Re: Why do educated and intelligent Pakistanis support dictatorship over democracy?
Sa1eem, we got it...you support dictatorship b/c in serves your interest.
No, you did not get it. :). You are partly right and partly wrong.
You are right that I support soft 'middle and working class' dictatorship over feudal class controlled democratic monarchy.
On the other hand, you are wrong that such 'soft dictatorship' serve my interest best, as personally, I can benefit more under democratic anarchy that democratic monarchy brings.
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BTW, you missed on part of the article where he talks about how democracy took hold in India and not in Pakistan and the reason we all know why...
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No, I did not missed that. Actually, Irfan missed something and that is, when we talk about democracy in Pakistan, it is not just education, it is change in structure of society.
Structure of Pakistan (West Pakistan) and Indian society is completely different and it was different from day one (from 1947). At partition and even today, most of West Pakistan was either tribal society (controlled by Sardars) or agricultural society (controlled by Jageerdars or Vaderas). On the other hand, India already had gone through a change and many business houses were well established there, plus since India was center of government, there was many job opportunities there, and thus most people never used to rely for their living on Jageerdaars or Sardars.
At time of Partition, Pakistan had no industry and no mentionable institution of education (all were in India) and area what is Pakistan was producing raw materials or agricultural goods for Indian factories, thats all. So, after partition, most people in West Pakistan were dependent for their living on Jageerdars or Sardars, whereas in India, most (if not all) were independent of the control of such Jageerdars and Sardars.
Hence it was possible for India to have democracy (to an extend) but in Pakistan, any democracy meant rule of Jageerdars or Sardars, and that is what happened. Military intervention only brought some representation of middle class, thats all.
Nevertheless, Indian democracy also had a large number of Zameendaars and Sardars in power, and that is the reason, it took India a long time to get reasonable democracy (that is still not there). Cost to India is such that even though at time of independence, the stage they were in industrial development, today they could have been world biggest industrial power with per capita income comparable to any country in west, but they are still basket case.
As for Pakistan, if Pakistan had democracy as what India had, Pakistan would not have survived economically and would have collapsed. Today Pakistan economically is reasonably set but most of Pakistan is still a dependent society (dependent on Zameendar and Sardars for their living or survival), that is changing slowly.
To me, democracy is feasible not when there is education but when there would be enough diversity in finding jobs and earning livelihood for majority of population, such that population becomes independent of Jageerdars and Sardars, so that they can choose their Representative without fear of loosing their livelihood, even life, or getting intimidated by these monarchs of their areas.