All said and done, Pakistan's future depends upon the establishment of a democratic dispensation and the anointing of the democratic ethos and temper. For one thing, from day one, Pakistan has been committed to democracy. Democracy has, of course, been languishing, for most of the past sixty-nine years. It has been in tantrums, in doldrums, in disarray. Nevertheless, the passion for democracy could never be extinguished nor dislodged from the deepest recesses of the social consciousness of the Pakistani populace.
The Pakistan movement which sought to, and did, establish Pakistan by a reference to the Muslim electorate in sub-continental India and the democratic credentials of its leadership, from Jinnah downwards, as pointed out by professor Richard Wheeler, have among other factors, helped to make democracy enmeshed with the subterranean vagaries of the Pakistani social heritage and ethos. Indeed, Jinnah had, moreover, consecrated this nation to a democratic destiny on the marrow of her birth, and the independence leaders, despite almost insurmountable odds, did try to conform to the basic democratic norms, more or less. And that to a point that the New York Times wrote on 15 November 1955, at a time when the fledging state was bedevilled by an acute constitutional crisis, that "the belief in democracy was interwoven with the drive for Pakistan and it would not be given up easily".
As for the periodic languishing of democracy, at least since October 7, 1958, it must be attributed to both "structural" faultlines on the one hand and to the decisions, designs, ambitions and failures of individual leaders, both military and civilian, or the other. Foremost, among these faultlines that have shaped Pakistan's polity over the decades were the nature and convulsions of her birth - a cataclysmic birth, by any standard. Indeed, she was born in chaos, with problems galore, as noted by Professor Ralph Braibanti. And these overwhelming problems, compounded by the eastern front hotting up periodically and Kabul's irredentists' claims with Delhi's blessings from day one, had inevitably led Pakistan to the politics of survival. Hence, Professor Wayne Wilcox's somber conclusion that "Pakistan's origins shaped its outlook as a near garrison state". The politics of survival with its concomitant expedient choices have ever since shaped Pakistan's security concerns, and determined its political approach and destiny. But survival cannot be bought, and expedient choices cannot be taken, without costs to the political system and the nation building process.
The other critical structural deficiency has been "the tremendous famine of able leaders" to grapple with the crucial nation-building task, a debilitating deficiency referred to by Arnold Toynbee and Ivor Jennings in their assessment of developing countries and/or Pakistan's failure in the early years. Pakistan, tragically denuded within four years of her birth of the only two leaders that could have performed that task, was thrown at the mercy of her mediocre leaders, except for Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. But, whatever be the reasons, he was allowed barely thirteen months to perform. Even so, that brief spell yet proved to be "a most creative period of integrative institution building", to quote Muniruzzaman Talukdar. Thus the dismal failure to create the requisite milieu for the growth of self-sustaining democratic traditions.
In the annals of Pakistan's existential career, Z.A Bhutto was the only truly dynamic leader she has spawned. But his snowballing penchant for an animus dominance role in the traumatic period of post-Bangladesh Pakistan compounded by highly controversial March 1977 elections finally brought Pakistan, once again, to a political disruption and a constitutional crisis, and Bhutto himself to a sticky end.
Some fifty years after the first military coup in 1958, the 18 February 2008 elections, by far the most free elections in Pakistan's chequered career, have yielded two major parties (PPP and PML-N) at the center and a string of three minor parties (MQM, ANP and the JUI-F) in the provinces. They were/are, however, pragmatic and sane enough to decide upon a grand coalition, this being the most fortuitous development in the circumstances. Thus, for the time being, the democratic structure, whether functional, mal-functional or dysfunctional, is very much in place, but without its life giving and energizing soul - the normative democratic ethos. Hence, despite the dubious democratic façade, the awesome quest for a democratic ethos continues to be inextricably trapped in a quagmire of a host of debilitating factors that are progressively hurtling Pakistan towards an Hobbesian leviathan.
Foremost among them are the critical discontinuities in the socialization process, underscored by the relevant strata's deep divergence between profession and performance. Swearing by democracy but thwarting it thoughtlessly through self-oriented and willful actions is a normal and routine business with the rulers and their cronies, which are a legion. Consider, for example, the following (i) "bloodline", dynastic and/or personalized politics; (ii) lack of internal democracy within parties; (iii) retention of the party office by the constitutional head; (iv) revisiting, and not scrapping, the 17th amendment; (v) a self-professed "political" governor turning the Government House in Lahore into a party office, besides politicking and rocking the PML-N provincial boat; (vi) the simmering confrontation between the Executive and the Judiciary compounded by the deposed Chief Justice leading processions, addressing "public" meetings, politicizing the judiciary and the "independence of judiciary" issue, and, above all, donning the leader of the Opposition mantle for all practical purposes and insistent upon violating the prerogatives and autonomy of both the Legislature and the Executive; while the PML(N) and the SCBA call for the deposed Judges' restoration through a governmental fiat rather than a constitutional process; and (viii) the irresponsible electronic media grossly violating million's free marketplace of ideas dictum, the bedrock of a democratic order - to name only some of the major faultlines and discontinuities.
Unless these faultlines are redressed, and in time, the quest for a democratic ethos will continue to be a quest to nowhere. And without the establishment of a democratic culture and a democratic milieu, the quest for a vibrant, self-propelling, and progressive Pakistan will prove to be an unending quest towards a mirage. As Albert Moravia says, ideas are like delicate saplings which need to be nursed, nourished and watered over time before they put down roots. Likewise, democracy is not something that springs full grown from the ground. It invariably takes time to grow and get rooted in the consciousness of the people.
Finally, Pakistan is a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultured country, and in such a kaleidoscopic landscape national integration and nation building could be accomplished only through a democratic polity and a democratic process. Hence Pakistan's future is irretrievably entwined with an unadulterated democracy.
(Sharif al Mujahid, HEC distinguished National Professor, has recently edited 'Unesco's History of Humanity', vol. VI, and edited 'In Quest of Jinnah' (2007), the only oral history on Pakistan's founding father.)
Indeed, Jinnah had, moreover, consecrated this nation to a democratic destiny on the marrow of her birth, and the independence leaders, despite almost insurmountable odds, did try to conform to the basic democratic norms, more or less.