Theocracy, military and stirrings of democracy

For the second time during his tenure as Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, General Musharraf's men confront their Indian counterparts over a potentially nuclear conflict. The first confrontation took place in Spring 1999. Then Kashmiri militants seized the Kargil heights in the disputed Siachin Area triggering a near war.

Now Kashmiri militants attempted bombing the Indian Parliament. The Indian Parliament attack was staged after the war against terror began last September. Then the U.S. demanded of the Taliban to hand over bin Laden. Similarly, India demands of Pakistan the handing over of 20 militants.

Once again Islamabad's military regime is caught between a rock and a hard place. In a bid to defuse an all out war, General Musharraf publicly admitted a policyre-appraisal this January. A leader who inherited the private militias and militants since he seized power three years back, came on television to declare a war against theocratic politics.

In his effort to prevent war, General Musharraf did two things. First he announced an internal crackdown on some militant groups. Secondly, he dealt with external affairs devolving on India-Pakistan relations.

The promise to crackdown on internal militants was described as "historic" and "path-breaking". It could turn out to be neither.Thedeclarations of combating militancy and the crackdown against militants are yet to pass the test of sincerity. Not one head has rolled for past policies presently repudiated. Moreover, maddrassas can be passed from one favoured group to another. Supporters can also defect from one banished group to a non-banished one.

The real test for the military regime comes in ridding the theocratic structure set in place since 1999 which permitted the flourishing of militias and militants at the expense of the political process and representative political leaders. Thedeclarations of conversion from theocrat to moderate are cosmetic until the pre-requisites of a democratic culture are met. The entire civil structure is groaning under the weight of military supervision.

Surprisingly, General Musharraf talked about the rise of a state within a state in Pakistan. Political forces use that phrase to describe military intelligence agencies. Civilian leaders call them a state within a state for a reason. The reason is that civilians lack the constitutional power to promote, demote, hire, fire or court martial military officers.

However, as Army Chief, Musharraf enjoys these powers. There can hardly be a state within a state under him. He needs to clarify what he means by the statement. If there is a disconnect between statedpolicy and rogue policy, the country could land between twostools.

Under democratic governments, the Pakistani soldiers earned praise in peace keeping missions. They came under criticism on three counts. First, insisting their geo strategic vision be thrust on the Parliament, second destabilising elected leaders refusing to implement their geo strategic vision and third for assuming civil duties like collecting gas bills.

Moreover, the Mujahideen did not come out of thin air. They were the children blessed by the establishment. When parents devour children to escape retribution there is public revulsion, even if a child got out of hand.

There is great sympathy with the Kashmiri people in Pakistan even if there is criticism of the infiltration of non Kashmiris in many groups.

The establishment parents sent the Mujahideen to die in the icy cold of Kargil. They sent them to die in the harsh climate of a bombed Afghanistan. Perhaps a word of apology is due to past friends and foes. To those used and abused, or those persecuted, at the alter of a wrong Establishment policy.

A policy that motivated young men from poor families to pick up guns while destabilising democracy and terming patriots, traitors. The dangers of policies unquestioned are in built in the nature of a military regime born to dictate or capitulate rather than coalesce.

The danger of a war with India is hopefully averted but still far from over.

Other challenges knock on the door including the rise of ethnicity that the Afghan war brings to the mountain passes of Pakistan. A pro-India government replaces a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul signalling a possible revival of Pakhtoon nationalism in the two key provincesof Balochistan and Frontier.

These provinces are home to hundreds of thousands of bitter Pakhtoon Afghans as well as to disgruntled tribes.Thereversal of policy came across as the combination of heavy Anglo-American-Indian pressure in the post-September 11 environment.

It did not come when the Pakistani democratic forces asked the military regime to distance itself from the militant groups. Instead those groups were, and continue to be, ignored andpersecuted.

The conclusion by leading democrats, therefore, is that, in the absence of the foreign pressures, the military regime would continue backing militancy and theocracy. The fear is that it could go back to backing it once the world temperature cools. After all, the unilateral withdrawal from Kargil in 1999 failed to halt the re-eruption of tension in December 2001.

In overtly repudiating theocracy, the military regime took measures,literally, from the Manifesto and Agenda of the democratic forces. But it faltered in aping the democratic forces. It continued to single them for persecution.

More tellingly, it insisted on relying on the same federal, provincial and institutional set ups that are the architecture on which the theocratic structure was built.

This disconnection between stated policy and the governmental edifice raises questions regarding the declarations the general made under the gun held to his temple of an Indo-Pak conflagration. What happens when the gun is lifted is yet to be seen.

The overt declarations by the Musharraf regime, irrespective of its covert intentions, mark the amazing victory of the ideas of the democratic forces.

It is a watershed time in the history of Pakistan where the policies of the establishment are publicly repudiated as wrong by the establishment itself. Those policies are non sustainable in the new world climate of the 21st century.

During the Cold War, the Pakistani establishment patronised the religious parties. They promoted them in the world community as the anti-Soviet, anti-atheistic force to counter communism. The establishment supported the Muslim Brotherhood with dictatorship while democrats were marginalised.

But from the ashes of the murder of democracy in 1977 with the hanging of Pakistan'sPrime Minister rose the sun of democracy in 1988. Its rays brought forth the rebirth of the plant of freedom and free markets. The democratic order born that year demonstrated that democracy and development go hand in hand. The high growths, high revenues, high investments achieved under democracy remained unmatched under controlled democracy as well as outright dictatorship.

Moreover, the remarkable rise of the democratic polity coincided with the rise of female leaders in the Muslim world. This rise demonstrated that Muslim masses wanted to join the rest of the world community in overcoming prejudice and building a society where each individual could prosper on the basis of eq