- Structural reforms across the board are badly required
Over 71 years since the British Rule ended, Pakistan is still inflicted with the issue of bad governance. Back in 1947, Pakistan inherited all the state institutions and governance structures, both civilian and military, from the British Indian government. Even the members of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan were elected in the 1946 elections, while the Indian sub-continent was still under British rule. Not once the All India Muslim League or the All India National Congress called the elections held by the British Indian government bogus or rejected the results. In fact, Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the first Governor General of Pakistan remained the representative of the British monarch until his death in 1948. This trust on the impartiality and fairness of the state institutions by the political parties – representative of the people – gave the creditably to functionaries of the government, which also legitimatised the British Rule.
During the First World War, the British Government adopted a policy of increasing the number of Indians in every branch of their administration leading to the creation of self-government institutions ‘with a view to the progressive realisation of a responsible government in the Indian Subcontinent as an integral part of the British Empire’. These British imperial policies in India were considerate and supportive in allowing the local people to decide their own destiny. Similarly, the British Rule over India brought religious freedom and this established a trust and close connection between the people of India and the British Crown. However, in post-World War II period, due to increasing demand of self-governance and independence by the Indian Nationalists, the British Indian Government started to realise the immense cost of its rule over India as a financial burden. Therefore, due to a rising financial administrative costs, the British government came to a conclusion that it had no ‘moral’ right to rule over India without bringing considerable improvement there. Finally, once all the nationalist political parties decided not-to-cooperate and intensified their demand for self-governance in India, the British had no choice but to leave. The power was transferred to the native leadership.
These British imperial policies in India were considerate and supportive in allowing the local people to decide their own destiny
Though Great Britain and allies had won the World War II, the government had realised the heavy cost of maintaining law and order since the Indian nationalists’ leaders, both Muslims and Hindus, were not willing to accept anything other than a complete independence from the British Empire. This discontentment even threatened the Royal Indian Navy One of the reasons for India’s haphazard independence decision was also based over a possible threat of mutiny within Royal Indian Navy; a fear of shifting loyalty of the Indian serving officers within the British Armed Forces.
All this can be related with the current state of governance in Pakistan. There’s a growing discontent among all segments of the Pakistani society. The political parties -including the ruling party PTI- are now howling out their anguish over the heavy handedness of certain institutions, the business community is frustrated over FBR’s tax recovery actions, the civil society members are demanding basic human rights in the country, the nationalist parties are seeking autonomy and poor people are raising hue and cry over sky rocketing prices of almost everything.
The root cause of all this chaos is bad governance. The prevailing disorder and chaos are linked to the state elites’ – not just political elites’ – unaccountability to the public. As a result, the public have become indifferent to the political discourse, and suspicious over the transparency of the state’s narrative on accountability, economic reforms and national security. Instead of resolving political, economic and security challenges budding from the bad governance, all the state institutions – Executive, Judiciary and Legislature- have locked horns over extending their powers in each others’ domain. There’s no doubt that the quality of a “country’s governance or institutions strongly predict its risk of civil war outbreak”. The poorer the governance and the weaker the institutions, “the more likely a country is to experience civil war”. Similarly, it’s easier for anti-state forces and criminals to do recruitment in poor economic conditions as a result of bad governance. This results in high and multifold administrative costs on effectively policing and maintaining law and order all across the country – that’s exactly what Pakistan is presently experiencing.
Pakistan’s ruling-elite and concerned national security institutions should understand that once the public becomes dissatisfied and frustrated with the way state affairs are being run in the country, power is easy to disrupt and harder to consolidate then. If Pakistan’s large civilian bureaucracy had been administrating efficiently and effectively the basic public goods like education, health, knowledge, safety and security, national and civil defence, disaster management systems, and street lighting etc., there would be no demands to attain autonomy and self-governance over the resources from the Baloch, Pashtun, Saraiki nationalist and other indigenous groups. Moreover, insurgencies and small-scale conflicts within the borders have “largely ended the specialisation advantage of a large military”. Therefore, rather than allocating already limited national resources and foreign loans on the traditional ‘hard power’ buildup, Pakistan needs a heavy investment in its ‘soft power’. Auctioning state’s owned assets – luxury cars and buffaloes – and other austerity measures are not the solution to address the issue of bad governance. Comprehensive governance reforms are needed on an urgent basis in all state’s institutions at all levels to survive now.