India's championing of democracy at the Commonwealth summit in Durban has not won it the universal admiration it might have expe-cted. Hardly anyone seems persuaded that India did it because it is the right and proper thing to do. Instead, it is being se-en as neo-imperialist, acting out of special animus towards Pakistan and possibly damaging its own interests.Traditionally at north-south gatherings India has been wary of idealistic prescriptions pressed upon developing cou-ntries for their own improvement by advanced countries. Such prescriptions were seen as and often were a cloak for self-interest and a throwback to an imperial age. Much as it values democracy, multi-party elections and a free press, India has been restrained about laying down the law for others. Evidently things have changed and almost without noticing India has slipped into right wing universalism. It should in fact resist the predominant tendency today to demand that developing countries conform uncritically to whatever currentwestern notions happen to be of the best political systems and economic practices.At Durban India was in the forefront of moves to condemn as strongly as possible the military coup in Pakistan. It would be nice to think all this was on behalf of democracy. But even if idealism of the democrats-make-better-neighbours kind was involved, the overwhelming urge appeared to be to isolate and punish Gen-eral Pervez Musharraf. For India's non-imperialist past and practical politics (New Delhi may eventually have to recognise Musharraf as it did Zia-ul Haq and the others) would dictate a different, mo-re nuanced or, at any rate, more cautious approach. Less eagerness to interfere in the internal affairs of another country wo-uld have been in order. In the event, India should probably be thanked for the summit's explicit endorsement of the very authoritarian looking Nawaz Sharif.The large element of improvisation in Indian foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union ten years ago accounts for suchoddities. Human rights, including democratic rights, have become the central principle around which the new world order is being shaped or so the international public discourse suggests. Even as India has veered from de-ep suspicion of human rights activists to sometimes adopting the language itself, international policy has failed to match the rhetoric and high moral purpose of human rights advocates. Consequently, efforts to end gross human ri-ghts violations have be-en inconsistent, ineffective and sometimes have done more harm than good. As with Pa-kistan, it has often been a matter of making ob-ligatory noises.Having roundly told off Mu-sharraf, Commonwea-lth leaders flew off to try to civilise other pa-rts of the globe from East Timor to North-ern Ireland.In Pakistan, meanwhile, the people have not lost their civil liberties and have accepted the new regime for the time being. The press is as yet untrammelled, the courts are functioning and political parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League,enjoy the right to express themselves. Nevertheless Pak-istan does represent a major challenge to the international community and this not because a general is in charge but because the coup is a symptom of a deeper malaise. Pakistan has been going downhill politically, socially and economically over the last decade its most recent democratic decade. Javed Burki, formerly of the Wo-rld Bank, writing in The Dawn says, ``Pa-kistan has witnessed a spectacular decline in its institutional base'' by which he me-ans the formal and informal institutions and rules governing relations between individuals and between groups of individuals.Add to that low literacy and skills levels, a poor rate of domestic savings, ex- cessive centralisation of power and political upheavals and it is not surprising that Pakistan which once prided itself on outpacing India in the economic stakes is slipping behind. Internati-onal institutions such as the UN and the world's policeman, the US, ha-ve been powerless to halt or reversePakis-tan's fall essentially because they have been unfocussed and uncommitted. Nor is the major regional power, India, in a position to do anything at all. It should be clear to all who would reform Pakistan that the problem is a deep structural problem and there is no easy fix for it such as popular elections to the National Assembly.New Delhi's instinct is to regard Musharraf as bad news. Seen through the prism of Kargil he is certainly that: a risk-taker, a hardliner on Kashmir who after the failure of his Kargil strategy has allowed or encouraged foreign mercenaries to step up their murderous operations in the Valley; a man who could still whip up vengeful nationalist feelings in Pakis-tan against India.It is important to step back from Kargil and consider some other parts of the picture. Pakistan has been increasingly dysfunctional and its elected politicians have not had the vision or will to improve things. A failed nuclear state or a fundamentalist Islamic regime with a nuclear stockpile is thelast thing the world wants on its hands. Even morally ambitious leaders like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton would regard a professional soldier as preferable by comparison and especially if the army, Pakistan's one fully functioning institution, backs him. Can the military put the country back on the rails? Time will tell.Musharraf has set no deadline for a return to democracy but has made a number of appropriate statements on press freedom and on providing a clean administration. He has said he will not tolerate religious interference in the affairs of state, reassuring words to those who thought the process of Islamisation would be accelerated under a general seeking legitimacy. He speaks of respecting the law and setting up systems and is trying to stop the misappropriation of public funds, the huge bank loans taken and never repaid by leading political and business families.All this does not add up to the restoration of democracy and Musharraf could fail on all counts but it would take an absolutist toargue that this agenda is worth nothing because civilians are not managing it.It may not be his intention but Mu-sharraf could end up changing the balance of political forces in Pakistan for the better if his drive against corruption is sustained and the feudal families' stranglehold is broken with help from a broad alliance of professional and intermediate commercial classes and the working class. Some sort of revolution seems necessary to thrust Pakistan into the modern world. At the very least, the power struggle should keep the entire political class busy and disinclined to undertake foreign adventures. Like the people of Pa-kistan, the world and India should wait a while and see where the military regime is taking the country.
