NAPOLEON, famously, said that he never interfered when the enemy was making mistakes. By that maxim this is a good time for India and Pakistan to leave each other alone.

A week, said Harold Wilson (equally famously) is a long time in politics. That would make a year equivalent to eternity. It certainly does seem an eternity since Agra and the summit that turned flat. The principal protagonists of that meet must have anticipated the cost of agreement if there was ever going to be one before they met. But neither Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee nor President Pervez Musharraf really estimated the cost of failure. Would they have done anything differently had they known that failure would lead both countries to the edge of nuclear havoc?

I would like to provide a comforting answer, but, frankly, one cannot be sure. Someone described George Bush’s “solution” to the Palestine-Israel conflict as an attempt to construct a tunnel in order to see the light. Compared to the situation in South Asia that is clarity. India and Pakistan are in a black hole without a route map.

President — General? Which of the two is more appropriate? - Musharraf now looks a little lost. Till Agra the most luminous part of his attire was a halo. He could defend his coup on more than one count. Not only had the coup been forced on him by an erratic and perhaps even homicidal Nawaz Sharif, but there was also visible popular support for a regime that promised action against corruption and promised to restore constitutional authority within a defined timeline. The confidence was evident in a wide range of policy formulations even if the practical fallout was a smattering of barely connected decisions on crucial issues like the economy and internal reform.

It is often suggested that President Musharraf seized the moment when it arrived on September 11. The truth is clearer now. He did not seize the moment. The moment seized him. And it has not released him yet. There is an old saying from Mughal times, about those who came too close to emperors: if you want to befriend a mahout, you have to find space for the elephant. If you want to befriend George Bush, you have to find space for America. Superpowers have substantial elbows. And an elbow, being positioned where it is, generally ends up in a friend’s face. Moreover, since the Pentagon is reluctant to commit troops in any zone where the risk is more than minimal, Pakistani troops are doing the fighting against suspected Al Qaeda elements and losing men.

The FBI is doing all the police work it wants to in search of its targets. America’s spreading presence is not as popular on the street as it is in the Pakistani establishment. President Musharraf has already been renamed President Busharraf, and that is not a compliment. (It is engaging to recall that Bush’s destiny has become so closely entwined with that of a man whose name he could not remember when he was running for the job he holds now.)

The Americans, on their part, may want to consider the merits of that ancient curse: may your wish be granted. A general in charge suited them nicely when they needed Pakistan’s support in the war against Taliban and Al Qaeda. No messy politicians worried about public opinion. No delays in the process of decision-making. And “Yes, sir” more often than “Maybe”.

But wars against irregular, ideological armies do not end in a hurry, and they need political management. The strength of Islamabad in September has become a weakness in July. The emperor may have a uniform but he has no clothes. American policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan is ransom to a government without roots in a constitutional framework or buoyed by popular support. America has to protect an edgy protege in order to protect itself.

And so it will endorse a logic that cannot but end in dismal disarray. Having eliminated any legitimate party from the emerging power structure, President Musharraf will probably manage the “election” of a King’s Party in October nullifying the very reason for the whole process since it will not add any credibility to the military dictatorship.

Coincidentally, and curiously, it is an election in India as well that will define policy in South Asia, the one due for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly this year in October. The one large blot on Indian democracy has been the continual sabotage of free elections in the Kashmir Valley. The very fact that Mr Vajpayee is investing so much equity in free and fair elections this time only proves that the past has had its problems.

The three most important ministers in government at the moment, Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and George Fernandes, were colleagues in the cabinet of 1977, when they ensured an untroubled election won by the late Sheikh Abdullah. It was no coincidence that a serene peace ensued in the valley. The most outrageous case of denial took place when the Congress-National Conference alliance was literally rigged into power in the mid-’80s. Violence started within two years of that fateful mistake.

The epicentre of the Kashmir problem is within Kashmir itself, and that is where it has to be addressed first and foremost. The “Jihadis” who cross the Line of Control with the aid and patronage of the ISI can fish for violence only if there are troubled waters. (The ISI has, according to informed sources, a list of such deadly human exports, in order to compensate the family of any such volunteer who loses his life. This is not new. There was a similar list of “Khalistanis” sent across the Punjab border during General Ziaul Haq’s time in power, and later some quiet cooperation between Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto went a long way in ending the insurrection in Punjab.)

