However, neither the PDM nor the sitting government offers us a definition of democracy and civilian control. The Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) government is essentially a hybrid both in how it was conceived and how it has worked since its conception. That fact notwithstanding, it claims that it won the elections and, therefore, is a legitimate government. It also claims, not without irony — given the hybrid sobriquet for it — that it has the support of all institutions wherein it is quite right. Whether that serves to enhance its legitimacy or otherwise depends on whether one is a PTI or a PDM supporter.
The PDM, on the other hand, starts by making the same claim: vote ko izzat dau (respect people’s electoral choice). But by this it means something quite different — i.e., former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified and ousted under a plan, PTI was made to win according to the same plan and Mr Sharif pushed to the sidelines because he wanted to exercise the control that is constitutionally due a prime minister without interference from a praetorian army. In other words, civilian supremacy.
At this point, the PDM’s narrative also gets traction because of the poor performance of the PTI government. Barring the dyed-in-the-wool partisan, even informed PTI supporters acknowledge that this government hasn’t covered itself in glory.
But none of this solves our problem. It should also be obvious that civilian supremacy in and of itself does not mean such a state will also be a ‘democracy’. One can take a look at the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin to realise that; or one could take a flight to Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines or if one isn’t much for long-haul flights, perhaps land in New Delhi to realise that civilian supremacy does not automatically result in inclusive democracy. There are other examples, including in Europe, but I think the point should be obvious.
So, if civilian supremacy does not automatically give us democracy, what exactly is democracy? PDM says it’s about people’s electoral choices. Is that enough? Are we referring to someone or a system giving people a choice as a standalone, decontextualised virtue? What if I am given 10 choices, neither of which is to my liking? Should we then, before we begin to use certain terms, define them more carefully not only for what they must contain intrinsically but also with reference to the context? Put another way, if a system is structured badly and offers a bind, does it even matter how many choices one might get within that system.
Years ago, I had coopted Dr Ilhan Niaz for a report on civil-military relations. After we had finalised the report, he sent me an email with some very interesting points. Here’s a gist: There are three types of states. The first are civilian states. The military is either no longer or never was integral to the political order of the state in the domestic sphere. Ilhan’s point was that many of the theorists I had cited in the report belonged to such states and regarded “their exceptional circumstances as normal and desirable.” His second type was civilian-led states. In such states “the military remains an integral component of the political order of the state, a major aspect of the ability of such states to maintain their coherence, and a guarantor of the ultimate state writ and sovereignty.” He cited the example of the French Fifth Republic, Russia, constitutional-democratic India, and market-socialist China as politically-diverse examples of this second type. One can say that many of the Latin American and South East Asian states would also fall into this category.
The third type are military states in which the military is openly involved in the political process, has the capacity to direct state policy or veto such policies as it does not wish to see implemented, and enjoys sufficient popular support to threaten the legitimacy of civilian actors when it wants to. Myanmar and Thailand (diverse systems) come to mind, as do Indonesia, Turkey and many other countries of type 2 that have advanced from being type 3.
Niaz’s point was (and I assume remains) that structures that have evolved through history and are also informed by the present situational context are important variables for appreciating where a state belongs and why. Simply taking the circumstances of type 1 states and theorising on that basis will not cut. [NB: for more detail on Dr Niaz’ analysis, interested readers can read his 2015 paper Understanding and Addressing the Administrative Aspect of Pakistan’s Civil-Military Imbalance written for the Colombo-based Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.]
The prompt for these thoughts is the news I read a few days ago about Quaid-i-Azam University’s land issue. I first became aware of it in 2013. But after the Supreme Court of Pakistan took sou motu notice of the situation in 2017, I lost track of the issue thinking, it now seems naively, that after the SC intervention the issue must have been resolved. Until now, that is.
Back in 2017, the SC became seized of the matter after the QAU Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Ashraf sent a letter to the SC Registrar. In the letter the QAU VC alleged that the university’s land was “facing liquidation at the hands of land-grabbers, some of whom are so politically influential that the ICT administration and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) are unable to move effectively to even demarcate the university’s boundaries”.
As one QAU source said to me, a slow process of re-demarcation did unfold after the SC took notice of it. Regrettably, by the time the process was completed CJP Saqib Nisar had retired and VC Javed Ashraf’s tenure had ended. Result: after a desultory anti-encroachment campaign in January 2019, the matter went into deep freeze.
But this is not all. The issue has been agitated by the university at all fora, including taking the matter to the offices of the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan. Nothing has moved. The only person whom the QAU has not appealed to is the Chief of Army Staff which, as the democracy argument goes, has no business arbitrating a civilian matter. It would be perfect if the government(s) could actually govern.
In fact, if we are on governance, this is a matter to be resolved by the Islamabad mayor. In fact, back in 2016, I did get then-mayor of Islamabad Sheikh Ansar on my programme after he visited the University in December and was taken around by the university administration. On the programme, as during his visit to the university, he promised to resolve the issue but it was obviously beyond him.
Since the mayor couldn’t bear this heavy cross, the president (symbol of this federation), the prime minister (the constitutional head of the government) and the SC (the highest court in the land) have so far been informed of this problem, to no avail.
So the question is: there are academic and partisan arguments and then there are the ground realities. What should one’s analysis be based on? The is-es or the wishes?
I realise that in the larger and more complex affairs of the state, 230 0r 600 acres of QAU land is a mere trifle. But quite often it is the small things that give us insight into the larger picture. Vote, democracy, civilian supremacy are fabulous terms but they mean zip, zilch and zero unless we can define and contextualise them.
As Samuel Huntington argued in Political Order in Changing Societies, “The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union have different forms of government, but in all three systems the government governs.” In other words, “The most important political distinction among countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government.”
One can, as has been done, counter-argue some of Huntington’s assertions, but his main point is an important one and becomes clear when one sees how things have shaped in many countries across the world, including in our beloved land.
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times. He reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider