Long, long ago there lived the first bully who took what he wanted from anybody’s catch. And of course wherever there is a bully, there must come a hero sooner or later. A genuine hero is welcomed and revered since since such a person ensures that the bully does not take from others that to which he had no right.
So, where did this concept of right come from?
What are rights? Who gives them and how do they get sanctified? In essence, rights are values that have social consensus. They are derived from communal consciousness. Now, consensus, like rights, emerged even in nomadic human society and, though generally considered an integral part of democracy, it was certainly not invented when democracy was evolving in the west. It is not a tool for scattered individuals living outside society, whether confined to a mountain shanty or to a metropolitan penthouse.
All societies throughout time arrived at a consensus of rights, sometimes tacit and covert, at others explicit and overt. Almost invariably they have also imposed upon themselves a hero to ensure the enforcement of the consensus of rights and privileges. Naturally, these are built around the rights of those who perform extraordinary/administrative functions in society. Enforcement of rights and privileges creates a state. This state is sometimes usurped by a bully. It would be interesting to speculate on the process whereby people decided to surrender power to create social and political leadership in times when all humans were nomads and how both types of people, the sincere and the avaricious began to exploit the public in order to ensure enforcement of consensual rights, privileges and duties. For the time being, I will set aside the speculative issue; for the present, let us stay with rights and duties as they have existed in all recorded history.
Rights, the mother, and Duties, the father have two children: privileges and obligations. Rights are wedded to duties by social consensus. Government is the primary function of the state as the guarantor that all parties fulfil their obligations and perform assigned duties as agreed by society to receive their due share of rights and privilege’s. Like a normal family, communities within a society began to influence each other. Those who acquired privileges needed to safeguard them while those who got saddled with duties, wanted to ensure that they were performed and those who had rights would demand that those responsible for enforcement must fulfill their obligations. So far, the equation seems to be quite simple.
A state must fulfill its obligations and aspirations in accordance with the consensus [or social contract] and should be at liberty to extract its share of effort, produce, wealth, loyalty and obedience from the citizens to ensure that the rights of all members of society, the nation as a whole, are duly safeguarded. However, it is almost inevitable that some residents of the state are ill-intentioned in their dealing and try to usurp rights of others; consequently, the state must exercise force to restrain them. At the same time, it is certain that every now and again some executor of the duties of the state, whether bureaucratic or ‘ad hoc’, is either evil or incompetent, and fails to perform duties but asserts his/her rights.
While history is witness to several occasions when the society has suffered because of such people, it can also testify to many social uprisings against those who violate the terms which have been agreed upon, the so called social contract. However, it is more likely that, in the short run, when a citizen violates the code of consensus, the state reacts with censure; while if the state functionaries fail in the performance of duties and obligations, frequently the majority of citizens continue to suffer the consequences in silence.
This is due to several reasons. What comes most easily to mind is that there are seldom clear limits to the state machinery, and it is difficult to distinguish between the state and its functionaries; also, the citizens are likely to have forgotten the terms of their consensus, or they are unable to find the means of individual or collective action. It is this need that the democratic process is meant to address, through a regulation of redress. The birth of government by a state, occurred early in the social existence of mankind; during a time when we lived in a pastoral or rural habitat. Being a well organized and eloquent community, the governing elite arrogated to itself the cream of social privileges. With some justification, they, claimed more benefits in the name of better governance, enhancing the scope/extent of administration to provide security and facilitate economic growth by utilizing the social potential and increasing opportunities in the job market.
And then came democracy! Bringing politicians to oversee government and ‘the interests of the people’, this was the second payment for the same service. The governance function of the state had been performed by a community who had usurped or acquired the responsibilities in lieu of a portion of the surplus wealth. With the induction of the politician, the service was still governance!
There had been others who had claimed to perform a social service by administration in the public interest; either as regents of “The Creator of Humankind’ or as executors of some intellectual principle. However, the politician extracted a price in addition to the state functionary. Thus two parallel sets of guardians of public interest emerged, rather like the attorney and the solicitor, one of which was to be selected by the people and the other who was to actually deliver the services believed to be the functions of the state.
The politicians too were divided into two groups, those who exercised the right to dictate terms to both, the bureaucrat/functionary of state and a ‘common citizen’ who had “once again” surrendered the responsibility of governance; these “politicians” formed the “Government”. The other group of “politicians” had been told by the people that they did not enjoy the confidence of a majority of the people as they had been defeated in the elections. Now, these people, who had expended their resources in the hope of being voted to power, and who would need additional resources to contest the next election, were given the superior right of ‘safe guarding the public interest’ as the opposition to the government to “oversee the overseer”.
In the interest of better control over governance, the Germanic races of Europe decided to pay the salaries, and assign an elitist status to politicians in addition to the apparatus of state. In principle, the tiers of state in the form of local government, provincial government and national government were meant to divide governance into strata on the basis of the scale necessary for management of specific issues. Thus the defense of the state was invariably to be handled at the center, taxes were to be subdivided among the tiers and law an order were generally managed at the local level except in overlapping issues. In fact, the cost of time and money was at least duplicated when the three levels of government were instituted.