The Kashmir problem has to be solved first in Kashmir, and it is Delhi’s inability to do so over the last decade that has created the conditions for a larger disease. A free election will be a starting point of the healing, and hence vulnerable to those extremists who would prefer Kashmir to fester and decay and lead to a horrendous war. Sabotage will not be hugely difficult. India has laid a non-negotiable card on the table, and received support from the world for its stand on cross-border terrorism. The American special envoy for common sense on the subcontinent, Richard Armitage, told Delhi that President Musharraf assured him four times that he would move to control this menace.

Armitage deliberately repeated this point so that there would be no confusion later, and no room for backtracking; he also received President Musharraf’s assent to convey as much to Delhi. This led directly to a decline in tension. There are signs that the president is either succumbing to the hardline lobby now that tensions have eased, or that he is reverting to snakes-and-ladders as strategy. Ludo with nuclear dice is not recommended entertainment.

But if there is peace then the onus falls on Delhi and Srinagar to deliver. Kashmir is not a problem without an answer, once you accept that the solution is going to be incremental rather than a one-stroke decision and nothing as pyrrhic as “victory” and “defeat”. (There are a lot of Indians today who wish India had not been as victorious in 1971 when Bangladesh was created.) The more appropriate word might be ‘resolution’ rather than ‘solution’. We have had hints of the possible in the past; Mr Vajpayee himself announced, during one of those rare moments of hope, that the Line of Control could become a much softer border permitting Kashmiris on both sides easier travel and even trade. Talks between India and Pakistan, this time in Islamabad, will necessarily follow happier ground realities, for neither side has ever denied the need for a dialogue on all matters, including Kashmir.

Maybe, till then, some highly qualified doctor, commanding respect on both sides, should, in the interest of everyone’s well-being, prescribe some healthy silence on the part of leaders. Even the minister of state for very rural affairs in Delhi feels the need to sound off on the intricacies of Pakistan, often in the process contradicting what the defence minister might have said. In Pakistan the president seems to want to do the talking on behalf of the whole cabinet, but that could be a reflection of the nature of the two systems of governance. If the two governments have anything serious to say to each other, they could try and use their diplomats. They are a little more discreet than television.

The writer is editor-in-chief of the Asian Age, New Delhi.

REDUCING corruption and reforming the civil service are two important items on the agenda of the government headed by General Pervez Musharraf. A number of actions aimed at these two objectives have already been taken. Some more are planned and are likely to be adopted in the few remaining weeks of the government’s sanctioned tenure.

At this point we should ask two questions, both important since the answers to them will signal the direction the country’s economy and society are likely to take in the years ahead. One, why is there such a close perceived link between the structure of the civil service and prevalence of corruption within a society? Two, what are the prospects that the agenda of reform adopted by the Musharraf government will be adhered to by the administration that will take office following the elections scheduled for October next?

Let us take the first question first. Corruption is not confined to civil servants or public servants if the definition of public service is expanded to include elected officials. As the series of scandals that have surfaced recently in the United States clearly indicate, corporate leaders can also be spectacularly corrupt. In fact, men (and women) are not born honest. Most, but unfortunately not all, become honest for three reasons.

Conscience has something to do with being honest but the demands and expectations of the society and culture in which we live has a great deal to do with making most of us follow the path of honesty. However, by far the most important contributor to the cultivation of honesty as an important social value is the requirement that all citizens must function within the space sanctioned by law. It is clearly understood that any deviation from the conduct or behaviour permitted by law will be punished. And, punishment will fit the magnitude of the committed crime.

However, this relationship between crime and punishment often breaks down. It collapses when legal and regulatory systems become dysfunctional. This happens when the power of the strong cannot be constrained by those who are weak. That is exactly what happened in America’s go-go capitalism in which the power wielded by corporate boards and corporate executives was considerably greater than that exercised by common shareholders and common consumers.

