PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY: PAKISTAN VS INDIA IN 70S

Abstract

This study aims to critically examine the Democratic Political Process in Pakistan and India. The focus is to investigate the decline of the parliamentary democratic system in Pakistan and the role of politicians, ulema, judges, and bureaucrats in the development of parliamentary democracy. An effort is made to understand that Democracy flourished in India, and it failed in Pakistan because of the military, feudal, and religious elements. An analysis has been made between both states’ democratic systems since 1947. The present information has been collected through the use of secondary sources.

In Pakistan, the political system had become almost an oligarchy under the cover of democracy. Due to selfish and self-interested rulers from 1953 to 1958, various governments changed. Democracy was adjourned between 1958 and 1969 in the Ayub Khan era, 1977-1988, and again in 1998-2008 in the Musharraf regime. Another factor for the collapse of the parliamentary system in Pakistan is its dependence on the military for security against the threats of India. The self- centered leaders, grabbing provincial autonomy and ethnolinguistic issues, restrictions on press and media, and unsatisfactory role of political parties also have weakened the state.

India’s democracy has never been flawless. Therefore, the difference between India’s and Pakistan’s democracy is of degree rather than a difference in kind. Pakistan was ruled by the army and India by the people. The states that had military authoritarianism broke up first. India had insurgency in many places, but it stayed united because of the democratic negotiations. Indian politicians had become corrupt, and democracy had not flourished as it should have. But Indians identified the progress they had to follow and support democracy. Democracy prospered in India because the leaders who had learned it from Britain exercised it after independence, but it failed in Pakistan because of feudal, military, and religious elements. India remained united despite many internal insurgencies because of democracy, but Pakistan, due to the absence of democracy, disintegrated and had problems.