By this stage, society had paid thrice for governance, once to the state, once to the political government and once as a duplicate to either the provincial or local politician; already too many cooks were spoiling the broth. Being conscious that the broth was being spoilt broth, a new community of social servants emerged; called the civil society. This community comprised of persons who are adjuncts to governance.
They were likely to be part of government or had dealt with administration and judiciary on a regular basis. They knew enough about the structure and functions of government to feel that they could manipulate it for the public good; or for some reason had the leisure and means to aspire to serve the community. The civil society extracts a fourth, and so far the final, levy on social resources. Although, civil society seldom lays a financial burden on any but those who contribute voluntarily to it, but it does extract a heavy contribution from the common man in terms of time because not only does it demand participation in the decision making, it also depends on public participation for execution of its plans. What this means is that citizens now performs a task for which they paid the state; for which they suffered the dominance of politicians; and had contributed to local governments. And now contributed through effort to civil society initiatives.
I, like most Pakistani citizens ask what have I gained?
The issues of the civil society initiatives generally relate to civic facilities, employment, education, health and governance. It provides support in dealing with bureaucracy or administration in the hope of bypassing existing mechanisms of patronage structures, tribal or biradri links; but these were the equivalent of a civil society in our culture. Civil society tries to substitute or facilitate litigation and provide material support when it is unable to protect its members/clients/dependents; so does tribe or biradri. A common Pakistani has substituted “my /biradri/patron right or wrong” for “my country/ideology right or wrong”. In international politics civil society substitutes a commitment to religion with a commitment to democracy or a free world.
Unfortunately, the “free world” is not only a myth but its reality is in direct conflict with the Pakistani mind; though nonchalant about the practice of religion, Pakistanis find it difficult to be secular, nor can they think of a society in which communal obligations and family ties don’t have a primary role. Unfortunately a state assumes that it has an unlimited right to review the consensus based on an overarching mantel over the nation as a whole. It claims that its citizens themselves are the ones who review the consensus and permit the pervasive control of resources and policies. This is where the fallacy begins.
No matter how representative a democracy, the citizen who has voted against a policy [which number may collectively be an actual majority of the electorate] is constrained by the majority of actual votes polled. Worse than this is the fact that voters, no matter how inclusive the criteria, are never the entire population. It is almost certain, therefore, that at least a small minority [of potentially responsible citizens] suffers as a result of an enforced policy; in extraordinary cases, this may be a majority of people.
However, with the claim of a “periodic review option” in democracy, the condition may remain applicable indefinitely; to the actual detriment of society. The state as we know it was originally the outcome of a need for adjudication between trading communities, some sedentary and some mobile. In its role of adjudication was embedded the need for enforcement and administration as a requirement of defense of the oppressed against exploitation and oppression. These were the primary rights of the state. It could arbitrate between rival claims if allowed but it could not interfere in consensual exchanges. It could tax subjects within reason, expect a level of loyalty in times of crisis and exercise a use of force within agreed limits.
Most of these conditions are attested by religion and apply in virtually all ethical dispensations. Biblical and Quranic stories related to David verify them in Semitic religions; these limits also applied to the pharaohs and the rulers who challenged Abraham. Since they appear to have applied until the French Revolution in early modern times, and can be seen in pre-modern times [as in the case of Muhammad bin Tughluq, in the Delhi Sultanate], we can safely infer that these have been the rules of business in human society for three or four millennia. So why did modern Germanic Races change this time honored mode of life?
The reason is that the modern corporate identity, THE NATION, and the contest between nations, needs a different dispensation. The contest for supremacy, particularly between Britain and France, with its fallout to Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and the Balkans, needed to galvanize the society as a whole to defend a state which was run by an ambitious government. Having failed to integrate even England at a time when the houses of Lancaster and York were fighting; and having found the Scots a stumbling block till the time of Cromwell, the English government appealed to “national” sentiments by creating “Great Britain” in 1707 and initiated the invasive state. By making a ‘big push’ towards colonizing South Asia, the British were able to outsmart the French in the race for being the most dominant nation of the world.
It thus became possible to provide incentives and compensations for any and all disgruntled elements. Any lack of advantage suffered by any class at home [and the Scotts are a prime example] could be offset by high offices in the colonies. A tradition could be enforced on a docile home crowd and, being British, once a tradition was in place, it was virtually unassailable. The mechanism for control was perfected and refined in managing the sub-human ‘natives’ of the colonies and a sophisticated package of ‘managing perceptions’ could then be applied to the citizens who were convinced that their destiny lay in ruling the world.
This roster of modern rights of state has not convinced people of the state-nations. ‘Third-world’ countries are unable to apply it fully, most second world, even some so called first world countries find it difficult to implement it. Pakistan is an extreme case where the process of ‘renegotiating’ the rights of state has been an ongoing project since its creation. What makes it so difficult to find the right balance is that on one hand is a strong tradition of history and on the other an equally vibrant colonial heritage fighting for dominance.
In Pakistan ‘renegotiation of the social contract’ must develop a new consensus. Today, our modernist and traditional elites must reconcile to the idea that though ‘they deserve and reserve the right to present their formulae for national wellbeing’, it is the right of citizens to develop a consensus. We must also remember that if modern procedures have not yet taken root, traditional ones have been eroded. The solution must therefore be found by an amalgamated structure in which the existing polity is functional and effective.