The real threat

[Pk_Thunder]

The real threat​

By Tasneem Siddiqui
Friday, 17 Sep, 2010

WHEN Pakistan’s current predicament is discussed, some analysts claim that 63 years is not a long time. They may be right, but what complicates matters is that we live in a fast-changing world.

Furthermore, we cannot ignore the changes after the Second World War; country after country was transformed despite immense difficulties during the political transition.

In most cases, these countries did not inherit institutions of governance from colonial masters. After teething problems, though, things started improving and now many of them have not only stable governments but are well on the path of steady progress: consider Ghana, Algeria, Kenya, Indonesia and Vietnam.

But ours is a strange case. We started off well. Our founding fathers had many handicaps but took the challenge of transforming the nation with seriousness. Additionally, the British left behind a fairly effective administrative system. For about three decades our economic growth was spectacular and we were quoted as a model for the developing world. After that, a process of regression started and we now face a multi-faceted crisis — after the slow degeneration of our institutions of governance, we have reached a stage where a total breakdown is imminent.

What are our basic problems? Political instability? An interventionist army? Terrorism? Rampant corruption? Population? Economic meltdown? All of these?

Yes, these are all major problems but the biggest issue is the lack of capacity in our ruling elites: the political parties and the civil and military bureaucracy. Apart from appalling human development indices, look at the administration of criminal justice or the lack of it, and the resultant anarchy. In the absence of the rule of law, and having lost all faith in the government, people have started lynching alleged culprits themselves. Max Weber’s dictum that “the state is the agency which holds a monopoly on legitimate violence in the area under its control” has lost meaning in Pakistan. The floods have again revealed the complete ineptitude and surrender of the state.

In 63 years, we have tried almost all forms of government: parliamentary democracy, presidential system, controlled democracy, the party-less Majlis-i-Shura, strong presidents with weak prime ministers and vice versa. At the grassroots level too we have experimented and, starting with the Pakistan Muslim League, have experienced almost all mainstream and regional political parties, one after another or in the form of a coalition.

Earlier, when one government did not deliver, there would be a fallback. For example, initially when politicians were weak and inexperienced, the bureaucracy filled the gap. After 10 years of bureaucratic rule the army was considered a better option. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over from Yahya Khan when the country faced a grim situation and after Ziaul Haq’s repressive and capricious rule, the hope was Benazir Bhutto. Pervez Musharraf’s coup was welcomed by even some liberals because it ended Nawaz Sharif’s autocracy. But after Zardari and Gilani’s time is over, what option will we have?

People talk about another military intervention as if four military dictatorships were not enough. Did they solve our problems or were they the problem itself? Whenever the military intervenes, it tries to create a reformist image in the initial two or three years; but in order to gain legitimacy it collects the worst of the lot from the political class. Having messed things up, it goes back to the barracks temporarily. Even during the interregnum, the real power remains with GHQ and the generals manage a comeback.

Our main problem is that our political class refuses to learn from past mistakes. The mainstream parties remain family enterprises and demonstrate the traits of hereditary succession. Their leaders portray themselves as champions of democracy but refuse to hold elections in their own parties. Nor do they try to organise their parties at the grassroots level.

The parties have no reform agenda, nor do they believe in strong institutions. They are not ready to tolerate even an effective local government or independent police — see what has been done to the Police Act of 2002 and the Local Government Ordinance 2001. None of them supports the idea of an independent, neutral and merit-based civil service, believing it their prerogative to dole out government jobs to party workers or cronies.

Governance in the country has become an all-encompassing morass. When loyalty instead of competence and efficiency becomes the guiding principle, what else can be expected? The administrative reforms of 1973 were the beginning of the decline, and a thoroughly dispirited bureaucracy is the natural result. This scenario looks bleak. Some people say that we have quite a few things to our credit: an imposing standing army and nuclear capability. These are no doubt assets but what we face today is not an external threat. It is an implosion from within.

The flood disaster will be over sooner or later but the bigger catastrophe — our moral and institutional decline — is going to stay with us. Barring some miracle, the process appears irreversible.

This is not the time to apportion blame. The failure has been collective. In one way or another, all of us are responsible. The question is, what is the way out? Civil society, the media and the judiciary have started to hold the government accountable. They need to push harder and challenge every wrong step. But the rot is so deep-rooted that they alone will find it difficult to achieve much.

Institutional re-engineering and reforms are the only way to rebuild state capacity for which the main responsibility lies with the political parties. Unless a process of wide-ranging democratic reforms is started, the country’s future will not be secure. It is high time that ‘patriotic generals’ said that indulging in politics is not the army’s business. For this country to move forward, the army will have to redefine its role. A corrupt and weak civilian government cannot force it to do so; the army has to do so itself.

Can Pakistan’s myopic political class and self-righteous generals see the writing on the wall?

 

[GOD OF WAR]

old rant,