Global Watch | How presidency in Pakistan became a comedy of errors

The recent controversy in Pakistan where President Arif Alvi denied that he had signed two bills which were perceived to have become law and the subsequent adverse reactions of the Law and Information Ministers and the establishment to the charges of this ‘forgery’ is yet another proof of how the institution of the president has been undermined in Pakistan. Incidentally, this is not a new phenomenon. The foundation of this flawed presidency was laid down with the establishment of this post itself in 1956. The tenure of the first President of Pakistan and what happened to him subsequently set the tone for a flawed institution of President in Pakistan that isn’t taken seriously by either the political establishment or the security establishment. The first President of Pakistan was General Iskander Ali Mirza. He took oath on 23 March, 1956 after Pakistan implemented its new Constitution. General Mirza didn’t blink before scrapping the very Constitution on 7 October, 1958 under which he had become the first president of his country. While proclaiming the abrogation of Pakistan’s Constitution, he not only dismissed the central as well as all the provincial governments but brought Pakistan’s fledgling democracy to its knees by abolishing all the political parties and dissolving the National and Provincial Assemblies. Mirza proclaimed martial law, and appointed Army Chief General Ayub Khan as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Both Ayub and Mirza were friends for 20 years. They were comrades-in-arms and after imposing martial law, they were now partners in crime. However, what happened on 7 October, 1958 was just a curtain raiser. On the morning of 27 October, General Ayub Khan took the oath of office as Prime Minister of Pakistan with a 12-member cabinet. The same evening, he went to meet Mirza and they had drinks together. Mirza revealed in a 1967 interview while being in exile in Britain, “He (Ayub Khan) seemed perfectly normal to me and friendly. I do not think even Machiavelli could have improved on the action of General Ayub Khan that evening.” Ahmad Salim, who had accessed Mirza’s unpublished memoirs much before the latter came out in the open gives a riveting account of the dramatic events that happened after General Ayub Khan left the president’s residence in Iskandar Mirza: Rise and Fall of a President: ‘At about 10 p.m., three generals — Sheikh, Azam Khan, Burki - and Major General Sher Bahadur entered the President House. One of the bearers knocked at the door and told the President that some Generals were waiting below to see him. He immediately put on his dressing gown and came out. He was astonished to see a large number of troops, in the garden and verandah, brandishing sten guns and revolvers. The generals announced that he had to resign and leave Pakistan. “Why?” he asked. “It would be in the interest of the country,” they replied…. Next morning, in the newspapers, along with the announcement of the new cabinet, in which General Ayub Khan accepted office as Prime Minister, there also appeared a notice to the effect that the President had resigned and Ayub Khan was the new President.”’ It is unparalleled in world history that a person who takes oath as the Prime Minister becomes the state of the head the next day! Mirza and his wife were taken to Quetta for around a week and after they were dispatched on a plane from Karachi airport to London to live as an exile there. Mirza had to pay for his and his wife’s tickets. According to Salim, “In November 1958, Iskander Mirza and his wife Naheed settled in London, where Mirza, to earn his livelihood and feed his small family, got a job at a London restaurant as an Assistant Manager. While working in a restaurant Mirza used to buy grocery and other items from shops and markets for the restaurant…When he died in London, he left 148 pounds, which at the prevailing cost of living, would have sustain him for a week or two only.” In an interview with YM Syed, General Mirza revealed that he received only Pakistan Rs 300 a month, simply not enough to make two ends meet. His wife had to cook their meals and they could not afford a car. The flat they occupied belonged to a friend. Mirza rued in this, “And so I ended my service to my country: banished, without warning. The army, which I had helped to make into such a fine force, sent me off, not with a guard of honour but with a prisoner’s escort. What happened with General Mirza was repeated with most of his successors in Pakistan and would most likely continue as the democratic institutions in this failed state remind one of the comedy of errors which is likely to have a tragic end! Stephen P Cohen put it aptly in The Idea Of Pakistan, “Thus began Pakistan’s long experiment with military rule, broken only by spells of highly personalistic, sometimes autocratic, civilian governments, all of which were carefully watched—and eventually deposed—by the army. Military rule was bitterly opposed by a few Pakistani politicians, but most found a role in the new system or dropped out of politics. Pakistan’s army, at first assisted by the civilian bureaucracy and a group of experienced political elites, assumed the role of benevolent babysitter, watching over Pakistani politics and society. Later it was to assume the dominant role in “correcting” Pakistan, emulating the benevolent, all-encompassing role of maa-baap (mother-father, the colloquial name for the British Raj). Like the Raj, it justified its rule in strategic and moral terms.” _The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. 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