The people of Pakistan generally perceive the military to be the ruler of Pakistan. The perception is only partially true. Nonetheless, this perception damages the image of the armed forces. An article by Dr. Mubashir Hasan (Dawn, Jan 15).
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We hate our police and do not come to its help as civilised people do. We do not believe that our courts dispense justice and we shirk from appearing before them. We are landed with a huge gap of trust between the people and the apparatus of the state.The elections are due on Feb 18. The government that comes into power will not be different from the government it replaces as it will also be imposing its rule with the help of the police and magistrates protected by the Rangers and the army.So, what happens after the elections is a source of worry for all serious-minded and patriotic Pakistanis. Given the present alarming social economic, political and security situation in Pakistan, no government of Pakistan, sworn in after the elections with the aim of restoring the status quo ante, has the prospect of offering stability to the state and security to the citizens.The infrastructure of governance of the last 60 years has manifestly failed. It is not capable of protecting the lives, property and honour of citizens. It does not dispense justice or provide equitability in the distribution of wealth. Our infrastructure has gone from bad to worse to catastrophic.We need a brand new structure of governance.The most vital issues to form the basis of a new infrastructure of governance are:National independence: Pakistanis cannot call themselves free citizens of Pakistan unless Sindhis, the Baloch, Pathans and Punjabis consider themselves to be free within their provincial domains. The heavy-handed rule of Islamabad has to give way to the power of a federal unity of all the provinces. And that is not all. Our status as a sovereign country is also under a cloud.While it may be only partially true, the widespread perception among the people here and abroad that Pakistan is a client state and its ruling elites are a client elite of the United States has vastly demoralised them. They believe that the US runs the state of Pakistan. They cannot take any pride in their country; indeed, they feel ashamed.In Federal and Sovereign (1985), Eqbal Ahmad lays down the basic governing principles of politics among nations: “First, sovereign nations have neither permanent enemies nor permanent friends. They only have permanent interests, namely, safeguarding of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, economic prosperity and welfare of the people.”Second, “…more important than technical ‘military balance’ are a country’s international standing, the reliability of its allies, the certitude of its supplies, the morale and professionalism of its defence forces, the commitment and mobilisation of its populace, and the strength of its economy.”Third, “...A government for whom the trust and support of its populace is not evident cannot command respect and legitimacy at the international level, nor can it mobilise the morale and dedication of its fighters and citizens.”“Fourth, self-reliance and civilian rule are two basic requirements of effective national defence…”Aspirations of the people to govern themselvesFreedom: Unless citizens do not superintend their police and dispense justice among themselves, as they do in civilised nations, they are not free or liberated citizens. They remain oppressed and exploited through a bureaucratic set-up working for someone beyond them. They have no interest in increasing production and in being creative. A nation of the oppressed becomes an oppressed nation.The people want to be in charge of the machinery of governance at the level of the village, cluster of villages, town, city and district, provincial and at the federal level. Only then, can they be said to be at the helm of the ship of state.To be free citizens of an independent state, a people want their own police to police them and their own courts for all criminal cases in their jurisdiction. All citizens should have an obligation to serve on juries. The cases should come up before a jury acceptable to the defence and prosecution. The people should be dispensing justice to themselves.Autonomy: Today, Sindh, Balochistan and the Frontier perceive themselves to be ruled by Punjab. The basis of this perception needs to be rooted out. Ethnic groups, nations and nationalities in Pakistan have to work out once again, as in 1973, what powers and means they would like to entrust to the federal government in Islamabad. A new compact needs to be negotiated.What is not entrusted to the federal government should be in the domain of the provinces; the provinces should further negotiate compacts among themselves for sharing what is commonly owned between them.Devolution of power: To prevent the polity from plunging from the frying pan of the federal government’s oppression into the fire of the provincial government’s oppression, political, social and economic power should be devolved to the district, city, town, cluster of villages and the village level on the principle that what can be decided and implemented at a lower level should not be entrusted to a higher level of governance.Economy: The market economy such as the one imposed on Pakistan has proved to be disastrous for Third World economies all over the world. Making the rich super rich and the poor abjectly poor, it has resulted in the tremendous outflow of capital from the country. During the last six months, Pakistan exported profits of foreign firms amounting to more than $500m, including $191m by foreign electrical power companies.The public sector needs to be revived in areas such as electricity and other forms of energy, communications, municipal water supplies, housing for the poor, heavy chemicals and banking. The public sector should compete with the private sector.In an agreed resolution of these vital issues which have plagued the social contract between the state and the people for the last six decades, giving rise to all kinds of ills, lies the key to ending the era of dictatorship regimes, to meeting the aspirations of the people to govern themselves and above all to making Pakistan an independent and sovereign nation.mh1@lhr.comsats.net.pk
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