Once partisanship seeps into a system, it starts eating an institution from within; capitulation is rapid and guaranteed

Diminishment of institutions towards partisan preferences has severe consequences of backsliding in a vibrant democracy and stifling the air of diversity. Partisanship disallows facts and superimposes ‘opinions’, that are rarely based on facts. The media landscape is a good reflection of the extent of partisanship that has been inflicted on the organs of democracy. The age-old maxim that media should serve to inform and not influence the public can be readily surrendered at the altar of expediency and favour. Partisanship is a slippery slope full of blind spots, hatred, and unfounded loyalty – the consequences of which were famously made by LK Advani to the Indian media after it had surrendered all pretences of questioning abilities during the Emergency, when he chastised, “You were asked only to bend, but you crawled”. India in the 70s was poorer for its media’s inability to ask hard questions to the government, as some within the fraternity had thrown in the proverbial towel, and soon the domino effect started. Once the seeds of ‘divide’ and partisanship are sowed and they start asserting themselves within any institution, capitulation is rapid and guaranteed.

Neighbouring Pakistan is witnessing a similar and unprecedented ‘divide’ and partisanship in almost all institutions of governance, which ought to be apolitical. Never a thriving democracy and given to its manipulations, intrigues, and regressions – yet the current virus of partisanship and implosive ‘divide’ within its vital organs, has perhaps never been more blatant. Even the so-called ‘establishment’ (read, Pakistani Military) is increasingly mocked for its purported ‘neutrality’. The implosion started within the now divided ‘Uniformed’ fraternity itself. It has reached a situation where a just-retired Pakistani Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Qamar Bajwa, openly talked about his predecessor, General Raheel Sharif, insisting on a three-year term extension on the pretext of the security situation, thereby compromising on the hallowed duty of silence on institutional matters with ‘brother-officer’ that warrants rectitude. But an unhinged General Qamar Bajwawho ‘selected’ Imran Khan in 2018 (instead of getting elected) and then fell foul with him to such an extent that he joined hands with political forces that he had once ousted, speaks volumes of shifting partisan preferences that beset Pakistan, today.

A similar ‘divide’ within yet another institution that had remained relatively apolitical earlier, is the Pakistani Judiciary. The days of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s valiant struggle against various political forces that once led to a transformative civil disorder is a forgotten memory. Justice Chaudhry’s activism (or ‘overreach’ as claimed by detractors) was said to have, “repurposed a once supine judiciary as a fiercely independent force”. But today his successor, Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial who was ranked amongst the 100 most influential people by Time magazine (2022), must face the ignominy of partisanship and ‘divide’ within the Judicial institution that has been latched on by politicians to curb the institution.  Time had noted about the CJI, “As other institutions lock horns in a battle for advantage ahead of impending elections, the court looms large as the final arbiter. Widely respected for his integrity, the Columbia- and Cambridge-­educated jurist bears the heavy mantle of not just delivering justice but also being seen to do so”.

But such apolitical independence, assertion, and scholarship to ‘question’ the dispensation of the day by an individual can often be embarrassingly irritating to the politicians who would rather have the wings of such a person clipped. Recently two judges of the Supreme Court challenged the Chief Justice’s power to form a bench or take suo motu notices, affording the invaluable opportunity to politicians to jump into the fray and take sides to the detriment of the Chief Justice. A bill to address the supposed ‘one-man show’ of the CJI by the ruling politicos i.e., Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill 2023 was hastily passed, and yet another institution of ‘checks-and-balances’ was immediately compromised, de-fanged and diluted in its ability to question the government. The dissenting Judges who had instigated the dissent against ‘own brother’ was a throwback to the similar diminishment of the Pakistani Judiciary, as meted to former CJP Sajjad Ali Shah in the late 90s. While there might have genuine and very pertinent demands to reform the overburdened, inefficacious, and faltering Judicial system, this ‘reform’ move was not aimed at improving the same, as much as safeguarding itself from probing stances, suo moto activism and questioning, that the government rather not face.

The timing was ominous as the Pakistani Federal Minister for Law and Justice conceded that, “there is a right time for everything” and that they waited patiently, “until a voice came from within the courts” and they swooped in immediately. For once, the Pakistani Minister could not have been more honest – it is the providential or more likely than not the instigated ‘divide’ within the Judicial ranks (for obvious reasons) that opened the opportunity for insecure politicians to adorn a sanctimonious posture and ‘reform’ the Judiciary. One after the other, the so-called ‘reforms’ within various realms like Media, Military or Judiciary will be made that effectively benefit certain partisan persuasions as opposed to the institution, or the nation. The lesson for all institutions is to evolve and reform with time and disallow the politicians to ‘reform’ to their benefit, by infusing partisanship and politics.

(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)