My mother wonders why Pakistan seems destined to suffer from incompetent or insincere leadership. My daughter wants to know why we cannot achieve continuity in political and administrative norms. I want to know why those who present democracy as a panacea for national uplift are unwilling to let the people express their preference. Many ‘democrats’, whether educated in modern institutions or traditional ones, sincerely believe they know what is best for the people of Pakistan as opposed to other ‘educated’ groups. Only their universal consensus, that people of Pakistan need to be “educated” before they can make right choices, holds the “educated” Pakistanis together. These “right choices” mean, in effect, that Pakistanis must subscribe to the values that the “educated” are advocating.
Why can we not treat the people of Pakistan as adults, not halfwits? Why is it impossible to believe that the Pakistani people are aware of their priorities, able to articulate them on the basis of national values and develop a consensus? If our ‘educated’ class was to listen the Pakistanis and provide leadership to achieve priorities and goals that Pakistanis set for themselves, instead of trying to convince them to follow values that have been imported from east or west, we might achieve a modicum of political stability.
A number of issues are raised every time there is a political crisis in Pakistan; and history is witness to the fact that we move ‘from crisis to crisis’. If there is no political crisis, a natural disaster will fit the bill. Our leaders exploit us and misuse funds or power at their disposal. They quibble like small children over trivialities; a son of a general changed his political party because the leadership fielded a candidate whose father had served under the general. Governments abandon good projects of predecessors to spite opponents.
Of course things matter; but despite flaws of leadership and the drawbacks of insincerity, incompetence or intolerance, we have grown as a nation, not only in population but also in economic, social, and intellectual development. The only field of national life which seems to be an unmitigated failure so far is the continuity of the political process.
Even though we can see the politicians backsliding every now and again, I feel that they too have reached a certain state of awareness that tends to provide continuity at one level. In all other fields, we may have to acknowledge that we have not achieved our potential, despite that, our achievements are not inconsiderable. The range of our economic activity has developed at a rate that is many times greater than our neighbor, India.
Has this happened by accident? I think not. Walking through a Pakistani bazaar you see a shopkeeper trying to diddle his customers and make ‘a quick buck’. Please note ‘diddle’ and ‘quick buck’ are English terms, which means that these things happen there as well. These are human nature, not national traits. The object of the observation is that these are universal evils, as common and well known in English as in any Pakistani language. At the same time, you will find sincere and honest shopkeepers; as I can testify on the basis of a sample survey of seven bazaars within two miles of my home.
Having a chip on my shoulder, I avoid preferential treatment as far as possible. Obviously I insist that my wife prefer me over other males whom she has to deal with professionally and that my grandchildren prefer me over others who may look like grandparents. But, in paying the electricity bill, I still avoid taking senior-citizen’s priority if I can. I did accept the courtesy at the passport office partly out of laziness and partly to see what difference there was. It was a pleasant experience but I could have done without it because the staff was efficient enough for those who could not enjoy this privilege also.
As a member of the ‘queue’ clan, [that my family name starts with a ‘q’ is just incidental] I am not claiming moral high-ground. I am merely saying that I have experienced what is the condition of those who are not privileged. On these occasions I have frequently found sincere and competent officials in all echelons of Pakistani public servants.
I first realized that there were so many of them around when I experienced the range from semi-government to government employees in a single go. My mother-in-law used to go to the National Bank to collect her family pension. She was old and frail so the bank staff regularly extended the courtesy of coming out to physically verify that she was alive; and therefore she could stay in the car as a matter of routine and avoid climbing the stairs.
On one occasion, the officer who walked out to see her brought to our notice a circular by which her pension had been increased. He provided a photocopy of the document and told us that we would need to go to the AGPR for having it endorsed in the pension book. Since I had never had to deal with the exalted office before, and as I an “impractical” teacher I did not have any illusions about dealing with the financial bureaucracy. I had no idea what to do. To my surprise, it was quite simple; the receptionist guided me to the relevant desk, where I was told what papers to present. I informed the functionary that I had come from Multan and would not be able to pursue the matter immediately and left.
My next visit, naturally at the time of my next vacation, happened to be on Eid. This had two disadvantages: first, there were only few working days when I could be in Islamabad; and second, some members of the AGPR staff would be on leave, especially if they were not locals. To cut the story short, the available staff at the office neither compromised their official duty and decorum nor did they prove to be inefficient or incompetent. The AGPR provided endorsement with a day to spare, and the Bank promptly processed the papers. So, I was able to take the pension to my mother-in-law at the end of my trip.
