Interplay between democracy and authoritarianism

Fifty years after Independence it appears curious that two nations born of the same colonial legacy could travel apparently divergent paths -- India retaining a parliamentary democratic structure to this day while Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh quickly fell under authoritarian rule and have only comparatively recently restored parliamentary democracy. In fact the closing decades of the twentieth century have seen central political authority in both India and Pakistan face regional, linguistic, religious, sectarian, class and caste conflicts and a bewildering permutation and combination of all of these. In this respect Bangladesh, with its homogenous population seems the least divisive of all the South Asian countries.

The forces and events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries sketched the crude form of the picture that was to follow. What is important from our point of view is that various events made East Bengal's Muslims aware of their political importance for the first time and were to have far reaching consequences. The division along communal lines that made East and West Bengalis view the partition of Bengal from different points of view was to lead to the support for a Muslim Pakistan in 1947; while the secular form of modern Bengali nationalism based on language and culture was to linger and grow in importance politically and like a slow burning flame smolder until it burst into a blaze that ignited the Language movement of the 50s and 60s in Bangladesh.

Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative & Historical Perspective (pub: Cambridge University Press 1995) by Ayesha Jalal, is an excellent book that closely examines the interplay between democratic politics and authoritarian states in South Asia. The author examines the record meticulously and concludes that there is some evidence to show that while the parliamentary democratic structure existed intact in India, in reality right from the beginning the premier political party -- the Indian National Congress -- appeared to develop a symbiotic relationship with the civil bureaucracy, the police and the military elite thus enabling certain dominant social groups to gain access to and retain state authority and patronage.

This was even more true of Pakistan which experienced direct rule by the military- bureaucratic elite for decades until a shaky democracy emerged unfortunately soon to be dismantled. Our own experience in Bangladesh has more closely followed the Pakistani model and we face our own struggle to consolidate a working democracy.

Ms. Jalal's comments on the establishment of Democracy are clearly stated. She says that if a formal democracy is to be considered genuine democracy then it must guarantee, together with the right to vote and the freedom of expression, empowerment of the people not as abstract legal citizens but as active agents capable of pursuing their interests with some degree of freedom from entrenched structures of dominance and privilege. Therefore unless true empowerment takes place Democracy, as expressed in the formalisation of regular elections, can and often does exist with inherently authoritarian tendencies of state.

Therefore, it appears that all the countries of South Asia are, in fact, ruled by an elite political- civilian-military oligarchy which is direct heir to the strong, centralised and authoritarian administrative system which was devised by colonists to run a vast and diverse sub continent; therefore all three countries are following a similar path in giving democratic dispensation to elements of authoritarianism which are inherent in the structures of state.

To quote from the book, "Partition did not destroy a political unity forged by South Asians through processes of negotiation, compromise and accommodation worked out by a natural process of experimentation and evolution. It merely replaced a constitutionally unified centralized framework with two mutually exclusive and independent sovereign states.

Liberation from the colonial yoke did not involve the dismantling of the structures of unitary state power. The very instruments of colonial tyranny that had so fired the nationalist ire became the lightning rods of postcolonial order. The transition from colonial subjugation to post colonial freedom witnessed a remarkable degree of structural continuity under the rubric of apparent ideological discontinuity. Both India and Pakistan drew heavily on the colonial bureaucratic model. The Government of India Act of 1935 which strengthened the steel frame of British rule and had been abhorred by the nationalists was adapted to serve as the constitutional framework in both countries".

The post independence bureaucrats took to the centralised and controlling state machinery with great gusto but much less discipline and training than their British counterparts. This was particularly the case in Pakistan, which inherited a significantly smaller proportion of trained personnel since the Hindus far out numbered Muslims in government service.

The subsequent development of the bureaucracy into a stranglehold over the entire machinery of governance is familiar to us all since we grapple with it each day. There is no doubt that the model of ideal democracy based on the Westminster style of parliamentary government which ensured a formal separation between the bureaucracy and elected political representatives has been subverted to some extent in all the countries of South Asia but perhaps most in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It has proved difficult to establish the principle of legislative supremacy over the executive as we experienced in Bangladesh over the last decade since parliamentary democracy has been restored. Unfortunately successive governments in power, instead of undertaking a massive reorganisation of the administrative machinery to guarantee the supremacy of elected institutions and to change the colonial mindset once and for all, have accepted the status quo each time. Thus the coexistence of formal democracy with bureaucratic authoritarianism has become another of the more enduring legacies of colonial rule in the subcontinent.

Yasmeen Murshed is a full-time bookworn and a part-time educationist. She is also the founder of Scholastica School.