Since independence, we have become intellectually enslaved.  During the
period of British rule, we were able to engage in some local policy-making.
In our early years of independence we were able to manage our own irrigation
and railways. As we æconsolidatedÆ our independence, we began to look more
and more at the foreigner for advice and leadership.  Today we look to some
foreign consultant for a policy initiative or advice on what we need for our
infrastructure.  The result is that we are now quite incapable of doing our
own thinking. Perhaps this is one reason why we are not making any progress.

        Jagdish Bhagwati, a famous Indian professor of economics at Columbia
university made a similar observation in India Today, "self-respect cannot be
earned by simply pretending we have it; it comes from the economic strength
which reforms alone can give usààThe most telling proof is to be found in the
continual reports of prime ministers and finance ministers attending endless
conferences and seminars on the Indian economy's failings. Organized by all
and sundry--including foreign academics at quasi-academic institutes which
are often little more than glorified Arthur D. Little-type consultancies
operating USAID and World Bank programmes in foreign countriesàThese
get-togethers find our leadership on their knees, listening abjectly to
criticism and to advice to do things that they (foreign experts) have learnt
from our own economists over the years."

        Though we choose not to recall, our own engineers and managers developed the
Thal desert into the lush fertile mango gardens and cotton and grain-growing
areas.  The task was completed on our own and through own resources. Upon
completion, the Thal Development Authority shut down shop.  There was no
bloated bureaucracy left in its wake nor can one find traces of lengthy
consultantsÆ reports that served to jack up the costs of the project.

        The Wah factory was also purely a local endeavor that was completed in
record time and remains to date our only weapons factory.  Once again there
were no foreign experts and lengthy paper work or consultants' reports.  A
job needed to be done and our civil servants rose to the occasion to finish
it and did very well indeed.

        Similarly, Goodoo and Ghulam Mohammed Barrage were local projects that were
developed by our people.  Today we cannot even seem to run the irrigation
network that was so ably extended by these barrages.  There is talk of the
canals silting up and our water supply being inadequate for our own needs.

        As we diminished our civil services through politicization, limited
incentives and corruption, our economy continues to perform poorly.  We look
towards foreign consultants to come and tell us how to run our country. There
is a host of them all over our top brass, telling them how to run our fiscal
and monetary policies, how to run out education and health policies and how
to run our administration and our financial markets. As Bhagwati notes, "we
had to do this stroking of undistinguished foreign "experts" when we began
our journey 50 years ago. We were then dependent on foreign assistance and it
made sense to be diplomatic and polite to those who professed expertise but
were mostly people we listened to simply because it would help in
Washington."

        As the foreign experts take over, our own expertise is either disgruntled or
totally disregarded.  Their opinion on policy and economic issues is neither
sought nor valued.  Those of any competence must then leave the country or
the profession.  As Bhagwati records, "in the late 1950s when some of us
æyoung TurksÆ returned to India to work at the Indian Statistical Institute
under the remarkable Pitambar Pant, chief of the perspective planning
division in the Planning Commission, I recall professors T.N. Srinivasan and
B.S. Minhas and myself telling each other that we æInjunsÆ could not see the
æchiefÆ because he was busy seeing æpalefacesÆ." Is it a wonder that such
competent economists left India?

        Bhagwati is right when he says that we now handle our relationship with the
so called foreign expert with "far less dignity than Nehru and his ministers
displayed." Nowadays, expertise seems to be valued in our country only by the
fact that it is foreign in origin.  Even for our own professionals, the only
route to acceptance is to be in the payroll of some donor as a consultant or
a direct employee.  In direct contrast to the early generations of Pakistan,
very few of any merit now seek public employment.  All doors open with a red
carpet for expertise with a donor card, while they are slammed in the face of
our own expertise even though our own experts are welcomed into donor
capitals.  The vicious cycle of our scholars and professionals leaving the
country to vacate space for some donor consultant continues and we remain
poor and under-developed.

        Another index of our lack of self-respect and dignity is to be found at
international fora and so called seminars to attract investment into
Pakistan. Our ministers and senior officials are always rushing off to these
so called æinvestment seminars.Æ There, some distinguished academics are
thrown in as court jesters to entertain a clientele which consists, mainly,
of potential foreign investors though not of the highest caliber, and
politicians of second and third-tier countries which have failed to reform
themselves and attract investment.  As Bhagwati asks, "do we see President
Clinton and treasury Secretary Robert Rubin attending a conference in
Washington where an Indian from Delhi lectures America on what to do? The US
does not talk of self-reliance: its policies have achieved it and their
leadership therefore does not kowtow before others."

        We have agree with Bhagwati that the only way to earn the respect of the
world is through "economic strength which reforms alone can give us."
 Perhaps we should think would the donor and the foreign expert want us to
have this economic strength.  After all, should we succeed, would we need
them?

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