The lessons I learn then stood me in good-stead throughout my ‘q’ standing life. First, the staff at a government office deserves to be treated as human public servants. They should neither be treated as rulers, nor as personal servants, nor should we forget that they are as human as us and as Pakistani as we are. Therefore, we should not deal with them across a cultural divide. Second, it is up to the applicant or petitioner to ensure that procedures are learnt at the outset and followed diligently. Third, unless one is willing to bribe the staff, they are generally considerate about human problems [my limited leave] and provision of documents. In fact, given the right attitude, the staff is likely to guide us about facilities that we may avail as citizens. In this case, apart from the National Bank official who started the ball rolling, the officer who endorsed the pension book also advised me to wait while he got the clerical staff to amend it according to a circular of an additional increase.
I know that some readers will have doubts or reservations; others will be convinced that it was an unusual, lucky incident. Let me assure you that I have experienced four decades of such unusual or lucky events. During a serious illness I had a battery of doctors who specialized in all the varieties of pathology that I am aware of. Surgeons, physicians and their entire attendant staff in the several hospitals which hosted me for six months.
Before that, as an insignificant head of a research institute of great potential, I found my sincerity to be insufficient to tide me over the competence barrier; so I failed to complete my term. However, not only were the several of the Vice-Chancellors I came across, both sincere and competent, but three out of four secretaries of the Pakistan government were competent and two were sincere and competent. One [pushed up by politics] did not enjoy a long term and was quickly replaced before he could do much damage.
So why do we not see these “sincere and competent” officials? Why is the image of civil servants and bureaucrats that of insincere and incompetent functionaries who only serve those in power? Simply because there are so many of them also! Here, let me refer you to some basic characteristics of our nation. Sincerity is associated with humility and non-interference in affairs that do not concern one. Pakistani individualism is low key and low profile; with a direct relation, with the relevant social interface. Government and state are too far from the common man, even if he is a government employee.
For a Pakistani, sincerity demands that it shouldn’t be advertised or broadcast. Introverted and introspective, such a person is often a loner and avoids a leadership role. Thus public office and social exposure are often taken up by insincere people. If they are competent, there is greater danger of exploitation for the masses, if they are not, the people are at risk due to mismanagement – damned if they are, and damned if they aren’t; being concerned only with answerability to one’s conscience and Allah leaves the capable unconcerned with an obligation to those who don’t belong to their community. However, the same trait keeps them proactive at a level which is not obvious to social activists. The lesson I want to emphasize however, is that the system still promotes competence.
Since modernism focuses more on social and political matters, and because these have to be handled by those who claim the leadership role, the vocal, high-profile posts often go to the immodest. Generally, they are seen as the public face of Pakistani bureaucracy and its politics. This buoyant, hyperactive, frequently insincere, and occasionally incompetent surface and the solid, hidden layer of humble workaholics, creates an oscillating image of our nation and state. Thus, a foreigner falls in love with the community but is wary of the mechanisms of state. It makes the country appear to be ready to tumble into an abyss, its society seem to be at loggerheads with itself, and people in a state of flux. At the end of the day, however, all the expectations remain unfulfilled.
While I hope that the explanation will reduce the panic in the minds of my family/friends; my hidden agenda is to appeal to some of those who are young, sincere and competent. It is up to someone among them to develop a capacity to lead, without losing their sincerity in the process. I have known many who had the potential but refused to lead because they could not convince themselves that their humility, though beautiful as a character trait did not debar them from serving the state, its nation, its society and its country. It also needs a leadership that can unite under it the competent loners hidden in our communities.
A list of Pakistan’s experience in a varieties of crisis over the past seven decades:
- We began life as a nation with a horrendous refugee crisis at the time of partition.
- Its corollary was threat of invasion from our gigantic eastern belligerent neighbor.
- A world emerging from colonialism as a community of domineering superpowers who control international organizations for international political dominance.
- As a fall-out of the ‘international, super-governance’ came secularism, democracy and economic free trade each with its own potential of generating civil war in the form of ‘terrorism’. This potential was exploited to the full in the ‘containment of the Soviet Union’ in Afghanistan by 1979 and the American support of Jihadis for the containment of the ‘atheistic menace of communism’.
- Other sources of potential civil war are parochialism/provincial or ethnic, regional disparity in economic and political terms: the natural outcome of democracy.
- Disempowerment of minority segments of those lacking political space: labourers, menial communities in a communal society, and gender related issues.
- On the development side, energy, fuel, threatened industry & exploited industrial labour, commercial imbalance and terms of trade leading to a balance of payment issue compound the woes of a society which looks for wellbeing not progress.
- Nature takes a hand with earthquakes, famine and floods in different parts of the country. For earthquake related relief, a system of international cooperation in the form of sister cities could be a viable solution. For crop safety and flood affectees, the integrated management of national resources could provide a solution where a system of absorbing flood waters in water-scarce areas like Thar and Baluchistan is a good option. For solving other development issues, one tried and tested plan is to increase communication networks in the form of rails and roads etc.
- The solution to Pakistan’s problems lies in understanding the psyche of the people and the layers of communal webbing that constitute our social fabric. A political and economic plan of action will only be viable if it does not cross social wires.