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Civil-military relations and democracy – II

It is only too obvious that in a parliamentary democracy, where governments can change after elections, such trained specialists should be totally neutral and apolitical. Otherwise, every new government will have to usher in hundreds and thousands of these specialists afresh which would be time consuming, money consuming and totally impractical. The worse will be if a party in power tries to woo these permanent state servants to serve their own party and personal interests by various means which would come within the definition of corruption. To prevent such eventualities, the framers of the Constitution provide a framework which helps the governments accountable and checks them from indulging in malpractices. This framework is in the form of Parliament with Opposition parties free to ask and enquire into anything; Judiciary, which not only interprets laws and ensures these are in accordance with the words and spirit of Constitution but checks the government where it goes wrong; Auditor General, a senior post protected by the Constitution to audit the government expenditures and finally the Executive, comprising the military (Army, Navy and Air Force) and the civil service (all the specialists referred to earlier) under the control of the executive government to carry out all its lawful orders and implement the programs and policies contained in the manifestos. It is worth emphasising that the tools provided to the government for carrying out its job make it very powerful and it needs to be kept under check by the other institutions of the Constitution. The basic responsibility, of course, lies with the services, military and civil, to act under the law and constitution and to refer back any order or instruction for reconsideration if any one considers it unlawful. Deviant behaviour of the government or any functionary of the government creates disorder and disequilibrium in the whole society leading to problems, ie, law and order, unemployment, corruption, favouritism, non-implementation or delayed implementation of programmes and policies.

THE CONSTITUTION This is the civil government’s source of power. It lays down the framework under which an elected government plays its legitimate role in Parliamentary form of government. It describes in detail the functions of various essential organs that a State is made of, such as, Parliament, how it is to be elected, its powers of legislation through its two houses; the Judiciary, how it is structured, how are the judges appointed, what are their roles and how do they function; Defence Forces and the Executive arm of the country, The Election Commission, Auditor General, Provinces and the division of subjects between the federal and the provincial governments etc. The essence of the Constitution, however, is its ability to maintain an equilibrium among its various organs, each of which is vital for the basic purpose for which a Constitution is needed viz delivery of a variety of services required by the people at ground levels in an effective and timely fashion. That, of course, depends on the government elected through popular vote in a popular democracy. How well does it organise and discipline its party echelons for providing genuine feed back to the government of peoples’ basic needs and how and if they are being met or not met. The government has a large, well educated, trained, professional civil service in various fields of governmental activity well equipped to carry our government’s policy directives in the form of specific actions to deliver the specific services required by the people in the field. For instance, security and order is one basic need of civil society for which the government must have a professional, trained Police force. But, over a period of time, this force has gradually become so heavily politicised through recruitment, promotions, appointments etc that its credibility is lost. Many ranks have become corrupt. Many are misused for home protocol of the Ministers and officials, even their cohorts. So, it lacks the capability to deliver the basic service of security and public order. Police is, of course, a provincial subject under the Constitution and so is the maintenance of security and order in a province. Its example was cited here as a glaring example how many of the high performing agencies of the government have ceased to be effective deliverers of services required by the people in the field, which is the basic purpose of state, the social contract and the Constitution. In Pakistan’s context, one often found the much needed balance or equilibrium between the various organs of the state tilted towards the Executive, supported by the armed services and the Police and the para-military services, much to the detriment of Parliament and the Judiciary, until recently when after a successful movement of lawyers and the civil society the Judiciary started to assert itself almost as if in vengeance. A balance of Powers at this level helps to keep a check and balance on all, including the military.

THE PARLIAMENT The Parliament is a great source of strength and power for the government but only, when and if, it is used by the government. On all major policy issues, it is prudent and politically desirable for the government to seek mandate from the Parliament. Government is a product of the Parliament but the source of its power is people who have elected the Parliament. This is acknowledged in all Parliamentary systems. I remember when at Tashkent Field Martial Ayub Khan immediately signed the treaty but Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Indian Prime Minister, excused himself and said, “I will have to go back and seek the mandate from my Parliament”. This statement of Shastri not only gave him the strength and time to deliberate the deal in the Parliament, it established beyond any doubt the democratic credentials of the Indian polity. The Parliament, itself must present before the nation its well known proverbial parliamentary behaviour of tolerance, patience, a level of knowledgeable debates on all issues of interest to the nation. This, of course, necessitates extensive study by the legislators on all such issues. The Parliament reflects the character and behaviour of the whole nation and it must act in public welfare measures with objectivity and grace to influence every member of the nation, be it a common man or a member of the services. Respect comes to the Parliament not through exercise of privilege motions but through effective legislation for welfare of the people across the board, through tolerance, patience, gracious behaviour, witticism and high character qualities displayed in speeches. These are traits and qualities loved and respected by the people of all classes, especially the trained and disciplined.

