The roots of Pakistan’s democracy deficit can be traced to the very foundation of the state. After the long struggle by a united India for independence from British colonialism, the lingering Hindu-Muslim divide was finally and bloodily resolved by Partition. The great two-way migration of humanity that ensued was accompanied by devastating communal massacres and bloodshed. Some one million people were killed in all. This formed the basis for the bitter, enduring enmity between the new states of Pakistan and India.
For nine years after Pakistan’s creation, the Constituent Assembly was unable to agree on a constitution. The biggest stumbling block was the refusal of the powerful political, bureaucratic, and military elite of the province of Punjab to accept the principle of one man, one vote. Since the eastern wing of the country, separated from the western portion by a thousand miles of hostile Indian territory, held a majority of the population, the Punjabi oligarchy feared that acceptance of this fundamental democratic principle would permanently shift power to the Bengalis of East Pakistan. That concern was at the heart of the crisis of 1971, during which East Pakistan, with the help of Indian military intervention, broke away to form what is now Bangladesh.
The Pakistan that remained in the west also suffered from deep flaws in its federal structure. Despite the 1973 constitution’s lip service to the principle of provincial autonomy, the three smaller provinces of Sindh, Balochistan, and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) continue to voice serious complaints about the dominance of Punjab in state institutions. The province’s power stems not just from the weight of its population, which accounted for 56 percent of the total in the last census in 1998, but also from the disproportionate recruitment of military, bureaucratic, and police personnel from Punjab. The operation of these largely Punjabi-staffed state institutions in the smaller provinces has engendered cries of “internal colonialism” and separatist sentiments. Balochistan is now in the throes of the fifth round of military suppression and local resistance since the country’s independence. Subnationalist ambitions in Sindh and NWFP have declined over the years. In Sindh this is due to the increased weight of its chief political parties, the largely rural-based PPP and the more urban Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Such sentiment in NWFP has been eclipsed by the decades of wars in neighboring Afghanistan. Nevertheless, resentments at perceived deprivation of political, economic, and cultural rights simmer just below the surface in all three of the smaller provinces. Failure to resolve this long-standing conundrum could threaten the country’s democratic development and ultimately the viability of the Pakistani state.
The rivalry with India and the instability of Pakistan’s internal structure have been exploited to justify the military’s outsized role in the country. Even during the brief periods of civilian government, the military has more often than not called the shots. Unfortunately, it is woefully ill-equipped to address Pakistan’s fundamental problems. The last military regime, led by General Musharraf, left a country divided, economically bereft, and threatened by the emergence of jihadi extremist groups aligned with the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Indeed, the military’s irresponsible sacrifices and mismanagement with respect to the Taliban, all in the blinkered pursuit of a hidebound national security principle, may provide the clearest illustration of the dangers of military rule.
In 2004, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, the military blundered into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a rugged border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is inhabited by fiercely independent tribes that have traditionally been permitted to rule themselves with a minimum of central government oversight. The army entered the FATA to curtail the mounting activities of extremist groups, but its campaigns have been consistently undermined by a contradictory desire within the military and intelligence establishments to create “strategic depth” in the standoff with India. They hoped to accomplish this by exporting Islamist militancy and sponsoring a pliant Islamist regime in Afghanistan that could prevent Indian encirclement and provide Pakistan’s security planners with a hefty geographical backstop.
That approach has become increasingly untenable since September 11, 2001, and the subsequent overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The FATA had served as the main staging post for guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and for the Taliban as they sought to control the country in the years after the Soviet withdrawal. The region took on this role again after 2001, as the ousted Taliban and their allies in Al-Qaeda battled U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The situation was complicated further by the emergence of a native Pakistani Taliban movement, now united under the banner of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This group apparently owes its allegiance to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who is widely believed to be based near Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. The Pakistani Taliban’s formation is directly tied to the metamorphosis of local tribal facilitators of the Afghan fighters into warlords in their own right. Their long-standing role as hosts of the Afghan forces has been reinforced by the enormous funds and powerful weapons they have received from their Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda guests.
Although Musharraf agreed to join U.S.-led antiterrorism efforts after September 11, providing bases and logistical support to the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, he and his military advisers apparently clung to the old strategic vision. The calculation appears to have been that Pakistan could continue to extract financial and military aid from the United States in return for cracking down on Al-Qaeda (95 percent of the militants sent to Guantanamo Bay were suspected members of Al-Qaeda), while preserving the Afghan Taliban as strategic assets, in anticipation of the day when the United States would tire of the Afghan war. At that point the Pakistani military establishment could return to “business as usual” in Afghanistan through the largely intact Afghan Taliban. Thus the dream of strategic depth provided by a friendly regime in Kabul that would deny India leverage on Pakistan’s western flank remains alive and well. The unintended consequence of this policy has been blowback in the shape of the Pakistani Taliban, who do not appear, suspicions to the contrary notwithstanding, to be under the control of their erstwhile mentors in the Pakistani military establishment.
