When the self-proclaimed harbingers of democracy in Pakistan decide on major policy changes, they do so on pure instinct. On Saturday, the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, released a memorandum stating that the nation’s two premier intelligence agencies — the Inter-Services Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau — which report to the prime minister, would henceforth work under the interior ministry. He then flew off to Washington for talks with George W. Bush. While Mr Gilani was busy hedging the national media, the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari, also from the safe distance of his Dubai home, called this a “historic” decision. Sadly, historic events tend to lose out on credibility when they are precipitated by the whims of a few. If the coalition government, led by PPP and supported by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, wishes to make good its promise to usher in democracy to the politically oppressed nation, it would have to go back to the first principles. Mr Zardari, and his allies, must understand that democracy offers platforms for debate and dissent — in parliament and in the free press — before administrative reforms are passed. The decision regarding the ISI was not even discussed with the army, which works closely with the former, let alone be thrown open for discussion.

The situation could have still been salvaged, had there been a compelling reason behind the reshuffle. The good Mr Zardari valiantly defended the move, which his government has now retracted under pressure from the opposition, by saying that henceforth, the world could no longer blame his government for the ISI’s waywardness. These protestations are either ignorant or made under false pretences. Under democracy, it is the prime minister who controls the ISI, just as a military ruler, in turn, enjoys the same privilege during his reign. Since military dictatorship in Pakistan has always been more glorious than democracy, the former model has been less successfully emulated than the latter. Earlier heads of State, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both of them weak prime ministers, were undermined by the troika of the ISI chief, the president and the army chief. Mr Gilani has no reason to fear this troika yet. Just as there is no reason to bring a body entrusted with external intelligence under the interior ministry. But Mr Zardari’s reasons — his dear friend, Rehman Malik, heads the interior ministry — presumably, run deeper.