hHow do we view General Pervez Musharraf and his legacy? HC Armstrong wrote in Gray Wolf that Kemal Ataturk was a dictator, so there would be no one in Turkey now. Sadly, Musharraf was not Ataturk.
I still remember where I was on 12 October 1999. It was a computer lab on College Avenue at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, US. A Pakistani American friend of mine came to me and told me that there has been a coup d’état in Pakistan. He said that this would tarnish the image of Pakistan. I told him that it is a good thing that Nawaz Sharif’s government has been sent packing. An argument broke out. Sharif, in 1999, was about to transform Pakistan into a full democracy with his 15th amendment to the Pakistani constitution. It already had theocratic influence since 1973, and the Islamization of General Zia-ul-Haq made it more so.
But Sharif’s government was going the extra mile.
give secular hope
Musharraf’s coup, as tragic and unconstitutional as it was, nevertheless halted Sharif’s attempt to become the ‘Amir al-Mu’minin’ – leader of the faithful. Of course, the latter with its overwhelming majority in parliament was constitutionally fully empowered to make such a change. For many – including students studying abroad like me – his attempt to consolidate power by turning himself into a modern-day caliph was a step too far. Things done in the name of Islam in Pakistan cannot be changed, no matter how hard you try. Therefore, Musharraf’s intervention was welcomed even by democrats like Benazir Bhutto.
Musharraf promised the return of Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Pakistan – a liberal and progressive, Muslim-majority state. To bolster his credentials as a secular moderate, Musharraf spoke of Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish model. He also restored joint electorate in Pakistan, removing the injustice done to the minorities under General Zia’s rule. His interior minister told an international publication that the new regime wanted to make Pakistan completely secular. There was an obvious reaction from the religious parties, and that happened when Atatürk retreated in our latter days.
Read also:
settlement begins
In 2002, he started trusting traditional politicians and started compromising with it. That year, Musharraf removed the religion column (added by General Zia’s regime) from the passport. This change was quietly reverted and the Dharma Stambh was restored. The joint electorate that Musharraf had restored was also manipulated to ensure that the Ahmadi sect would remain effectively disenfranchised.
New electoral lists were prepared where, despite Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims being on the same list, the Ahmadi sect was excluded and placed in a supplementary list. It was another retreat for Ataturk fans. He now spoke of a modern liberal Islamic republic rather than a secular state. He was not the first to be “chastised” in this way. The country first became an Islamic republic in 1956. In 1962, Pakistan’s first military dictator – another Ataturk wannabe – Field Marshal Ayub Khan renamed the country the ‘Republic of Pakistan’, but then changed it back to the Islamic Republic a few months later. Islam cannot be brought back to Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Musharraf’s rule was marked by many positives. It was socially liberal, and much of the social conservatism imposed on Pakistan since the 1980s was undone. Pakistan’s fashion and music industries boomed. Events such as mixed marathons became regular annual events in cities such as Lahore. The festival of spring put Pakistan on the international map. The media also flourished and there was a flood of TV channels. There was a sudden improvement in the level of discourse.
When I returned to Pakistan in 2002, I found it to be a hopeful place full of energy. Relations with India began to improve and many markets in Lahore were crowded with Indian tourists. This was despite the fact that Musharraf was fully and, perhaps rightly, blamed for the Kargil War by the Indians. Even the Kashmir dispute was moving towards some kind of solution.
Musharraf’s downfall began in 2007. In March the same year, he arbitrarily asked the Chief Justice of Pakistan to resign. When this did not happen, Musharraf demanded to suspend and deactivate him. This led to nationwide protests by lawyers against the regime. While these protests were mainly non-violent, the regime insisted on suppressing them. In Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), an ally of Musharraf, attacked lawyers and protesters, leading to shootings and clashes on 12 May. The protest is known as the ‘Lawyers’ Movement’, or in Urdu, “Adalia Bachao Tehreek (Save the Judiciary Movement)”.
Read also:
in the middle of the storm
Around the same time, a group of religious fanatics who harbored foreign terrorists at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad began targeting Chinese businesses, particularly massage parlours, for their involvement in ‘un-Islamic’ activities. Earlier, the same group had occupied a children’s library in the federal capital, but the government did not act against them. Now threatened by the Chinese, the regime took action. An operation was launched that summer where commandos raided the Lal Masjid and killed the leader of the group. What followed was a significant media frenzy. It was claimed that Musharraf had authorized the use of chemical weapons against madrassa students at Lal Masjid, which led to the death of young female students of Jamia Hafsa (the madrassa attached to the mosque).
These claims were obviously untrue, but they spread like wildfire. Musharraf’s regime found itself in the middle of a storm. Lawyers were already on the streets along with major political parties. Now, the Religious Right has joined the bandwagon. The chief justice was reinstated in July, and in October, the regime allowed Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan. In November, Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and sent the Supreme Court packing. Only judges willing to be sworn in afresh under the Provisional Constitutional Order were allowed to remain, and were apparently loyal to the regime.
To make matters worse, on 27 December 2007, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, not far from the military headquarters. Even though a terrorist group claimed responsibility, public opinion largely blamed Musharraf. There was already resentment in Balochistan over the 2006 killing of veteran Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti. All these factors and the newly elected government of the Pakistan People’s Party forced Musharraf out of power in 2008, ending nine years of military rule. in country.
Pakistani army is different
Musharraf became a cautionary tale for those like me who supported him in his early years. A military dictator in Pakistan can never be another Kemal Ataturk because the Pakistan Army is structurally different from the Turkish Army as it was not involved in the struggle for the creation of Pakistan. A lawyer-politician trained in the British parliamentary tradition founded Pakistan, not an army general. There is no other way than parliamentary democracy and civilian supremacy in Pakistan.
Still, it’s scary to think what would have happened if the 15th amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan had taken place. Already an Islamic republic, this move would have given the federal government – specifically the prime minister – unlimited authority when it came to imposing Islam on Pakistan’s Muslims. It was a dreadfully worded amendment, and while it exempted non-Muslims from any such legislation or executive actions, the potential damage would have been irreversible.
Thankfully, even Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) never tried to revive that disastrous idea when they returned to power in 2013. Musharraf’s military coup, while tragic and inflammatory, helped save us from becoming a full democracy. Hopefully, there will be no need for such drastic measures in the future.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is an advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan and author of ‘Jinnah: A Life’. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Hamra Like)