Why is democracy so fragile in both of our large subcontinental neighbours?

If you promise not to google the answer, I will ask you a question. So please tell me, other than Peace Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, which name have you heard in the context of the power shift in Bangladesh? Dr Yunus has, this week, been lionised on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly by top Western liberal leaders, from the US to the EU.

Now the second question. Why is it that among both our large subcontinental neighbours, democracy has been so fragile? The instinctive answer would be Islam — that Islam and democracy can’t go together. Tempting though it may be for many, given the mood today, it doesn’t pass the simplest fact check.

Look far enough east and this stereotype fails in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. Halfway there, Malaysia also has peaceful electoral transitions, even if these elect a Mahathir Mohamad. Or go west to Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is no liberal democrat. If anything, he might be Mahathir-plus-plus. But he also has to face elections, and we never said democracies are perfect. Indonesia and Turkey are just about as Islamic in terms of their population mix as Pakistan or Bangladesh. This demolishes the idea that Pakistan and Bangladesh keep floundering because Islam is incompatible with democracy.

I can take you now to another country next door: Myanmar. There is no Islam there. If anything, they’ve persecuted and expelled most of their Muslims, the Rohingya. It is an almost entirely Buddhist country. Dictators have mostly been in charge, and army juntas keep taking over, as they did in February 2021, imprisoning the somewhat democratic Aung San Suu Kyi, a Peace Nobel laureate too. You can’t blame Islam for Myanmar’s stolen democracy. What would you blame it on then, Buddhism?

We can demolish this notion, too, just keeping our gaze within our neighbourhood. Sri Lanka is predominantly Buddhist. Its clergy is often violent, racist and rarely a force for liberalism. We in the subcontinent tend to forget what happened in Sri Lanka during the original terrorist avatar of the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), the party whose leader has now been elected to power under its new name. In that violent period, Buddhist bhikkhus not only condoned sectarian killings and targeted assassinations, they encouraged them. Therefore, junk the idea that “Buddhism is good for democracy while Islam is bad.” It takes something more than a faith — Islam or any other — to bedevil democracy.

At this point, I need to tell you the answer to our first question: Which name have you seen or heard most besides Dr Yunus’s since the power shift in Bangladesh? It is General Waker-us-Zaman, whom Sheikh Hasina appointed as her army chief on June 23, just weeks before her ouster.

He spoke to Reuters earlier this week and told us what Dr Yunus hasn’t: A timeframe for the next election, and thereby the period for which this interim administration will be in charge. It’s 12-18 months. This arrangement, remember, is unelected, is ruling without a Constitution, and the man in charge does not have an executive or political title. Dr Yunus is called chief adviser. Not in recent decades have we heard of a republic, least of all a large one with over 170 million people, being run by a chief adviser.

General Pervez Musharraf tried this stunt after he overthrew Nawaz Sharif in 1999. Too bashful to call himself president, he chose “chief executive”. Even that was less unconvincing than chief adviser. Of course, he didn’t stay in that camouflage long. He used the excuse of the Agra summit (July 2001) to anoint himself President. How could a mere chief executive represent Pakistan at talks with the Prime Minister of India?

I am not suggesting, either, that Dr Yunus will similarly change his designation, or that this general will take over. It’s now become very uncomfortable for generals to take over power. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, they’ve shown how to “lead from behind”. I steal the ridiculous line attributed to an Obama adviser to justify his abandonment of Libya after unravelling it.

For now, General Zaman’s words are ones of reassurance. He told Reuters’ Devjyot Ghoshal and Ruma Paul: “I will stand beside him (Yunus). Come what may. So that he can accomplish his mission.” He promised essential reforms in the judiciary, the police, and even financial institutions so that free and fair elections could be held.

“If you ask me, then I will say that should be the timeframe (12-18 months) by which we should enter into a democratic process,” he said. And while what he says is important, the more material fact is: Look who’s talking.

At this point, we can dial backward to where we started. How come Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, and Sri Lanka remain constitutional, democratic and stable despite Islam and Buddhism, respectively, but Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar don’t?

Does the penny drop? It isn’t faith alone that threatens democracy in a country, any faith. It is the combination of faith and military.

If the military is glorified as the only institution deserving of respect, with religion giving it sanctity, outcomes familiar in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar follow. There is no way this change would’ve been possible in Dhaka if the army had not given its tacit approval by staying on the sidelines. There is no way a new democratic arrangement through a Constitution and elections will return until the army says yes. And religion?

Earlier this month, Bangladesh saw the rare commemoration of a Muhammad Ali Jinnah anniversary (death, in this case). At the event held at Dhaka’s National Press Club and attended by the Pakistani deputy high commissioner, speakers explained why Jinnah deserved to be celebrated in Bangladesh. If his two-nation theory hadn’t led to the creation of Pakistan, how would Bangladesh have emerged?

All these decades, the argument was that by breaking away, the Bengalis of East Pakistan had demolished Jinnah’s two-nation theory. Now, there is this revisionist rehabilitation of Jinnah. It may or may not sustain. But the larger point remains: That if religion is so central to your national ideology and the army is seen as the only institution to protect its frontiers, any Constitution becomes secondary to nation-building or governance. In Myanmar, militant bhikkhus give legitimacy to military excesses.

That adds up to a formidable threat to democracy and underlines the struggles of our three neighbours. In its much shorter history (53 years since 1971), Bangladesh has seen as many new constitutional arrangements and generals formally in charge as Pakistan. All governments, military or elected, have messed with the Constitution in a fundamental manner. Now a governing arrangement informally selected on the street will bring in yet another Constitution.

All democracies face challenges, as did India’s when Indira Gandhi mostly rewrote our Constitution during the Emergency. But when her successors repealed her toxic changes, her party voted with them. A few things that remained are by no means toxic. Today, a preamble describing India as socialist and secular would be seen as progressive. The reason India was able to step back from that precipice was that no religious power would sanctify this subversion, and no army would either support it, or promise to restore democracy.

That’s why you might as well repeat after me: No religion by itself is an enemy of democracy. It is when you place religion at the heart of your national ideology and the army at the core of your power that you run into problems.

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