London: In August Pakistan will complete 72 years of its independent and sovereign existence. Its creation was a unique phenomenon. The entire Pakistan Movement was an epitome of honesty in leadership, sincerity of purpose, dedication, determination and moral courage that made the idea of a separate Muslim state possible. Quaid’s biographer, late Professor Stanley Wolpert puts it at best when he says: “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three”.
MAJ had set for his colleagues and the party a strict code of morality and honesty. MAJ believed honesty as the key to corruption- free politics and the bedrock for a corruption-free society. The All-India Muslim League was neither entirely a party of the rich feudal class nor the Muslim capitalists. It had a multi-class composition. No doubt MAJ’s no 2 – the Secretary of All India Muslim League (AIML) – Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was a rich feudal lord with several thousand acres of land, his strength lay in the fact that like the Chinese Revolutionary leader, Chou En-lai, he had declassed himself and MAJ called him a proletariat Nawab.
Despite the fact there were many aristocrats in the high command, AIML’s culture as party of the poor was manifested in its top-ranking plebeian leaders such as Maulana Hasart Mohani who was an Islamic Bolshevist who preached Sharia-Bolshevism much in the mould of Hazrat Abu Zar Ghaffari. While MAJ was aristocratic and English in his bearing, Hasrat Mohani, with his plebian character, surpassed all of them as the representative of the have-nots. He slept on the floor, travelled third class, and dressed modestly, a little more than Mahatma Gandhi just to cover himself not to be called a naked faqir.
Currently nation is caught in the quagmire of corruption, starting from the top to the bottom. It is a story of a journey of 72 years—from the sublime to fall to the ridiculous. In his 11th of August 1947 speech, MAJ specifically dealt with the serious challenge corruption would pose in Pakistan. He was conscious of his commitment to equality in job opportunities for all and equal treatment– irrespective of caste, creed, colour or gender. These were his bed-rock principles for the foundation of Pakistan and a moral compass to give the nation a corruption-free sense of direction.
MAJ believed in the dictum of Lord Acton that “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Indeed, corruption today has become endemic–a worldwide phenomenon where only quantum of disease varies. MAJ also knew well that the fish starts stinking from its head. If there is no corruption at the top, there won’t be any trickle-down impact. His honesty was unquestionable. Indian Bania capitalists, apprehensive of the economic fall out of the partition and break-up of the sub-continetal free market- tried to buy him to abandon his idea of Pakistan. Neither could they purchase his second-in-command. When Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated he had just around Rs 600 in his bank account, his wife and children had no home of their own.
Until the first martial law in October 1958 and crash landing of generals in politics, there was no element of corruption among civilian leaders. If there was any iota of abuse of office, the person was at once taken to task by the leadership. The initial ten years can be described as our golden period, as far as honesty among rulers and politicians were concerned and the nation’s moral compass, bequeathed to it by MAJ remained intact.
Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s so-called “decade of development” ushered in corruption. Tagged to Washington’s apron strings, he believed in the American dictum that economic development and corruption go together. Instead of showing any sign of decline over the years corruption has been growing. It was hoped since every successive ruler promises a crusade against corruption, things would improve. They have worsened.
Ayub Khan brought a fundamental change in the moral fabric of society. For the first time emerged a military-civil bureaucracy and capitalist matrimonial alliance. Since Ayub had no popular legitimacy, he had to create his own constituency away from cantonments. Twenty rich families, few generals and a lot of bureaucrats changed the whole socio-economic complexion. And indeed, by the time Ayub was shown the door Pakistan was pushed into an era of “gherao-jalao” (siege and burn). Had there been no fall of Dhaka, both Eastern and Western Wings would have been plunged into a class war.
From the debris of defeat in 1971 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto emerged as the harbinger of change. He gave hope and new lease of life to a truncated Pakistan, unshackled the masses, opened up floodgates of socio-economic opportunities, taking the nation into the future. His executioner, General Ziaul Haq, destroyed whatever he had salvaged of MAJ’s Pakistan. To remain in power life long, Zia had to create his own constituency. He unleashed the forces of corruption, disgorged the constitution, held party-less elections and replaced national cohesion with baradiris (clan) and sectarian lobbies to sustain him. His game of money and power-politics gave birth to present phenomenon of agricultural versus industrial wealth each competing against the other.
Zia’s most culpable crime was to rent out Pakistan’s security apparatus for waging American jihad against the Soviet Union to avenge Washington’s humiliation in the Vietnam War. In return he received unaccounted for billions that partly paid for the Jihadis and the rest got pilfered by handlers leaving their heirs treasure troves that would last at least their seven generations.
However, Zia’s involvement of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, in politics was the greatest disservice to the institution. His successors like Army Chief General Aslam Beg and DG ISI late Gen Hameed Gul got involved in engineering their brand of politics to stop Benazir Bhutto’s landslide victory.
It is a sordid tale of abuse of power by the generals brought out in public by late Air Marshal Asghar Khan by his land mark petition in the Supreme Court. It has exposed how ISI engineered the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) (Islamic Democratic Alliance), how it manipulated the elections in 1988 and subsequently in 1990 when Aslam Beg ordered his DG ISI Lt Gen Asad Durrani—brought on court record by his sworn affidavit— to bribe anti-Bhutto politicians.
General Pervez Musharraf staged his coup in October 1999 – with the promise of bringing to book all those who had allegedly looted Pakistan. Like Zia, he too, was an American bag-carrier and received billions including a palatial residence as gift from the late Saudi King. He jumped into bed with the most corrupt in the Punjab to keep PPPP out of power. One would not like to go into details of the ill-gotten assets of other generals, bureaucrats and politicians – one would stick to answering the question of how possibly we can minimise corruption. By hanging the corrupt? No, by putting them in jail? No, then what?
The greatest dread for any one today, whether in government or otherwise, is social media, followed by electronic media and newspapers. Irrespective, that these are being blatantly abused, one must say the fear of exposure runs chill in the spine of strongest including those in power desperately trying to control social media by virtually Gestapo methods called Cyber Laws.
The best way forward towards combating corruption is through social media, TV channels and newspapers. A genuine crusade needs to be started for the renaissance of social and moral values. Once organized on every level in society, every member of the community could easily make a guess as to who is living beyond one’s means.
Social boycott is a powerful weapon when one has organised the society to living within its means. Fundamental for the adoption of austerity is to have the will to give up the ostentatious life style and adopt simple living and high thinking.
Poor and underpaid seek corruption as a means for sheer survival in the absence of reasonable relationship between prices and wages. On the other hand, corruption of the rich cannot be condoned as it is out of their greed to sustain their pompous and ostentatious life styles that have come to be the way of life. We must not expect a poacher to guard the sheep. In a country where a minuscule minority pays taxes, organisations such as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) should be replaced with something as powerful, objective and transparent as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India. While our NAB and FIA are considered to be the most corrupt—favourite weapons for the government of the day—to settle scores with opponents.
In Pakistan, the basic principle for successful accountability is not there. Whatever the process or system that we have is not above board, is selective and discretionary. One looks forward to a time when we will find our way out of the moral wilderness by seeking above board accountability of all and sundry.
