On September 29, the reality of the Pakistani state was laid bare in front of the watching eyes of tens of millions of people.
In and of itself, the naked use of force by the state is hardly a surprise; for at least 150 years, the western frontier of the Indian subcontinent has been home to a state in the best colonial tradition. The departure of the British 60 years ago barely altered the state’s self-anointed mandate to treat dissent as nothing less than sedition. From time to time, the state clearly feels the need to reassert this mandate.
The problem will not be solved just by getting rid of Gen Musharraf, or the sitting government, both sailing through their latest heist in the form of the presidential election on October 6. Thus on the 12th of October, Musharraf will have completed eight years in power and will begin his ninth year apparently in control. Be that as it may, Gen Musharraf is now less of a focal point than the
military that he — at least for the time being — heads. Given the pitiful state of the mainstream opposition parties, the military will retain the major stake in state affairs for the foreseeable future, and contrary to the perspective that the military’s involvement in any ‘transition’ to representative government is essential because it is the last functioning institution in Pakistan, it is the military’s continuing role that is the biggest impediment to meaningful change in Pakistan.
In as many words, ours is a state that is obsolete. It is incapable of meeting the needs of its people. Its very structure and logic precludes the possibility of representative democracy. As suggested at the outset, in many ways it is virtually indistinguishable from its colonial predecessor. The military of course symbolises the contradiction between a society that has changed dramatically and a state that has not. In classical colonial tradition, the military continues to consider government an apolitical, administrative exercise, even though it has consistently involved itself in
political exchange with other dominant social forces. The military uses and abuses the law to protect its own interests, all the while invoking the public (or the more common term, greater national) interest as a means of achieving its agenda. And last but definitely not least, the military continues to extract surplus from society in the name of security and order.
Meanwhile, society has undergone immense changes. The deepening of capitalism has thrown up new social classes and undermined existing ones. Cultures are morphing and polarisations proliferating. Yet, till now, the state has managed to negotiate these tremendous changes and essentially preserve itself. It has done so primarily by extending the promise of access to the state to the new social forces contending for power and money while administering life support to the old propertied classes. The post-1977 military has spearheaded this project, and most importantly it has unhinged the organic bases of politics through which the obsolete state structure could be challenged.
Thus the military remains the lynchpin of the system. It is not without reason that many commentators have pointed out that most countries have a military whereas in Pakistan the military has a country. But the almost uninhibited domination of the military has now reached unprecedented proportions. Thus the contradictions of the system have sharpened while the means through which to change it — a politics of the people — remain stunted. The past seven months are testimony to this; the leadership of mainstream parties neither have the will nor the capacity to truly push for change, while the anger and alienation of working people increase on a daily basis. This does not mean, however, that one should turn back to the military under the pretext that it alone retains the capacity to do something about the sorry state of affairs within which the country finds itself. Indeed, this is cynicism of the highest order, accession to the fact that the existing political system cannot be changed, and so all that can be done is to, as neo-liberals would say, improve its management.
The military has to go, and the sooner it goes the better. At least part of the reason why the refrain of ‘there is no other alternative’ persists is because intellectual dishonesty has reached great heights, and there is no attempt to motivate new political initiatives that can indeed address the gaping vacuum that everyone seems to be able to identify but very few want to fill. After the events of last Saturday, it is amazing that anyone could still insist on the need for ‘transition’. Such language befits those who sit in ivory towers and pontificate on political developments but not the vast majority of Pakistanis who are fed up with the excuses of the intellectual and social elite for the perennial ‘crisis’ that confronts this country. This state cannot work for people, and therefore it must be transformed. It is high time that those who fancy themselves as thinkers start thinking about how to augment the efforts of those who have been coming out on the streets for seven months to forge new directions for this basket case of a nation rather than lamenting that these efforts will not change anything.