Whenever President Pervez Musharraf has ventured to mend or amend the extensively mended and amended document called the Constitution of Pakistan, I have not been able to keep my mind going back to the famous words of Martin Bormann the close confidante of Adolf Hitler.
“The will of my Fuhrer is the Constitution of Germany.”
Of course all the constitutions that have graced the face of the earth have been the products of one or the other ‘will’. But mankind, apart from ‘the will of some powerful individual’ has known two other forms of ‘will’ too – i.e. the will of the people and the Will of God.
In the western societies, the ‘will’ that has, over the centuries, come to reign supreme happens to be ‘ the will of the people’ – expressed at the polls and embodied in the parliament.
They call it democracy
In Islam too, the will of the people has to have its say, but only in the matters in which the Will of God is silent. Meaning thereby that in a Muslim state, the constitution has to be reflective of both the Divine will and the popular will.
But it so happens that mankind happens to have been ruled by powerful individuals too – in the past as a matter of rule – and in the present as an exception or an aberration.
It is ironic that most of the world of Islam continues to be ruled by those all-powerful ‘Fuhrers’ who consider it their inherent (even Divine) right to rule over their masses with an iron fisted firmness, and to make and unmake the laws at their sweet will. The only partial exceptions happen to be Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and to a lesser degree Pakistan.
It is Pakistan, founded by one of the twentieth century’s most venerated and celebrated democrats, that happens to be the subject of this column of mine.
Should it be concluded that this great Nation-State which has remained for several decades in a state of oscillation from the people’s will to the will of the Fuhrer – has finally arrived at a point where it can (and it must) resolve for good whether its future and its destiny lie in the will of the people or in the will of one or the other strongman?
Hopefully a positive answer to this crucial question can be found in the days or the weeks or the months to come. This can only happen if President Pervez Musharraf, in one of his benign moments, determines that he is the last Fuhrer that Pakistan can afford, and that it is time for him to start delivering the country back to its people.
Meaning thereby that if it becomes a rule that any person at the helm of affairs can demolish the state’s judicial structure with a single order, Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan will end up on the list of the banana republics of the underdeveloped world.
(This Column was first published on 11-12-2007)
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