Chakwal Diary: Pakistan in calm waters as democracy triumphs

There is nothing wrong with the political cast thrown up by the Musharraf revolution. It just makes you go to sleep. Even in a land not famous for political excitement, this has to be the most anodyne - dictionary-meaning: not likely to cause offence or disagreement and somewhat dull - government in a long time.

At his first meeting with the pontiffs of the press (what's the purpose of these meetings? I've always wondered), Prime Minister Jamali touched Majid Nizami's knees as a sign of respect, a fact dutifully reported by Nizami's paper, the Nawa-i-Waqt. Deeply touching, both the knee-touching and the faithful reporting.

Jamali should soothe the nation's jangled nerves, his countenance being enough to put an insomniac to sleep. Indeed, if his first few weeks in office are anything to go by, the entire nation is in for a long sleep.

These are the fruits of real democracy, the wonder General Musharraf promised when he seized power, and as long as we stuck with them, we can rest easy nothing exciting or breathtaking is likely to occur in the nation's affairs.

General Musharraf and his political team can congratulate themselves on a job well done. They wanted to tame the nation's politics. They have given the nation a potent sleeping pill whose salutary properties are already beginning to show.

Who's the Cardinal Richelieu of this new (new?) dispensation? Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of Gujrat, the de facto chief of the Q League now getting ready to become its de jure chief too after the expected ouster of the luckless Mian Azhar. There's nothing wrong with Shujaat, an amiable fixer and provincial-level wheeler-dealer. But there is something seriously wrong with a country or a political system where someone like him - you'll have to go to Gujrat to discover his brand of politics - becomes political commander-in-chief.

Who says General Zia is dead? He remains godfather of the entire mess we are in. Forget about jihad, Afghanistan and the rest. Closer to home, he created the Sharifs and it was under him that Shujaat and his cousin, Pervez Ellahi, now mansabdar of Punjab, got huge loans from the nationalised banking sector. True, they were into big money before but not the kind of big money they are into now.

Gen. Musharraf promised a clean political system. The raison d'etre for his coup was precisely this. Pakistan's political stables had become rotten and needed a thorough cleansing. After all the rhetoric of accountability heard ad nauseam for the last three years, we are seeing some of the worst jokers of the past back in the political stables. The more things change... indeed...

The routine of political gimmickry in the Islamic Republic never varies. Every prime minister promises steps to ease the plight of the poor. Jamali has done the same and there's been a 12 paisa lowering of the electricity tariff. A fat lot of good this is going to do anyone, least of all to that staple of national sympathy, the 'common man'.

Every Punjab chief minister tells thanas (police stations) to behave and carries out surprise checks of hospital wards. Shahbaz Sharif did this, to what good it is hard to say. The new Mansabdar of Punjab, Pervez Ellahi is making the same noises - thanas, hospitals, the common man. Can't they hire some new scriptwriters?

The prospect ahead is enough to make anyone's heart sink. Gen. Musharraf in Army House and commuting occasionally to the presidency and Jamali Prime Minister. One Gujrat cousin putting Punjab to sleep, the other acting as king maker at the centre. Jam Yousaf (another exemplar of charisma) bringing good government to Balochistan. The religious group in full cry in the Frontier. A porridge of a government in Sindh. This is a measure of the stability we have secured.

Where do we go from here? Which is a redundant question considering that the only thing certain over the short-term is that Pakistan is going to sleep. We went nowhere under Musharraf with untrammeled powers. Where are we likely to go under this half-donkey, half-horse government?

This is the worst of both worlds, neither outright dictatorship nor outright democracy.

Dictatorship has the great merit of offering ready excuses for national failure. There is something comforting about that. There is no comfort in this hybrid arrangement which gives the appearance of democracy but carries all the deadweight of authoritarianism.

God knows Jamali wouldn't be anyone's first choice to head a panzer division. But even if he was more of a live bird, what can he do? What could Napoleon have done in similar circumstances? Our problems are huge and need correspondingly big decisions, not 12 paisa cuts in the electricity tariff.

We need peace with India, a settlement along pragmatic lines - the key word here being pragmatic - of the Kashmir issue. We need a cut in defence spending and a shifting of priorities from gunpowder and firearms to the health and education of our citizens.

The jokers strutting about on the national scene are busy distributing loaves and fishes amongst themselves. True, they lack power to take the big decisions. But even if they had the power they would not have the vision. Power and understanding go together. The one without the other is useless.

To say that Musharraf could have achieved so much but did not is a cry in the wilderness because if expectations are to mean anything, they must be realistic. It's no use expecting a featherweight to win the heavyweight crown. All of us are prisoners of our limitations. Musharraf could not have done more than he has. The miracles expected of him by his gullible admirers were based upon unrealistic expectations.

We are caught in a cruel cycle. National security is a holy cow permanently in army custody. No civilian, however seemingly powerful, dare do anything with it. Indeed, far from questioning the shibboleths of national security, every civilian leader, from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif, has tried to outgun the army on these issues by shouting the same slogans in a louder tone. Kashmir, Afghanistan and the bomb: civilian and military leaders have drunk at the same waters. And Ms Bhutto, let it be remembered, even pinned a medal of democracy on the army's chest. You can't get more absurd or craven than this.

Just as in France it was only a leader of de Gaulle's stature who could persuade his people to accept Algerian independence, in Pakistan it is only the army which can oversee an improvement of relations with India. It was only the army which could execute the U-turns on Afghanistan and the Taliban. Had a civilian government tried the same tricks, it would have been ambushed on the way and read menacing lectures on patriotism and the higher national interest.

Seen in this light, Musharraf's biggest failure is on the India front. He could have made a difference. The Agra summit need not have been sacrificed at the altar of empty grandstanding, something of which both countries were equally guilty. We don't need the United States to tell us that a civilised relationship is in the best interests of both India and Pakistan. We should have the sense to realise this on our own.

Musharraf of course came into the ring accompanied by the ghosts of Kargil.