and social environment to flourish and as such it could never strengthen its roots in Pakistan where post-colonial and feudalistic structure of society exists.
He described this type of democracy as a political system of capitalism which did not match with existing system of Pakistan. He said that a sort of subservient capitalism was working in the country which gave way to imperialism to penetrate it, disallowing supremacy of a democratic constitution to work here.
He criticised the concentration of powers in the President's office and observed that in the existing system of British democracy the president should only be ceremonial head of the state, while the prime minister should be the real chief executive of the country. But contrary to this, Pakistan's prime ministers always remained on the disposal of presidents, and in this regard he equated President Musharraf with Ghulam Mohammad.
Another speaker, Nafisa Shah, declared the establishment of National Security Council as an ugly addition to the constitution. She alleged that the military in Pakistan always created pseudo internal and external security concerns to capitalise on them by showing its indispensability.
She said that same agencies' infrastructure which was seen active in the country in the fight against terrorism, itself brought them up. Now these agencies are labelling the same Jihadies as terrorists whom they supported against Russia and India on the insistence of other powers.
Fakhr Imam termed the concept of sharing of power as the real essence of a true democracy and observed that this sense never existed in Pakistan where the establishment monopolised all powers, compromising the sovereignty of the people. He strongly denounced the 17th Amendment in the constitution.
He said that unless the people of the country decided to stand up for their rights there was no chance of any major change in the political culture of the country which should be based on democratic norms and values.
Chairman, Dialogue Pakistan, the organiser of the seminar, Dr Adrian A. Hussain, and Irshad Abdul Kadir also presented their papers on the subject.