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Advising the State: Bureaucratic Leadership and the Crisis of Governance in Pakistan, 1952–2000*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2011

ILHAN NIAZ
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Abstract

This article examines four important turning points (1952, 1961, 1982 and 2000) in Pakistan's history. In each case, the government of the day, faced with serious challenges, solicited/received advice from the bureaucratic leadership. In each case, the latter placed before the former options that, though often different from conventional wisdom or popular prescriptions, offered real hope of a long-term solution to some of Pakistan's problems. And on each occasion, this advice was rejected or ignored by the politicians, arguably at great cost to the country and to its rulers. This article employs a historian's hindsight and argues that at key points in Pakistan's history the bureaucratic leadership did what it was supposed to – provide sound advice based on empirical appreciation of Pakistan's predicament and the enlightened self-interest of the government. Today, it is widely perceived that Pakistan's senior civil servants do not even bother to advise the politicians in power. Indeed, Pakistan's crisis of state cannot be overcome unless the esprit de corps and professional integrity of the civil service are rebuilt. The consequences of failure on this front are so greatly negative for the entire region that focused and sustained efforts are needed to rehabilitate Pakistan's bureaucratic leadership.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 41 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2011

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Footnotes

*

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the East-West Center, Washington D.C., for awarding the research fellowship on bureaucratic leadership in Pakistan that led to the writing of this article.

References

1 The term ‘bureaucratic leadership’ is used to describe the highest levels of Pakistani bureaucracy, which are in direct contact with the political leadership. In the context of Pakistan, these civil servants exercised influence and an advisory scope that exceeded that of their counterparts in countries like the United States of America, or even the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. For much of Pakistan's history its senior civil servants enjoyed an intellectual and moral ascendancy over both the civilian politicians and military rulers. This led senior civil servants to think of themselves not merely as executors or advisors but also as initiative-takers and leaders with a broader responsibility for the well-being of the state. This did not mean that the bureaucratic leadership necessarily succeeded in persuading the political leadership on important issues – indeed, this paper clearly establishes that the bureaucratic leadership repeatedly prevailed in terms of the power of argument but failed when it came to the argument of power as it possessed neither the popular support of politicians nor the coercive might of the military. But, time and again, it did try to convince the political leadership to fundamentally re-think policies and priorities for the greater good of the state and, incidentally, the government of the day.

2 Hayat, Sikandar, The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan (Karachi, 2008), pp. 225–267Google Scholar, deals with the political mobilisation of the Muslims of India by the AIML.

3 Many historians accept the figure of one million dead as a median figure between different estimates. Regrettably “the truth is that no one knows how many people were killed, nor how many were raped, mutilated or traumatized”. One can argue that the numbers chosen indicate the bias or inclinations of the individual writer concerned: “Fewer than four hundred thousand suggests an apologia for British rule; four hundred thousand to one million moderation; a million or more usually indicates that the person intends to blame the deaths on a specific party, the most usual culprits being one or more of Mountbatten, Patel, Jinnah or the Sikhs.” See von Tunzelmann, Alex, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (New York, 2007), p. 228Google Scholar.

4 Full text can be accessed on line thanks to (among other websites) http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/constituent_address_11aug1947.html (accessed on 25 March 2010).

5 http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/annex_objres.html (accessed on 25 March 2010).

6 Anti-Ahmedi sentiment eventually led to serious full-scale rioting in 1953, which in turn resulted in the establishment of a committee of inquiry led by then Lahore High Court Justice Muhammad Munir. The committee examined the entire controversy and reported on the history of the Ahmadiya movement, starting in the 1880s when, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed declared himself the recipient of divine revelations through to 1901 when he claimed that he was a prophet, albeit one without a new Sharia, and that while the traditional doctrine of the Finality of the Prophethood ruled out the possibility of a new Sharia, it did not rule out the possibility of a new prophet. See Report of the Court of Inquiry Constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to Enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (Lahore, 1954), pp. 9–10. To Sunnis and Shias the finality of the prophethood is a core element of faith. For any individual to proclaim himself (or herself) a prophet (with or without their own Sharia) amounts to apostasy, punishable by death. The 1973 Constitution incorporated, as the Second Amendment, a demand from fundamentalists that Ahmedis be declared non-Muslims and apostates; thus under Islamic traditions and laws, to kill Ahmedis or forcibly convert them to mainstream Islam, became a meritorious deed. An attack in 2010 on an Ahmedi place of worship, which left 95 dead, drew practically no condemnation from religious parties and only formal protestations of outrage at loss of life from mainstream political parties.

7 National Documentation Centre, Folder 21, File. No. 3(5)-PMS/52, Government of Pakistan, Prime Minister's Secretariat, “Correspondence with the Hon'ble minister for Interior and States & F.R.” (1952).

8 Ibid., p. 72.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p. 74.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 76.

14 Ibid., p. 77.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., pp. 77–78.

17 Ibid., p. 80.

18 Ibid.

19 Report of the Constitution Commission, Pakistan, 1961 (Karachi, Government of Pakistan Press, 1961).

20 S. K. Delhavi, “Report on the Administrative Law & Courts in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Sweden & Spain”, (Rome-February, 1961, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Pakistan, Karachi), p. 1.

21 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

22 Ibid., p. 22.

23 Ibid., p. 28.

24 Ibid., p. 29.

25 Ibid., p. 30.

26 Ibid., p. 34.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., p. 36.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., p. 38.

31 Ibid., p. 40.

32 Ibid., p. 137.

33 Ibid., p. 143.

34 PCPII-616-Estt Div. -14-6-82-100 (1982).

35 Ibid. Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidi, “Summary for the Cabinet: Civil Services Commission Report”, p. 2.

36 Ibid., p. 3.

37 Ibid., p. 5.

38 Ibid., pp. 5–6, 13.

39 Ibid., p. 13.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., p. 14.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Zafar Iqbal Rathore, “State and Society in Pakistan” (Islamabad, February 2000), p. 1.

45 Ibid., p. 2.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., p. 3.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., p. 1.

52 Ibid., p. 2.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., p. 3.

56 Ibid.

57 The recently-released Reforming Pakistan's Civil Service (Islamabad, International Crisis Group, 2010) addresses many of the problems identified by the four civil servants discussed in this research paper. Actually bringing about a sustained improvement in the quality of Pakistan's 2.4 million regular civil servants is a monumental challenge to say the least.