Regardless of the form of government - democracy, dictatorship, whatever - the elite obviously has a crucial role to play. The most charitable description of the capability of the Pakistan elite is that it can rule but cannot lead. And it rules on the basis of power rather than moral authority. The critical ingredient - legitimacy - is missing. To be able to lead, it must have credibility and integrity so as to inspire confidence in its ability to handle these crises.
In a society that lacks systemic and institutional underpinning, the
elite would have to be extraordinarily competent to deal with the multifaceted
crises, not all of our own making, confronting us. Unfortunately, however,
we have ended up with an extraordinarily inept elite that has few answers
to the challenges we face as we prepare to enter the next millennium. In
its all-consuming greed it has lost track of the bottom line.
It sees no reason, for instance, to develop a more
equitable system even in its own enlightened self-interest - simply to
preserve the order that enables it to maintain its own privileges and dominance
over the political, economic and social structures. It is not prepared
to place restraints on itself and go the extra mile in accommodating the
minimum requirements
of other sections of the population in the larger interest.
It is enough to look at the lifestyle of the ruling
elite to conclude that it has a long way to go before it can lead us out
of the mess we are in. Just think back to the critical visit of the prime
minister to Washington late last year at a particularly difficult juncture
in Pakistan's history and the light-headed free-loaders festival it came
to resemble. And what of the leaders in commerce and the captains of industry
who were supposed to lift us out of the quagmire via the privatization
route? Except in our imagination, in what sense are they entrepreneurs?
They have lived off handouts from the state and loot of public assets.
The primary source of the wealth of those among them who wield influence
has been plunder and theft. They have access to public services but
do not pay the full cost these entail. They have taken loans and simply
refused to repay them. They
have not paid their dues to society by either arranging concessions
and exemptions at a collective level (e.g. exemption from taxation of agricultural
incomes) and at the level of individuals through SROs or by plainly refusing
to pay their taxes or by evading them in a grand display of impunity.
Is it surprising then of a leadership that itself
does not pay taxes and provides protection to evaders to be able to develop
a tax culture? Why should people pay taxes if these collections only finance
the grand lifestyles of the rulers and the expenditures on the military,
details of which are not known? If there is a crisis of debt servicing,
it is not because the nation has been living beyond its means but because
the elite has been doing so, while the rest of the population is being
asked to
pay for it.
Unfortunately, our elite imbibes a feudal set of
values in respect of dissent and authority. It is compulsively wedded to
the notion of pomp and grandeur. Its style of governance belongs to another
era if not to a different century. It wields power rather than authority.
It treats public property as private. Its yardstick of success is to ensure
a verdict in its favour rather than establishing an independent judiciary.
It is willing to sacrifice the status and well-being of women and minorities
for
political expediency. Its contract adherence norms (with all the implications
for economic growth) suggest that business is to be transacted with only
those who happen to be within the charmed circle.
The rising middle class is often the more promising alternative in such a situation. And it has contributed positively in our context as well. But consider the record of our only essentially middle class political party, the MQM. Representing the most industrialized and urban of Pakistan's cities, it has become a synonym for violence and its hierarchical-authoritarian ethos puts to shame other parties that are themselves far from pristine in terms of a democratic culture.
Generally, the formation of the middle class in Pakistan
has been somewhat problematic. There was a rather small professional elite
at the time of the country's independence, and the middle class was not
thrown up by the
dynamic process of growth. It was essentially created by the state
through the expansion of its functional mandate and its administrative
role in different economic and social activities. Even the entrepreneurial
class was given birth to by the state partly by its early decision to set
up industries in the public sector (the old PIDC) and then disposing them
of. In other words, the important classes that should in theory have
a stake in greater democratization of society, greater transparency and
rule of law
were beholden to the state for both the development and the maintenance
of their privileged position. They have not yet come round to believing
that they can advance and prosper without patronage from the state, thereby
providing one of the explanations for the urge to acquire control over
the state apparatus.
The fact that this elite is riven along ethnic lines
also serves tocomplicate matters. Years of non-democratic rule has crystallized
divisions along ethnic lines, making it difficult to pursue even rational
solutions like decentralization and empowerment of local governments to
ensure greater public participation in decisions pertaining to the development
of, and
efficient mechanisms and systems for, the delivery of economic and
social services by lower organs of the state. Just to illustrate this point,
will the Sindhis agree to hand over Karachi and Hyderabad to the MQM and
the Baloch, Quetta to the majority Pakhtun group in the city?