The government’s performance in these matters has pleased no one, with some objecting to the alliance with the United States and others decrying the state’s seeming retreat before the advancing Taliban insurgency. However, the military’s long dominance of the country’s domestic affairs has left an atrophied civilian establishment that has been hard pressed to provide fresh leadership.
The political class in Pakistan is still dominated by the owners of large landed estates, who are far from consistent democrats. Their participation in the electoral process is essentially aimed at preserving their traditional power of patronage over a largely poor and illiterate rural populace. All efforts at land reform based on agricultural efficiency and social justice have fallen foul of this “feudal” class, who have been able to manipulate the system to their advantage and ensure their continued dominance of political, economic, and social life in the countryside.
The industrial and business sector in Pakistan owes its emergence and prosperity to state largesse. Such a “hothouse” entrepreneurial class lacks the political vision and economic independence to support democracy, the optimal political infrastructure for the growth of private commerce. There is no evidence that any significant part of this class has ever resisted military intervention or dominance of the political agenda. They are clearly wedded to an authoritarian dispensation, so long as their links to the state are intact and their short-term profits are secure.
The class of mullahs has its own agenda: to ensure that there is no deviation from what has incrementally become the leitmotif of Pakistan: an Islamic state that is theoretically founded on the principles enunciated in the Koran and the Sunnah. Starting from General Zia ul-Haq’s period in power (1977–88), the decade of the 1980s saw a mushroom growth of madrassas (religious schools or seminaries) funded largely by Saudi donations. When Pakistan was founded in 1947, there were only 189 madrassas in the country, divided between various competing schools of Islamic jurisprudence. By 2002, however, there were between 10,000 and 13,000 unregistered madrassas with 1.7 to 1.9 million students. In 2008, one estimate put the number of madrassas at over 40,000. This bumper crop of religious schools with a particular ideological bent produced generations of jihadi extremists among the millions of Afghan refugees on Pakistani soil (from whom the Taliban eventually emerged), but also among Pakistani youth who undertook such training. Today’s suicide bombers, and arguably the flow of fresh recruits who replace them, owe their origins to these seminaries. In addition to traditional Islamic teaching, the madrassa curriculums in question tend to inculcate a rejection of anything to do with “the West,” and a narrow interpretation of their school of jurisprudence that tends to strengthen (violent) religious sectarianism.
Given these illiberal forces within the ruling classes, the holding of elections and the lip service to democracy in Pakistan’s political discourse appear insufficient to nudge the country toward a state built on genuine democratic principles. A transformation of that kind would require an unprecedented popular mobilization to shake off the benighted defenders of the status quo.
The military has apparently recognized the need to improve its manipulation of popular opinion in a bid to forestall such a development. Under Musharraf, it sought to actively “manage” the political process and allowed an explosive growth in print and electronic media, having noted the failure of Pakistan’s state-run television to make the country’s case during the Kargil War of 1999, particularly when faced with competition from the Indian and international media. This experiment in political and media management ended in ignominy after Musharraf made the mistake of trying to eviscerate the judiciary, a naked departure from the democratic discourse that antagonized a significant segment of the professional class and galvanized existing opposition groups. The elected government that succeeded Musharraf sought to bolster Parliament as the supreme source of power and legitimacy, but it is far from certain that Pakistan will be able to break free of the antidemocratic inertia that permeates large parts of the polity and even the media.
The vibrant private media outlets that have emerged in recent years continue to suffer from a dearth of experienced and knowledgeable practitioners, partly due to the failing state-run education system. These outlets’ rough professional edges, inadequate knowledge, and lack of familiarity with the ethics of best media practice have been all too clearly on display. The infant media sector may grow into a responsible entity over time, and pressure from readers and viewers could contribute to such a healthy development. Already there are signs of weariness and even despair at some of the media’s irresponsible excesses. But the accountability of the new outlets must be left to their audiences and, hopefully, ethical selfregulation mechanisms. While ideal in any country, this arrangement is doubly important in Pakistan, which has an unfortunate history of state intervention to curb media freedoms. Without an unfettered and responsible media sector, democratic development will be seriously hobbled.
Even as it confronts these historical, structural, and social obstacles, Pakistan will also be shaped by its interactions—both positive and negative—with the world beyond its borders. Its strategic position, unique security challenges, and elusive democratic potential will no doubt attract close international attention for some time to come.