The intricate and much touted regulatory system that oversaw the working of the American corporations turned out not to be strong enough to prevent Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco and Worldcom (the list is long and is getting longer by the day) from indulging in immensely corrupt practices and for a reputable accounting firm, Andersen, to sanction them. The crimes committed by these corporations were big; it would be interesting to see whether the American political system will allow the punishment meted out to the wrong-doers to be equally big.

This reference to recent American corporate behaviour is meant to underscore the important point that corruption is not unique to the developing world. That notwithstanding, the subject of the this discussion is corruption in Pakistan’s public service — in particular corruption in the civil service. Pakistan today has a very large public sector and, in spite of some attempts to control its expansion, it has continued to grow. Let us proceed with this line of enquiry by first looking at what has happened to the public sector over the last several decades in terms of its size, its mandate, the burden it imposes on public resources, and the way it is perceived by the people in Pakistan and the world outside.

The state in what is Pakistan today was large even in the pre-colonial times. The Mughal administration may not have kept a large civil service in the sense of directly employing a great number of people. Nonetheless, it paid, sometimes in cash and at other times in kind, a significant number of people to perform functions for the state — to defend its domain against foreign aggression, to provide security for the lives and properties of its citizens, to settle disputes among the people, and to construct and maintain physical infrastructure. It paid for all this by taxing the people. An elaborate system of tax administration was built to make sure that the state had enough to provide for the expenses of the court and for the government to perform its many functions.

The British administration was impressed with the system the Mughuls had built. They adopted it and expanded it further. The important innovation introduced by the British was to make the colonial system much more formal and rule-bound. It was managed by an elite civil service — the ICS — according to a set of laws and rules promulgated from time to time. Initially, the ICS drew all its recruits from Britain, the argument being that the Indians — the natives, as the British called them — were not well suited to administer a system based on rules and laws. Later, as education spread to many segments of the Indian population, the British felt comfortable enough to induct the natives into the Indian Civil Service.

The ICS, working together with various provincial services — the PCSs — was charged with maintaining law and order and exacting land tax — one of the important sources of revenue for the government. That was essentially the system Pakistan inherited when it became independent in 1947. The Muslim and some British officers who chose to serve in Pakistan formed the backbone of the new administrative structure. However, the civil service as an institution did not develop in tandem with the development of the state.

Following partition, new demands were placed on the machinery of the state in part because of the underdevelopment of the private sector. But the state also increased in size for other reasons as well. Among them was the strong belief that the state had to be actively involved in developing the economy and managing it. The presence of the state expanded as a result several agendas. To begin with, the objectives of nation-building and promoting economic development by both direct and indirect means were pursued diligently by a succession of administrations, both political and military, over several decades.

The state’s direct involvement aimed at fulfilling these objectives covered activities such as substantial public investment, creation of public enterprises, direct provision of public services. Indirect involvement encompassed tax incentives, subsidies, credit and regulatory restrictions. The public sector also took over the task of directly providing employment to the people who were unable to get jobs in the private sector. As the quality of education worsened, the public sector became the last resort for those who were essentially unemployable. Together, these objectives and roles have resulted in a public sector that is large and overextended, overstaffed at lower grades and skill levels, inefficient and corrupt.

How large is Pakistan’s civil service if by civil service we mean all employees who are in the government? This question should be easy to answer, but for Pakistan that is not the case and that is for two reasons. The government does not regularly conduct censuses of state employees. The last available census relates to the year 1993-94; a census was conducted in 1997-98 but, to the best of my knowledge the final report has not been published. The other reason why it is difficult to be precise about the size and the cost to the economy of the civil service is that various governments have found ways to circumvent repeated attempts to restrain the expansion of the civil service. There have been freezes on government employment but they were largely ignored by hiring temporary workers or by paying people from the development rather than the current budget.

These difficulties notwithstanding, it is possible to make some assumptions about the civil service’s size. As a result of the expanding role of the state, the civil service grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. The size of Pakistan’s civil service is not particularly large in absolute terms, though at about 20 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce, it is significant. In 1996-97, total government civilian employment was estimated at 2.4 million, or about 6.5 per cent of total labour force and about 1.8 per cent of the country’s population.

