Why is Pakistan perceived to be an "ungovernable" state? A rather bleak, perhaps verging on ignominious, first sentence to start a book; my first impressions, the author means business. But if I was expecting swift and simple solutions for transiting Pakistan from ungovernable to even mildly governed, the book leaves a lot to be desired; except that, purely rationally speaking, if the ungovernable were governable, they wouldn't be called the ungovernable.
Also, who all exactly perceives us to be ungovernable is a key related question that, in my humble opinion, also needed a bit of elucidation in the book; to call a spade a spade, the journey from ungovernable to a failed state, has more to do with wordplay than anything else. Nonetheless, answering the "who" was necessary to concisely and precisely define the problem statement, a prerequisite for any study, scientific or otherwise; if we, Pakistanis, ourselves believe we are ungovernable, or have reached the point of being ungovernable, the solution would need to have more to do with changing mindsets than carrying out reforms. On the other hand, if the Indians propagandize that we are ungovernable, they are definitely lying!
But perhaps I myself am indulging in wordplay; which brings me to a necessary clarification that I include in all my book reviews. Praise requires no reviews; a simple statement that a book is good would suffice. On the other hand, a book review, specifically in relation to non-fiction, is more a critique with a positive twist; critically, it is food for thought for the author's future endeavours beyond dissecting the subject matter within an alternate realm. However, let there be no doubt, writing a book, ab initio, is not a mean achievement; which I myself struggle with to date!
The author has taken pains to research the causes behind our difficult to govern state of affairs; I still cannot bring myself around to ungovernable! The book takes us all the way back in history to Pakistan's birthday to conclude that for over 40 years, until 1990, we were doing fine, if not great; ranked in top ten developing countries ahead of China, India and Vietnam. Whatever happened happened to us in the last 25 years, wherein we were mostly ruled by democratically elected governments! In fact, even in this period, taking economic performance as the singular benchmark, the dictator apparently did better than the rest!
Notwithstanding my view, that in the information age, history beyond a decade is irrelevant, the book comprehensively links the decline in every segment of governance it discusses within a historical perspective. Nationalisation in 1971 and politics of patronage are the, reasons for economic distress; when it comes to the polity, excessive powers in the hands of the party chiefs, dynastic politics and negating the principle of intra-party democracy coupled with money becoming a strength for the "electable" are the culprits; lack of attention and resources, the Aba Jan syndrome and kinship hampered social development and while the media could have helped, it developed unhealthy practices of rivalries, sensationalism, negativism and partisanship; federal and provincial governments lack coordination and the solution for public sector enterprises is to place all of them under an independent holding company; provincial ministers and elected legislators controlling financial resources of provinces did all they could to weaken district governments, hence the future of local governments looks bleak; the rulers, politicians and dictators both, marginalised the civil services; preservation of the interests of the elite is the hallmark of judiciary with most wrongdoers believing they can get away with anything, to the detriment of the poor; election of right candidates, pursuant to real electoral reforms, is a prerequisite for parliamentary conduct to improve; so on and so forth.
And while the chapters on the military and the religious edifice are not very clear in identifying the part they played in making Pakistan difficult to govern, if I understand the underlying current of the book clearly, lack of local governments and decline in the bureaucracy are the two major culprits. And if I read it right, politicians are the problem in both cases, rather than the solution; not a good sign for democracy.
The long set of solutions spread across the book, include empowering the election commission, grass root level elections in political parties to address concentration of power in the party leader, decentralisation of decision making, devolution of authority to local governments, reforms to revitalize the civil services, judicial reforms, transparency through facilitating flow of information into public hands, addressing concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister, reforms of the urban development authorities to minimise this huge source of corruption and inequity, so on and so forth. The author, however, himself confesses that these are all utopian goals.
Personally, I would have liked the author to have prioritised the problems and debated more on doable key steps in the short-term; perhaps more on the economic front which is his forte. Also over 500 pages discussing the history of the problems do make you lose sight of the solutions. A chapter summarizing clearly the strategy with timelines might have been useful. And, I for one could not figure out who can bell the cat. From what I could gather, democratically elected governments aren't the usual suspects in this case.
For instance if empowering local governments conflicts with provincial governments powers, it's just not happening. And if putting skin in the game and at the same time protecting civil servants is the solution for getting bureaucracy back on the track, than proactively investigating them, in the name of accountability, will still not get anything done.
Frankly, reading the book wasboth worrisome and depressive at the same time. You cannot but agree with the author that the situation across the board is anything but under control, and while the reforms have been there on the table for some time, nobody seems to be interested in taking up that agenda seriously. Nevertheless, the book is an excellent addition in debates on the reform agenda which the country needs to adopt, sooner than later.
(The writer is Chartered accountant based in Islamabad.)