The Rediff Special / J N Dixit

We should respond to Nawaz Sharif positively, but without any expectation of achieving tangible results

Pakistan's new prime minister will take office on Monday, as soon as he returns from the Haj. Nawaz Sharief has spoken of his willingness to improve Indo-Pakistan relations. Former foreign secretary J N Dixit, who will contribute a regular column on international affairs to Rediff On The NeT, checks out the portents for peace in South Asia.

Nawaz Sharif assumes the prime ministership of Pakistan after having won a landslide majority in the recent elections. Though his party has garnered the majority of seats in the national assembly as well as in the provincial assemblies, one point to be remembered is that only 25 to 30 per cent of the voters in Pakistan voted in the elections and it is only a majority of this segment of the voters who brought Nawaz Sharif into power.

So despite his overwhelming legislative majority, his claim about having had a genuinely massive mandate from the Pakistani people can be questioned. What is of particular relevance to us in India is that he has given initial indications that he wants to resume the dialogue with us for normalising relations. We should, of course, respond positively but without any expectation of achieving tangible results in the foreseeable future. The limited aim can only be to restore a minimal atmosphere of normalcy between India and Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif's major challenge in his second tenure as prime minister would be to establish a working equilibrium with the president and the armed forces. This would limit his freedom to exercise the options which he has in mind in foreign and economic policies. It is in this context that one must examine the implications of the Pakistani armed forces high command assuming a supra-governmental role as members of the Council for Defence and National Security which was created by President Leghari just before the elections. It would be pertinent to examine the ramifications of the establishment of this council.

The creation of the CDNS confirms the axiom on socio-political behavioural patterns that power gravitates in any society to its most cohesive and disciplined segment. Leghari had given clear indications that he plans to give the Pakistani armed forces a formal institutional role in governance from early December 1996 onwards. He explained that this was necessary for Pakistan because of the internal ferments, the inefficiency of the civil institutions, and the corruption permeating political processes in Pakistan.

Leghari announced the creation of the CDNS, which is to consist of the president, the prime minister, the three service chiefs, the defence minister, the foreign minister and the home minister.

In terms of the substantive chemistry of power equations, the three service chiefs assuming a more formal role in the management of the Pakistani polity is nothing new. The armed forces chiefs were in any case the most important constituent of the troika which formed the power centre in Pakistan, namely, the president the prime minister and the three service chiefs led by the chief of the army staff. What is significant now is the institutional formalisation of the role of the armed forces in the government of Pakistan. This could evolve and get confirmed into a constitutional role.

I make this assessment in the context of another development in Pakistan which coincided with the creation of the CDNS. The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the validity of the 8th Amendment to the Pakistani constitution which vests the president of Pakistan with the power of unilaterally dismissing an elected prime minister if, in the president's assessment, the prime minister's continuation in office affects Pakistan's effective governance, stability or security.

Leghari's decision to create the CDNS fundamentally changes the constitutional characteristics of the Pakistani state and the power equations in Pakistani politics. The Pakistan army's previous covert and periodical role as the arbiter of Pakistan's political destiny now stands transformed as a legitimised permanent reality.

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