Who rules Pakistan ?

                            

                      Tribalism in Pakistani political discourse obscures a wide array of dynamics play a disproportionately bigger role in our daily lives. And yet you will hardly ever here political pundits comment on them. That is precisely blind tribalism is such a stupid thing. Instead of allowing scholarship to evolve organically, it sends you on an expedition to heard for the facts that provide succor to your tribal worldview. An interesting case in point is of the perennial question who rule Pakistan? If you are a Marxist- Lenienst you may end up taking about the Robber barons a few dozen privileges dozen families.

         If you are support of that harsh mistress called civilian supremacy, you may point to the history of our troubled civil military relations and claim that the army rule the country. And if you are the country’s most hated enemy, a “Khooni liberal” or a “laa-deen-secular” you may like to point to the state capture any of this. There is enough circumstantial evidence to substantiate all of these claims. But all these explanation merely scratched the surface. How deepen are you allowed to dig?

        As any Journalist is way up from the grass roots will tell you, the real power of dwells in institution that you mind instantly overlook. The real power vests in the country’s highly disciplined bureaucracy, I know your social conditioning on programming is compelling you to snort   out loud in derision and stop reading but here me out. When Nawaz Sharif was disqualify as the Prime Minister during the Panama Paper trial, for fold a there was no chief Executive or cabinet in the Country In such situation, power returns to the largely symbolic office. The president, at that time, late Mamnoon Hussain, was a meek man. His health did not allow him to stay on his field for more than 15 minutes. His constriction span was very short and he at best, had nodding acquaintance with the matter of Governance.

        In short, he could hardly be accused of running the show. Any yet functioning of the government machinery continued without a hitch. So, who was running it all. Army, intelligence, Nope, Bureaucracy. To be more precise, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, always a career bureaucrat. Need more evidence?. In this time General Pervez Mushraf could not take a step without the assistance of his old buddy and bureaucrat Tariq Aziz. Similarly, Yousaf Raza Gillani’s dependence on Nargis Sethi is well documented. Politicians and military dictators can pretend to wield all the power but only civil servants know how to fire up the engine of governance and shift gears.  

                 Since the inherent tribalism programs you to ignore this important, nuance, you are unlikely to notice how many attempts to restructure the civil service have failed in this country. If you want to know how perennial these issues are just read a 1974 paper titled “The Pakistan Bureaucracy. Two views authored by Lawrence Ziring and Rober Laporte. Do not let the optimistic tone of the authors beguile you. The Bhutto government did institute some administrative changes. But scrutiny of the text reveals that the cultural aspect of power like status distance precepts inherited from the colonial era and espirt de corps never went away. Iqbal Akhund’s Trial and Error also sheds light on how this juggernaut practically took the mickey out of an ebullient and ambitious Benezir Bhutto. No wonder then that the National Reconstruction Bureau under STH Naqvi and later Daniyal Aziz, the Planning Commission under Naeem ul Haq, and then Ahsan Iqbal and the institutional reform cell under Ishrat Hussain all failed. Recently, when I asked a retired senior government servant with the granular knowledge of these issues to explain to me what was driving the low-intensity insurgency put up by the country’s powerful bureaucracy he did not dillydally. I found not mention of the NAB, judicial activism, aggressive media, or pay structure. Instead, he pointed to the Imran Khan Governments unprecedented decision to appoint Arbab Shahzad, an accomplished but retired civil servant, as the adviser on the establishment.

                 The establishment division is the human resource arm of the government of Pakistan. Usually ceremonially headed by the PM as the Minister in charge is actually run by the Establishment Secretary, a senior career civil servant, who single handedly, decides the transfer and posting of the officials up to the 20^th grade and seeks only ceremonial approval by the PM’s office. The decision to install a political appointee (go figure) as the adviser in charge was viewed as unnecessary interference in the bureaucracy’s domain.

                Another remarkable example is of the Daniyal Aziz. Lt. General (retd) STH Naqvi was not a politician and consequently and soon disappeared from the scene. Daniyal Aziz succeeded him as the Chairman of the NRB when parliamentary democracy was restored in the country. As its head, he staked his career in support of the local governments meant to supplant the District Manager Group of the civil service. In a short span of time, he was shunted out of the system. A morose Aziz sat outside the parliament for five years. When he returned to the system it was to be in the shape of  his newly party yesman and Chief troll, and not the scholar with an incredible degree of domain knowledge he had become. And still, where is he now.

                If you are an aspiring politician or a student of power, I highly recommended you watch every single episode of the British political comedy series. Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister. I do not think any cultural product has ever come this close to epitomizing mimicking the Pakistani power structure. Likewise, pick up any biograph written by a retired civil servant (regardless of his/her seniority), you will find it more substantive, illuminating  and entering than most of the Pakistani politicians combined.

                 I am a practical man. I do not believe in revolutions or dramatic transformations. Reform is multigenerational process. Whatever works today cannot just be dismantled. And let us be honest. Pakistan is blessed with countless highly gifted civil servants. But letting your tribalism and predetermined worldview could your understanding of real power dynamics only obstructs the natural evolution of institutions as all stakeholders stumble in the dark instead of enraging with them in a meaningful way.

                From the discussion above, I drew there conclusions. As the episode of Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification illustrates, the office of the chief executive is merely ceremonial one. It exists not to exercise power but to draw attention away from it. Two, never mess with the bureaucracy. There stop pretending that you can reform something that you have no capacity to. Reforms will come but neither on your watch nor at your instigation.