Failure of Democracy

When discussing the political history of Pakistan, people are often wont to blame the failure of democracy on ambitious generals and inept politicians. The reality on the contrary is a lot more complicated. Concretely, the factors which have stunted the growth of democratic institutions are varied and can not be blamed on individuals. While the security situation post independence demanded a sustained effort to build a strong army with a centralized state to control the shenanigans of provinces and Indian aggression, the absence of a political party sans Muslim League that could pull together the various ethnicities in the nascent state created an atmosphere where the civil-military relations were eschewed in the favor of army from the very start. This then compounded with an inept governance at both federal and provincial level ensured the demise of a democratic republic. The democratic projects during the 70s', 90' and the late and early part of this and former decade, all of which were inaugurated considerable fanfare were constantly dogged by the institutional decay of the previous eras. What we have today is then a country which is still unable to chalk out a clear balance between various institutions of the state. To put it succinctly, the failure of democracy in Pakistan is directly rooted in the institutional problems that it inherited as a nascent state and is too complex a process to be blamed on individuals and their ambitions.

One enormous difference between Pakistan and India was that the former was a state that was being created from ground zero. This then compounded with the fact that hardly any of the industries were located in the areas which were now to become Pakistan. With little to no industrialization, and scarce financial resources, the founding fathers had an uphill task to not only create a new state infrastructure where there was none but to also protect it from falling down either under external or internal pressures. And the internal and external pressures there were many.

Concretely, at the external end, as the process of accession of independent states moved forward, the dispute on Kashmir arose. As Pakistan moved its armed forces into Kashmir along with tribal people from FATA, India also ordered its military to secure Srinagar. A full front war thus inevitable if the conflict continued, the Pakistan COAS then warned Jinnah of how the conflict if escalated would be absolutely detrimental for the Pakistani state which had scant resources to engage in a full scale war with India. The subsequent withdrawal thus had an enormous effect on those at the helm and a sustained effort was launched to create a strong army. This can be gauged from the requests made to US by Jinnah for army funding and also the exponential rise in defense spending which got thumping response from the constituent assembly.

Internally, the problems arose largely because there was no political party to tie together the various ethnicities that dotted Pakistan. This problem was further complicated by two major events. First, the Quaid's announcement in Bengal that Urdu would the national language of Pakistan. This created an enormous resentment among the people of Bengal who were hugely proud of their linguistic heritage and finally resulted in the first ever language riots in the nascent state. Secondly, those at the helm of government divorced themselves from the high command of Muslim League including Jinnah. Now, political parties act as a language through which popular ideas are transmitted to those who govern from who those who are being governed. With important leaders excusing themselves from high command of Muslim League, the only political party which could perhaps create chain between various parts of Pakistan was left without clout.