By *Masroor ul Hassan

Pakistan has landed itself once again into an unwelcome but known territory-Emergency. A week into this state of affairs was too much for me to bear. Consequently, despite not being a writer or journalist, I am forced to pick up my pen and vent my pent up feelings.           

Proclamation of Emergency is a constitutional measure and can only be enforced if constitutional guidelines are followed. It can only be proclaimed under well defined circumstances. No such circumstances were prevalent when The Chief of Army Staff (COAS) declared the State of Emergency in Pakistan.  Simply put, the COAS is constitutionally not authorized to enforce Emergency. Disregard of the law of the land, however, seems to be coming naturally to a man who had usurped legitimate power of a popularly elected political government once before too. On both these unfortunate occasions, Pakistan lost in minutes the political grounds she had covered in year. This latest misadventure, however, may prove to be a tad too much for the beleaguered country to bear.           

With the benefit of hind sight, one can analyze and evaluate if Musharraf came close to meeting those tall claims he made while taking over the reign of government through his first coup. At international level, Pakistani governance holds fast to its corrupt image.  While new cars throng the roads causing traffic congestion due to lack of efficient traffic measures, the plight of the common man seems to be stuck in a time warp. Despite tall claims of improved macro economic factors, the gap between poor and rich has actually widened. The law and order situation has taken a disastrous downswing. Recent facts and figures issued by The State Bank of Pakistan point towards a downward trend in major areas such as import/export gap.           

The Proclamation of Emergency, therefore, is a short term reactionary measures on the part of insecure rulers. It only betrays the empty field myopia of those at the helm of affairs. They play political games like chess novices who think and act from move to move, never planning a few moves in advance. They are incompetent in politics as well in governance. Let us take stock of the situation and analyze the circumstances leading the military rulers to take rash tactical decisions while completely losing sight of long term strategy.
 
Pakistan’s history is unique. It has reeled from trouble to trouble after its independence. During the course of its adventurous journey, it lost one of its wings. With no lessons learnt, it continued its single winged flight in the same manner and direction. With the Russo-Afghan origin state sponsored religious radicalization thrown in for good measure, Pakistan’s destiny graph dropped sharply southwards. We are now confronted with a dire situation and there is nary an institution to act as a bulwark against the prevalent political crisis.           

When President Andrew Johnson’s decision about slaves was blocked by the U.S. Congress, his Veto overruled with he himself being made to face impeachment on 11 different accounts, the United States was in the midst of one of its worst political crisis. At that point in time the USA was an independent state for almost the period of time as Pakistan is today. It was only just emerging from the brutal civil war between the North and South. Situation was ripe to use the Doctrine of necessity. However, it was then displayed by American Legislature that institutions don’t have whims, they have principles. For a nation to aver a doom, individual leaders too are expected not to act on whims but on principles. Today all citizens of US are free for the act of that institution, the Congress and a man of principles, honour and vision–Abraham Lincoln.

Alas! Pakistan never witnessed the dawn of institution building despite having an existing example of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah had refused to give his individual opinion on partition to Mountbatten, for he wanted to table the matter in an institution–Muslim League’s Legislative Council. Great leaders are great because they do not ignore even infinitesimally smaller details of final national objective and the strategy to reach there.          

All our leaders, elected or otherwise, considered their individual selves to be the only institution privileged to decide the course they wanted the nation to steer. Each one of them, without being adequately qualified, had the audacity to define Pakistan’s National interests completely disregarding the geo-strategic, historical, political and economic imperatives. They reflected only in a vacuum instead of basing their concepts on well researched and amply established rules of social science. Unfortunately, there were no sons of nation worth the name to block those failures and excesses. Even more unfortunately, there were opportunistic hordes of toddies instead to join the bandwagon of the ‘wise men’ of the time.           

We thus paid dearly and lost half of our country in 1971. We did not learn our lessons even after that unparalleled humiliation. All the governments following that debacle continued on the same ill-fated course. No institution was allowed to develop. Politics (or merely a game) of confrontation led to proclamation of Emergencies and Martial Laws on several occasions. Each one of us as well as each institution, if any, must shoulder the blame equally. The institution of Judiciary invented the Doctrine of Necessity for perpetuating the autocratic governance.           

Even in our recent Supreme Court’s crisis, their Lordships should have exercised prudence. In the recent past when the country felt the twilight of an independent judiciary, confrontation should have been put on the back burner considering the volatile political environments. Avoiding direct confrontation with the Executive at this point in time would have served the national interest better. Their Lordships should have concentrated first on consolidation and maturity of new born institution of Independent Judiciary before starting to take suo moto actions. According to an old Chinese proverb, a long jump needs a bit of retreat before its execution.
 
Media can easily score passing grade in their duty. It steadily developed over a period of time and was seen nearing the stage where it could be termed a mature institution when it too lost the sight of prudence while covering unpleasant events and incidents. In India, there are at least 70 Federally controlled areas. Almost all of them are troubled. Despite being the largest Democracy claiming to have a free press, there was never a dooms day scenario painted by media.             

The print and electronic media must mould public opinion by covering all events in their proper perspective without giving in to personal bias of individuals. Masses must be educated not agitated, guided not confused and shown the correct perspective instead of painting a dooms day scenario. Sensational journalism may serve show biz commercialism but it surely casts dark shadows on political maturity of masses.
 
Political parties should have used prudence too. Religious political parties should actually have focused their politics towards image rectification of Islam at the domestic and, more importantly, at the international level. Today Islam and terrorism seem synonymous in the western minds. Muslim is a terrorist especially if he comes from Pakistan. As for the other political forces, even the smallest of the political parties wanted to keep its identity rather than the national interest intact thus failing to forge a unified institution of viable opposition.           

A viable and cohesive opposition is the only instrument or institution which can instill the fear of God in the hearts of any ruling party. Political science is actually an art. It is called science since it too has some scientific principles guiding its course. The art or science of real politick would be devoid of purpose and direction if not based on principles of morality and justice.           

Political forces in Pakistan today are in complete disarray. Politics of principles was never practiced after the sad and untimely demise of Jinnah. The only stable institution, that of the Armed Forces, is on the brink of collapse due to over indulgence in roles outside their jurisdiction. Its collapse will undoubtedly bring complete anarchy in a state which already is being dubbed as a Failing State by neutral foreign observers. That will actually be the Dooms Day for Pakistan.

*Masroor ul Hassn is a retired fighter pilot of Pakistan Air Force. He has Masters degrees in Defence and Strategic Studies from Q. Azam University Islamabad (1985) and War Studies from Karachi University (1995).