Federal public sector enterprises such as WAPDA, KESC, PIA employ close to half a million people. The federal government accounts for 18.2 per cent of total public sector employment, exactly the same number as employed by the corporations it manages. Employment in the federal government is concentrated in the railways and in the ministries of finance, interior and education. The government of Punjab is the largest public sector employer with 32.9 per cent of total employees. The four provinces together employ 63.7 per cent of total public sector workforce.

The cost of maintaining a public sector workforce of this size is considerable. Counting not only the formal employees, but the entire workforce that draws compensation from the government in some form or other, it appears that Pakistan spends 4.8 per cent of its GDP on the civil service. Taking out the expenditure on defence and on servicing the large internal and external debt, the expenditure on the civil service accounts for 65 per cent of the budget.

The average annual civil service salary in Pakistan is low by international standards. An average civil servant receives 2.3 times the average national per capita income. This is less than one-half of the average for most parts of the developing world — the average for Asia is 4.7 times the per capita income; for Africa, 6.7; for Latin America and the Caribbean, 4.9 and for the world’s rich countries 4.5. Corruption is one inevitable consequence of a poorly paid civil service.

Take the case of the patwari, an individual entrusted with the extremely important task of maintaining land records and records on farm production. Although, the patwari has been traditionally very poorly paid in terms of salary, his job, particularly in rich agricultural areas, is highly coveted. Some of these jobs are sought after to such an extent that tidy sums of money are paid — and demanded — to make them available.

Once an individual has paid a large amount of money to secure a job and if the salary it carries is small, the only other way to recover the outlay made is to charge people for the services provided. This is how a significant number of patwaris compensate themselves and this why corruption by the patwari has come to be expected to be the norm rather than the exception.

However, if civil service corruption had been limited to the patwari, the problem could have been easily handled. The land revenue system could have been changed. Land records maintained by the patwaris could have been computerized and electronically updated. Access to the records — denying such access is one way the patwaris make money — could be made automatic. Unfortunately, the problem runs much deeper. How deep did it go and would the reform of the civil service — an item on the agenda of this government — help solve the problem is a subject to which I will return tomorrow.

VEXING geopolitical situation and testing times in South Asia deserve introspection for determining the state of the union and for assessing the performance of India and Pakistan faced with domestic, regional and global pressures.

India’s political brinkmanship and Pakistan’s response to it reveal the mindsets of both the antagonist states and highlight the policies of their external allies, friends, well-wishers and critics — some actively engaged in reducing regional tension and others watching the game of power from sidelines.

The leaders of post-independence India are obsessed with the historic reality of prolonged Muslim rule in the subcontinent. They show their bias by conveniently overlooking the interregnum that gave India the basic structure of a unified state; an organized system of governance, a network of communication that facilitated its national integration, the art of creating political harmony in a fragmented and diversified society and a vast archeological treasure of its past cultural heritage.

Ancient India was neither Hindu nor Muslim, the two main religions that dominate its landscape in present times. And yet, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi showed intolerance and Hindu chauvinism when she remarked on the fall of Dhaka in 1971 that India had avenged the insult of the last one thousand years of Muslim rule.

Hindu prejudice against Indian Muslims runs deep. It shows in acts from the days of secularists Gandhi and Nehru to the era of Hindu extremist leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani committed to enforce Hindutva on India’s minorities in secular India. Leaders come and go but the prejudice against the minorities, Muslims in particular, remains a constant factor in India’s political landscape.

A large country with a small heart, India seeks total security for itself and ‘security’ for its immediate neighbours in South Asia to the extent acceptable to New Delhi. Working under this mindset India absorbed Sikkim, encouraged political unrest in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and East Pakistan and engineered a coup in Maldives, and stabbed Pakistan in the back in 1971. New Delhi is indignant when Pakistan exercises its sovereign right to preserve its security and dignity.

