The live scenes of rampant lawlessness in Pakistan's biggest city, which millions of horrified and helpless Pakistani men, women and children silently watched, for hours together, on their T.V. screens, on 12 May, 2007, and which billions of people, throughout the world, witnessed, in utter disbelief, in their homes are too frightening and painful to be repeated.
In Karachi, which exceeds the combined population of a dozen member-states of the United Nations, the majesty of the law was disgraced in a manner which history will not easily forget or forgive. The city was drenched in blood, and the law enforcement agencies, which are paid to enforce law, were mere indifferent spectators.
Civil society in Pakistan is under attack, and struggling to survive. The message sent is that for civil society is to survive, it has to face the volley of bullets.
12 May, 2007 is a grim reminder to the 15 million helpless residents of Karachi as well as to the 150 million hapless citizens of Pakistan that the institutions of state, as well as that of the law and order have collapsed. 11 May, 1857 saw the massive, though abortive, uprising of the enslaved people of an un-divided India against a tyrannical imperialist rule. 150 years down the line, on 12 May, 2007, what lesson is history trying to teach us? Has the power of the street overtaken the power of the state? If this is not anarchy, what is anarchy? The writing on the wall is visible to all who care to see.
Unfortunately, those who should have seen, and recognised it are seeing it differently as 'in the national interest.' It is perhaps too late to remind them that, in his first address to the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, on 11 August, 1947, the great Quaid Muhammad Ali Jinnah said: "The first duty of the government is to maintain law and order." In the current milieu, where the acquisition ("Qabza", ie grabbing will be a more graphic word) and the indefinite retention of power, by any means and at all costs, has become first priority, one does not know whether the maintenance of law and order is still considered the first duty of government. If it is still considered so, it was certainly not visible on the streets of Karachi, on 12 May, 2007.
Soon after independence in 1947, it became a fashion, and a passion, with us to deride everything associated with the British. We condemned the British parliamentary form of democracy and tried for decades, the "Basic" and the not-so-basic forms of fancied democracy till we finally discovered that it was the British model which suited us the most.
We, therefore, tried it again, half-heartedly, but soon dubbed it as "Sham Democracy". We then proclaimed that, in the 21st century, we would introduce "genuine democracy", which was accordingly introduced in 2002, in two instalments, in April 2002 and October 2002. We are basking in the warm sunshine of that 'Genuine Democracy' of the 2002 vintage, which is much worse than "Sham Democracy".
We condemned the British concepts of both justice and jurisprudence, and experimented with other legal codes and procedures with results which are before us. In the same frenzy, we rejected the British legacy of the law-and-order administration with such ferocity that those who considered maintenance of law and order "as the first duty of a government" were dubbed as old fogies or imperialist lackeys.
We resolved to introduce, what we proudly proclaimed the "development model" of administration, which was as much a cliché of yesterday, as "good governance" is the buzzword of today. Let us pray that we have, at long last, realised that there can be no development without an order based on just laws, framed with the free consent of the people. This is the simple truth.
Colonialism is bad but all colonial legacies are not. One example will suffice. In the early Muslim period, the concept of a professional, or standing, army did not exist. At the time of war, the able bodied men voluntarily formed a "Lashkar", ie, an informal military force. When the war was over, the "Lashkar" was disbanded, and the warriors resumed their earlier civilian callings.
As late as the mid-18th century, when the famous Afghan warrior-king Ahmed Shah Abdali, who was born in Multan and was buried in Kandahar, invaded India and routed the Marhattas in the third battle of Panipat, he commanded a "Lashkar", and not a professional army. The concept of a professional standing army, which is regularly trained and regularly paid, both in times of war and peace, is very much a colonial legacy.
-We are continuing with that colonial legacy. In fact, in our case, our standing army which is trained, and paid, to fight wars also, every now and then, rules the country for long spells, for which they are neither recruited nor paid, and hold top civil posts, for which they are neither trained nor recruited and, to top it all, are not fit, because it is not their profession.
Under the modern concept of war, a war is a total war, and the entire nation joins the war effort. In the era of nuclear warheads and touch-button missiles, the need for a large standing army is arguable, if not archaic. However, one never hears demands from civil society of disbanding, or even reducing the standing army.
Just as a professional, apolitical elite army, selected on merit and merit alone, is considered by the army as a national imperative for keeping peace on national frontiers, a professional, apolitical elite civil service, selected on merit and merit alone, is an urgent national need for enforcing law and maintaining order within the national frontiers. Just as a "Lashkar" is no substitute for an army, a crowd, or a "Lashkar" of untrained "Nazims" is no substitute for a professional civil service.
It is so obvious, and yet, it is unfortunately not obvious to many who matter, and claim to be professionals. When men in military uniform become the makers, and the unmakers, of the constitutions of the State, and men in lesser uniforms become the custodians of law, without the effective control of a civilian authority, history tells us that there can be law without order, or order without law, but not law and order, one supplementing the other. We saw that on 12 May, 2007. Pakistan is now either a police state or a garrison state. It is neither a civilian nor a civilised state.
If we still want to fight the losing war of re-establishing law and order in this state of emerging anarchy, we must start by asking ourselves: what went wrong where? A little introspection would show us the quickest, easiest and the most effective course of action. Paradoxical though it may sound, the best way to advance on the law and order front is to retreat.
In order to progress, we must regress. We must undo what we did to ourselves on 14 August, 2001, and then go back and stand firmly where we stood on that glorious morning of 14 August 1947. This walking back will be a quantum leap forward. It needs a vision and courage to admit, and to learn from, one's mistake. Above all, it needs a statesman, ie, one who is man enough to place the state before, and above, self isn't it asking too much in this Land of the Pure?