Punjabis dominate the army and continue to believe
that they are keeping the country intact. However, the rest of the country
does not share their belief but cannot participate in a decision on the
Kashmir issue or the nuclear question. The central Punjabi elite that runs
roughshod over the views and wishes of the other nationalities has proved
incapable of following the
principle of co-cultural leadership.
An expensive motorway is built which does not link
a port to the industrial centres or indeed the rest of the country as the
Indus highway would have done, but links only the provincial capital of
Punjab with the federal capital also in Punjab. A nuclear bomb is tested
in Balochistan and the government of the province is not informed and not
made a party to the
decision. Why? Because it is not trusted? But then we feel indignant
and wronged when a foreign power does the same to us and does not provide
information that its missiles aimed at Afghanistan would overfly our
territory (and one or two might even land there).
Can the Punjabi elite learn to equitably share power with the elites of other nationalities? There has been some integration, as a result of economic compulsions and deliberate policy, but there is essentially a relationship of suspicion and mistrust between the two elites. Unfortunately, these regional elites have also not thought through their role as effective partners in the federation and are prone to opportunist alliances and reactive postures within the parameters set by the central elite rather than articulating the concerns and aspirations of their constituencies meaningfully.
The ineptness of the political leadership and the
elite has serious consequences in terms of the confidence that the citizenry
can place in its ability to run the state, if it is unable to ensure that
institutions perform the most basic function, of enforcing the rule of
law, of providing protection to the lives and property of people - leaving
the latter to make their own private arrangements for their security, abdicating
its responsibility to the private sector to handle quality education, and
instead of instituting reforms in the judicial system putting in place
a system of personalised "Khuli kutcheries" and army courts. Perhaps, nothing
illustrates the combination of a nose-dive in the credibility and integrity
of state institutions than the seven-year delay in holding the national
census.
Moreover, the emasculation of institutions, if not
a breakdown, through corruption, patronage of criminals and favoured appointments
and promotions, has narrowed the range of options and made it increasingly
difficult to evolve administrative arrangements, implementation techniques
and instruments to resolve issues, some of which are fairly fundamental
in
nature. Consider the case of education. Over the last hundred years
we would be hard put to think of a country that has progressed without
putting into place a system that ensures mass literacy. Yet 50 years down
the line there is no evidence that we can begin to address this issue seriously.
Civil society in Pakistan does offer some ground
for hope. There are the well known examples of the Edhi Foundation, the
Orangi Pilot Project run by Akhter Hameed Khan the Shaukat Khanum Memorial
Hospital and a host of other lesser known examples of solid work that has
affected the lives of many, carried out by dedicated individuals and organizations
against heavy
odds. The judiciary, the press, the Bar and organizations struggling
for human rights particularly those of women and minorities are under pressure
but have shown determination to assert themselves.
There is a huge potential that lies untapped in Pakistan's
large expatriate community that retains its emotional and family links
and contributes far less than it can to the country's development because
both the channels as well as the credibility are missing. But there is
also a part of civil society that is being fed on a steady diet of anger
and hate and thrives on the sins of omission and commission of the state.
Its strength manifests itself in ethnic and sectarian violence and the
rising graph of crime.
If the middle class continues to shy away from the task of engaging
in the contest, it is inevitable that the forces of obscurantism will continue
to gain ground. The elite, as the rest of us, need to recognize that the
enterprise of salvaging state and society is time-barred.
While we are rapidly running out of time there are
many unanswered questions. Can the political, economic and social structures
be transformed? Can this transition be carried out in an orderly
fashion? How can this elite acquire the necessary moral authority and political
will? Will desperation force the people to turn to somewhere else? And
if governments that have
come in through the electoral process lack credibility, will those
that follow the non-democratic route fare any better? Will we witness a
social upheaval led by the right?
Those who take comfort in the fact that the religious
parties, for instance, still manage to get only a negligible percentage
of the vote, would do well to learn a lesson from the example of the Taliban
who, from being an unknown entity up to 1993, were able to virtually over-run
Afghanistan within five years by 1998. Those who think that such radical
developments in the
short term are possible only where the political and socio-economic
structures are relatively weak and unstable should consider the example
of India where the BJP strength shot up from 2 to 82 seats in the course
of two elections.
To conclude, the nagging question without a ready
answer is how does one persevere with democracy such as it is, while we
have, presiding over our destiny, an elite that apart from being corrupt
continues to demonstrate little ability to establish relatively transparent,
accountable governments and to create new measurable standards of good
governance for economic,
social and political development.