The present military standoff stems from India’s dream of dominating South Asia and establishing its pre-eminence in this region with coercive diplomacy and military might. Nuclear and conventional capabilities were used for blackmailing and browbeating Pakistan into submission. Its additional goal is to absorb Kashmir when the global political climate favours it. India hides its own acts of state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir and projects the indigenous freedom struggle in the Valley as Pakistan-engineered to defame Islamabad.

India capitalized on the international mood against terrorism in the post-9/11 scene. It exploited expanding Indo-US strategic relationship and its media blitzkrieg aimed at getting external sympathy for distancing Pakistan from the freedom struggle in Kashmir. America’s visible pro-India tilt in Kashmir created an impression in Pakistan that India acted with the tacit understanding with the US to keep Pakistan under pressure but without starting open hostilities. The US and its strategic allies oppose fighting between India and Pakistan because this could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by either side.

India’s concept of bilateralism on Kashmir stands eroded and this dispute is now under a sharp global focus. There is a growing international recognition that durable peace in South Asia can best be achieved by an amicable and negotiated settlement of this core dispute. It is also realized that the danger of war will not disappear until this dispute is satisfactorily settled. India itself has been approaching outside powers on the Kashmir dispute. Notwithstanding this, the global reaction is generally ambivalent on the actual mechanics of settlement.

The western powers — sensitive to the excessive whims and enflamed ego of India — are timid in their views about the right of the people of Kashmir to decide their own future. They take refuge behind the diplomatic verbiage that India and Pakistan should settle the Kashmir dispute through negotiations. Bilateral negotiations are doomed to fail because India wants to impose a settlement of its own choice on the unwilling people of Kashmir. That, such a policy of appeasement to a regional bully is against the interests of regional peace, does not get the attention that it deserves.

The global reaction provides some food for thought. Downtrodden and weak people are unlikely to get justice in this imperfect world unless they fight for their rights. Might is considered right. The strong are trigger-happy when they perceive that their own interests are under threat. On the other hand, they advise patience to the weak and at best offer them some financial lollypops and political crumbs to lull them to inactivity.

The UN has lost its independence and credibility. The present day currency of power is the economic, political and military capability of a state to protect its own rights. International diplomacy takes a back seat when it comes to protecting the rights of the dispossessed people. Freedom is won, not given.

And, there is the domestic factor in both the countries. In India, time is running out for Vajpayee, the so-called soft face of the hardline BJP. His image is on the wane. His ripe age, declining health and the high ambition of some of his close cabinet colleagues show that a stage is being systematically set for the battle of succession. Cabinet reshuffle in India and appointment of Advani as deputy prime minister are meaningful indicators of the exit of Vajpayee who seeks a face-saving mechanism to extricate himself from the political quagmire created by his government.

Vajpayee’s latest ‘no war, no withdrawal’ statement — contradictory and coercive in nature — shows double-speak besides depicting a possible split within the ruling coalition and Vajpayee’s weakening political grip on it. Perhaps Vajpayee is fighting for political survival with political gimmicks like cabinet’s reshuffle; the forthcoming (so-called) elections in Kashmir; vagaries of the monsoonic weather (in July-August) against combat; the Babri Masjid issue and the impending induction of Mr Abdul Kalam as the next head of state. The respected father of India’s missile programme is an unknown entity in the rough seas of domestic politics and international relations. Vajpayee expects him to follow the script written for him by the establishment pundits in New Delhi.

Pakistan has learnt some lessons in the existing standoff. India has lived up to its tradition of being a hegemonic neighbour hard to trust. This demands political unity and internal cohesion in this country. There is also a need for a comprehensive study of the comparative military capabilities of India and Pakistan in the fields of nuclear and conventional warfare and in the vital areas of logistics stamina, inter-arm cooperation and intelligence.

Pakistan needs sufficient deterrent capability in the nuclear and in the conventional fields to safeguard its security. India’s military budget has been on the rise in the last few years. This demands a professional evaluation to determine Pakistan’s minimum essential response to the danger posed to it. And finally, the process of Pakistan’s return to a democratic order should be implemented on schedule in a fair and transparent manner and without raising avoidable controversies in political and constitutional fields.

The writer is a retired general of the Pakistan Army.