THE POLITICAL PARTIES Political parties are the soul and blood of a democratic system. More organized, better trained, better disciplined they are, the stronger and more stable the polity would be. The concept of shadow government in more advanced countries not only helps the parties prepare themselves for running the government well, whenever they have to, but it also infuses great sense of confidence amongst the political cadres and sympathisers, as well as the general people in the efficacy of the modern system. The parties should also develop a capability to help the people in an organized manner in times of natural calamities and disasters, such a capability exists today only with the military which they have always discharged splendidly to the great satisfaction of the people affected. If the civilian entity wishes to achieve an achievable goal, it is here. The parties have luckily displayed in recent years much greater maturity, which together with the other indicators is a very positive development for future sustainability of a democratic government.

THE JUDICIARY The judiciary when acting independently of the executive and yet in furtherance of the spirit and provisions of the Constitution, is a bane for democracy. The few judgements given in the past in the Constitutional Petition of Maulvi Tameez-ud-Din and in the case of Mr Bhutto have been universally acknowledged as bad and perverse. They should better be left in the museums where they belong and we should rejoice at the emergence of an independent judiciary, which has the strength and ability to keep at bay any adventurism. In situations where the Parliament or the Executive do not play their constitutional role of delivering the basic services like security, order, water, education, health, fairness in deals and transactions etc, the Judiciary in recent times have played a direct role of picking up cases for adjudication in what is known as their suo motu jurisdiction. This came under considerable criticism of especially the elite but the common people liked it. The military is the mirror of the aspirations of the common people because of their traditional background and such practices of meeting ends of justice quickly and fairly provide warmth to many of their hearts.

THE CIVIL SERVICES It has been said that if a nation is an idea, the state is its bureaucracies. The structure of the Civil Services in Pakistan, besides that of the military, we inherited from the British, Both the Military and the Civil service structures were strong and well organized in which a professional civil service which was considered the steel frame of British India and which played a Yeoman’s role after the partition in 1947, when hundreds and thousands of refugees from India poured into their new chosen country in miserable conditions, when even the Army was not well equipped to handle the situation and through which a small, ill-equipped military but highly trained and disciplined, fought an early war with India in Kashmir and kept its much bigger Army from sweeping across Kashmir.

Despite all political upheavals, the civil service remained at the service of the people, the proof of which lies in the continuous delivery of service. It is the civil service, which kept the writ of the government in the Tribal Areas until the end of the political administration there, when the entire system collapsed leaving a vacuum to be filled in by the forces beyond the control or influence of the government. This needs to be built up as a source of strength of the civil government. In a parliamentary form of government, the apolitical role of a strong, merit-based, trained bureaucracy is an absolute necessity and can no longer be put aside.

CONCLUSION The strength of an elected government, in the final analysis, lies in the popularity of the government amongst the people. This popularity is determined by the effectiveness and quality of the various services performed by the state functionaries under the general policy control and guidance of the political government. The state functionaries, for this purpose, need to be recruited through recognised, constitutional methods of Public Service Commissions, given the right kind of professional training for various jobs and placed in a conducive work environment where periodical accountability and not day-to-day on-the-job interference and demoralising actions hamper their style of governance and destroys the confidence. The true fruits of democracy are enjoyed by the people of a state through good governance. The democracy, which pertains to the electoral process and thought process, plays an important part in guiding good governance. But this governance has to be professional, by trained state functionaries who are neutral to all classes of people. Such governance is all the more necessary in a parliamentary form.

But it must be remembered that while constitutionally, the people are called upon to judge their elected representatives at the end of their tenure, which means after five years, in fact the peoples’ judgement continues on a daily basis, not just of the conduct of the representatives in the parliament but daily on the ground, in their mohallas, streets and towns. If in this period, their problems are not resolved effectively, promptly and justly, if trigger happy thugs wooing unjust causes, choose to bribe the citizens, not bowing to their legitimate demands or if lawlessness greatly prevails unchecked, in short, if there is no good governance in their daily lives, the people out of sheer frustration start looking elsewhere for help and relief, unless they choose to immigrate.

My thesis is that it is time like this, which must be prevented in the interest of democracy. The people want democracy, but they also want peace, order and justice around them within their own life time. They want end to their poverty within their own lives, they want health, education, equal opportunities of development for all children now, not to-morrow. This is the essence of social contract. This comes with delivery of needed services promptly and effectively, to one and all and not just to the partisans. The author believes that in a polity where good governance and democracy go hand in hand or where in a democratic polity all state organs are permitted to perform their constitutionally-assigned roles, the supremacy of the Constitution would prevail and the turbulence often caused by irritant relationship between the civil and military will disappear.

The convergence between the civilian government, the political elite and the civil and military professionals takes place around good governance delivered to the governed whose ultimate satisfaction is the guarantee of a sound polity.

(Concluded)

(The writer is a former civil servant. He has worked as Chief Secretary Sindh and Principal Secretary to PM, as well as Defence Secretary. He was also Defence Minister in the Caretaker government)

Salim Abbas Jilani, "Civil-military relations and democracy – II," Business recorder. 2014-09-26.
Keywords: Political science , Political issues , Political system , Political leaders , Political parties , Civil-Military relations , Politics-Pakistan , Constitution-Pakistan , Parliament-Pakistan