At least in our climate there is no bigger fantasy than this that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. In our kind of culture democracy means not democracy as understood elsewhere but licence: licence to do as you please, to drive as you please, to set up a khokha in every open space, to encroach where you can, to dodge the law wherever possible, to evade taxes and to steal whatever you can.

Bestow more democracy in such a climate and you get if not anarchy then drift and growing lawlessness. Faith we have in large quantities, often geared to the wrong objectives. Unity is a more problematic proposition. But discipline – the last of Jinnah’s guiding principles – we may have had a bit of it in the past but in the present it is a vanishing species in the broad spaces of the Republic, except for the ground occupied by the armed forces.

And thank God for that because it is the armed forces holding Pakistan together and not, as we like to believe in our fonder moments, anything like the 1973 constitution…or the political process. Enshrine more golden principles in the constitution, enact another Objectives Resolution and reiterate the idea that sovereignty belongs to the Almighty, but take away the army and air force from the present equation and Pakistan heads straight for Middle East anarchy.

I exaggerate. I am using too heavy and broad a brush. Unlike Arab kingdoms, sheikhdoms and even republics, Pakistan is an open and pluralistic society. This is the reason why, try as they might, religious movements have never been able to establish a popular presence here. The Ikhwan can flourish in Egypt because it was the only alternative to the Nasserite dictatorship, popular as Nasser was. Religious extremism flourishes where the door to popular participation in government is closed. That is why the Jamaat-e-Islami can try for another hundred years and hold as many ijtemahs as it likes but in Pakistan it will never be a popular party. Allah

be praised for that.

Here then is the Pakistani paradox: democratic openness and the armed forces are the intertwined factors which make Pakistan what it is. Yes, religious extremism has established a deep presence here, its network of support spread far and wide. But this precisely is what makes the role of the armed forces so crucial: if it weren’t for them Pakistan would be overrun by the forces of religious extremism.

Pakistan would become the tribal areas. Pakistan would become like the two Waziristans. And if it hasn’t become that, it is not because of our political forces who were feeding themselves on fairy tales about negotiating with the Taliban, but the armed forces who, overriding civilian dithering and lack of courage, have taken the bit between their teeth and, at great sacrifice of blood and effort, have taken on the forces of religious militancy.

The political parties can hold their dharnas and rallies and the terrorism threat can abate – isn’t this visible to all or do we need night-vision goggles to see this? – only because the army is not shirking its duty. To Syed Munawwar Hasan of the Jamaat-e-Islami we should be grateful for at least being open about their brand of Islam. At the Lahore ijtemah (gathering) of his party he spoke glowingly of the idea of ‘qataal-fi-sabeel-Allah’ – the mass cutting of heads in the way of the Lord, or to serve the cause of righteousness – righteousness as understood by the likes of Syed Munawwar Hasan. This is exactly the philosophy of not just Al-Qaeda and the Taliban but of the Islamic State of the Most Revered Caliph Al-Baghdadi. Without ‘qataal-fi-sabeel-Allah’, said this mufti of Islam, there could be no Islamic revolution.

Democracy stands in the way of this thinking acquiring mass appeal in Pakistan. The army stands in the way of this thinking spreading its message, and acquiring power, through the gun. Democracy and the army thus are crucial for the defence, the preservation, of present-day Pakistan. They are essential for holding the line against extremism and preventing Pakistan from plunging further into the vortex of sectarianism – which is an offshoot, indeed the necessary corollary, of the doctrine of ‘qataal-fi-sabeel-Allah’. The beheading of Frontier Corps soldiers and the targeting of members of different Islamic sects derive their inspiration and justification from the same wellspring of ideology.

But indispensable as democracy is - -without it this would be a different place – the way it is worked here gives a boost to nothing so much as that national pastime, cynicism. Let me ask not the detractors of the PML-N but its diehard supporters, its drumbeaters in the press who sing the praises of the PML-N leadership every day, the prime minister meeting his brother, the Punjab chief minister, in the family home at Jati Umra every Sunday, is this anyone’s idea of news? Yet every Sunday a press handout goes out to the media that the two brothers met and discussed national issues and vowed not to be swayed from the path of development – or other high-minded stuff on the same lines. And loyalist newsmen, performing their duty, make this into headline news.

Goebbels was Hitler’s Pervaiz Rashid but kahan (where) Goebbels and kahan (where) Pervaiz Rashid? For propaganda to be effective there must be some sophistication in it. Pervaiz Rashid comes up with something on Imran Khan every day. Does this have the slightest effect on public opinion? Imran Khan continues to address packed rallies everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places. Doesn’t this suggest that the information minister should either desist from what he is becoming a past master of or he should try something slightly more intelligent?

There are still some days left to November 30 but in an admission of panic the government has already started putting containers filled with earth around that blighted place called the Red Zone in Islamabad. (If we are not careful, the shipping container may become our national symbol.) And the interior minister blows hot one day and cold the next. And for fear of public reaction the government can’t make up its mind about the gas tariff. Once again there’s going to be no increase in it…and the information minister insists that the PTI protest campaign is having no effect. There’s nothing on the government’s mind except Imran Khan, and if this is no effect we can only imagine what effect will be like.

What the government should be doing, what it should have done, is to wrest the initiative from Imran Khan by (1) moving fast on the Model Town inquiry and letting the axe fall where it would; (2) announcing local elections; and (3) announcing electoral reforms. But movement requires life and vigour. From a patient dazed and stretched out there can be no such expectation.

On top of all this comes the special tribunal verdict in the Musharraf case, the judgement saying that the indictment is incomplete and should include former Chief Justice Dogar, ex PM Shaukat Aziz and Musharraf’s law minister, Zahid Hamid. (I used to sit with Zahid Hamid in the National Assembly and regard him highly.) Initiating the Musharraf treason trial, as subsequent events have amply demonstrated, was a needless ‘panga’, a tribute to the present leadership’s sense of vendetta than its judgement or sagacity. Now it is an albatross round the government’s neck.

When our ‘hidden forces’ moved against Geo network, the local cable operator in Chakwal got a call from someone from ‘khufia’, asking him whether Geo was being shown. He said yes. The next day he got another call and when he said it was still being shown, the caller asked, “tenun ajey bhi samajh naye aayi?” You still haven’t understood? He was quick to disconnect the network.

The same question can be put to the government regarding the Musharraf trial... “tuanoo hun bhi samajh nahi aaye?” You still haven’t understood?

The government says it has survived the opposition onslaught. If being buffeted by the winds from all sides is anyone’s idea of survival, what would extinction look like?

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