“THE report of a teenaged girl having been subjected to a gang-rape by a tribal council in Meerwala Jatoi, district Muzaffargarh, is shocking beyond belief,” so starts an editorial in this newspaper. “Shocking beyond belief,” it certainly is but are we dealing with a crime or a sickness, the sickness of a feudal culture?

Those who ordered and participated in the gang-rape were acting out of an outraged sense honour? My own guess would be that they did not see it as shameful, if not barbaric. The gang-rapists, if ever caught and correctly identified, will be prosecuted and convicted, one hopes. Should they be sent to jail? Prima facie, they certainly should.

But they need treatment as much as they need punishment. The gang-rape of the teenaged girl is an act so heinous that it is hard to believe that it was carried out by people of sound mind. I would have called it an animal act were it not for the fact that animals do not behave in this fashion, animals do not go in for gang-rape. But whatever the punishment meted out is contingent on the gang-rapists being caught, and as I write this, most of them are still at large.

I fear that the investigations will get murkier, made complicated and the print media will take the story off the front pages and turn its attention to some other equivalent of a gang-rape. Even outrage is subject to the law of diminishing returns. But it is worth pondering and being deeply disturbed by the fact that there are some in our society who are living in the Dark Ages.

And now to the accidental error when a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb was dropped by a B-52 bomber and went astray and hit a wedding party in the Uruzgan province in central Afghanistan, killing, at least, 40 persons, including the bride and bride-groom and injuring many more. Unfortunate as this is, even more unfortunate is the different versions we are getting.

US military spokesman Colonel Roger King said an AC-130 gunship, a B-52 bomber and other aircraft joined the attack when coalition ground forces came under fire. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said a coalition air reconnaissance patrol that was flying over Uruzgan province reported coming under anti-aircraft artillery fire. Other coalition aircraft opened fire on the target and at least one bomb went astray. But the Americans or the coalition seem to be unaware of a custom at Afghan weddings of guests firing in the air as a way of celebration. Was this firing misinterpreted as unfriendly fire? It is entirely possible as it is entirely possible that the smart bombs are not so smart.

There is no reason not to believe that this was an error, a costly error albeit. There is no reason either to try and put a spin on it, and indeed, in some circuitous, perverted way to justify it as an act of self-defence. Sometimes honesty is the best tactical weapon, for in a war, such as is being fought in Afghanistan, it is just as important to win the hearts of the local population as it is to win military battles.

All the more reason for the bombardiers to be extra careful and not so trigger-happy. And, perhaps, the smart bombs should be sent back to school and made even smarter. In Sudan, the Americans hit a pharmaceutical factory in the determined belief that it was a factory that was manufacturing chemical weapons. Ad in Kosovo they hit the Chinese Embassy. This was poor intelligence. There is no point in having bombs of such awesome precision if you cannot rightly identify the target. In a convuluted way, it is perhaps, a good thing that human errors can be made. At least, we have not yet become programmed robots.

But this is, obviously, no consolation, to the families of those killed and injured in the Uruzgan province and I would hope that they will get more than just condolences, no matter how deep these condolences may be. The investigations into what happened will do nothing to lighten their grief. And one hopes that the investigations will not be a cover-up as they have been in the past, sometimes.

A lot of search and destroy missions in Vietnam ended up as atrocities, pure and simple. The My Lai massacre was one of them and Lt. Calley, though found guilty was ultimately pardoned by Richard Nixon who, in turn, was pardoned by Ford, for another kind of crime and which we know as Watergate.

The war against terror is a new, unique war and there are no rules of engagement. It is, at present, a sort of free for all. The enemy has no face and is not confined to geographic bounds. At the moment, it is Al Qaeda that is the enemy and its members and sympathisers are being hunted down in all corners of the globe.

A Tunisian has been arrested in Italy and is considered to be a key link in the Al Qaeda network. There have been other Al Qaeda sightings in other parts of the world. The Al Qaeda clearly has very long arms. All the more reason that there should be a clear definition of terrorism so that the search for terrorists does not become a witch-hunt or firing in the air at weddings is not mistaken for anti-aircraft fire.