A vital instrument of uplift

IT is now recognised in development circles that the government should be located as close as possible to the people. It is only when people are in close physical proximity to those people who perform various functions of the state that they can get their needs met. It is only when they have some influence over those responsible for the functions of the state that leakages from government expenditure can be checked. And better fulfilment of the needs of the people helps with economic development.

In fact empirical research – some of it conducted at the World Bank – shows that as much as one percentage point of growth can be added every year to the economies that are already growing rapidly by bringing government nearer to the people. This is particularly the case if the public sector is deeply involved with the provision of basic services to the people.

That is certainly the situation in Pakistan, a large country in which the population is disbursed over a very wide area. This is also the case if the aim of public policy is to make full use of the sector of agriculture as an important determinant of growth and economic change. This should certainly be the case in Pakistan for the reasons I covered in some detail in the article in this space last week.

Pakistan is now operating a three-tier system of government — the federal, the provincial and the local. While the first two tiers have been in place — albeit with some interruptions — ever since the country gained independence, there has been a great deal of experimentation at the local level. Among the systems tried in the past are the “panchyati raj”, “village aid”, basic democracies” and several systems of devolution under various episodes of rule by the military.

Absence of system continuity has meant that the people have not gained confidence in the structure of local government. They have continued to look to provincial governments or to the federal authorities for handling matters that should be dealt with nearer to where they live and work.

A new system of local governments was announced by the present government in 2000 and was enacted through the Local Government Ordinance of 2001. It has several major structural differences from those that preceded it. It allows the provinces some flexibility in designing the structure to meet their own needs as long as these provisions don’t do violence to the basic concept adopted earlier.

The new system is based on four basic principles. Among these the most important are the devolution of political power to the elected representatives at district and lower levels and decentralisation of several management functions and departments from provincial to the district and tehsil levels. The system also attempts delegation of administrative authority to several tiers of local government to enable them to perform their new responsibilities envisaged in the Local Government Ordinance of 2001.

Finally there are provisions for the transfer of financial resources to district governments through the provincial finance commissions.

Whether the present system of local government will have a longer span of life would depend in part on how successful it is in providing the services people need from the state. It will also depend on how successful it is in creating support for itself among the politically powerful segments of society. This, as will be recalled from the discussion of the theory of public choice last week, is what finally determines the success of government programmes, in particular those aimed at bringing about deep structural change.

The new system has already been through two sets of elections. That, however, does not ensure its longevity.

We should recall that the “basic democracies” structure also went through a series of elections. It did not survive since it attempted to combine political and economic objectives of the regime in power. Its greatest weakness was that it sought to bypass the accepted political culture and tradition based on the direct election of the members of the provincial and national legislatures.

Accordingly, the junking of the system was something on which all political parties were able to agree in the dying days of the period of Ayub Khan.

As a result of the reforms introduced by the present government in 2001, two different approaches to local management have come into conflict. According to the first, perfected during the British Raj, administrative, taxation, judicial, police and public services functions of the state were concentrated in the hands of one official who was answerable to a higher authority such as the provincial or the federal government.

This was how the tehsildars, deputy commissioners and commissioners functioned. While they wielded almost total power in the areas in which they served, they were not accountable to the local citizenry. They were answerable to the appointing authorities in the provincial capital or in the central government.

If the officials served the local populations with dedication and diligence — as many of them did during the days of the British and also after Pakistan became independent — the reason was not accountability to the people. It was sometimes because of the ethos of the service to which they belonged — the Indian Civil Service or the Civil Service of Pakistan. Or it could be because of the romantic notions about serving people who needed the support of the government.

This kind of altruism drew many people to the tehsils, districts and divisions during British rule and after independence. Sometimes, the motive was political. Serving the political masters and carrying out their agendas ensured promotions within the system and better positions in the bureaucratic structure. Of late this has been the driving force in many cases.

According to the second approach, executive authority in local governments should be exercised by the people who are directly responsible to the people they serve. Given the enormous difference in these two approaches, it is not surprising that there is some opposition in bureaucratic circles to the reduction in their authority implied by the new system.

Another conflict inherent in the way the system has been designed is to bring the local authorities — the nazimeen — into conflict with the members of the provincial and national legislatures. The way the Pakistani political system is evolving is that legislators cultivate constituency support not by legislating and by being the intermediaries between their constituents and various government agencies but by initiating various development schemes. Local development should not be the responsibility of the legislators; that should be left to the institutions of local government.

Having determined the broad conceptual framework within which devolution should take place, the federal government should leave the further evolution of the system to provincial and local authorities. In this context it is important to recognise that a “one size fits all” approach to local governance would not be productive. The system must take into account local conditions which are different from province to province and also within provinces.

However, this does not mean that free adjustments should be permitted. The basic concept must not be altered. The framework adopted in 2000 should not be violated.

Empirical research has identified several determinants of success for the local government. Eight of these are particularly relevant for the situation in Pakistan.

These are: (a) peoples’ confidence in the system, (b) the structure of the system which ensures that it is firmly embedded in a clearly defined system of laws and regulations. (this is what economists now refer to as institutions), (c) accountability of the system to the electorate particularly through elections that are held on a regular basis, (d) financial autonomy within a well defined fiscal framework, (e) ability to deliver basic services, (f) ability to plan for the future, and (g) good integration with the systems at the higher levels — provincial and national.

Of these criteria of success two are particularly important. The first is conformity to the political culture and tradition in society. After a great deal of experimentation Pakistan has settled for a parliamentary system of government. Such a system has two basic requirements: one, the chief executive must be continuously responsive to the people. This is ensured by the parliament which keeps a daily watch on the working of the executive.

This is what distinguishes a presidential form of government from a parliamentary system. In the former, executive authority rests in an individual elected for a fixed term with limited accountability to a parliament of people or a congress of representatives. In the presidential system the chief executive cannot be easily removed from office as can the prime minister in a parliamentary system.

The present structure of local government is a hybrid in the sense that the nazimeen are not directly elected; their indirect election moves them one step away from the citizenry. This distance between the electorate and the local executive creates problems including those related to the misuse of resources. It was the indirect system of elections on which the multi-tiered basic democracies was based that ultimately caused its demise.

The second important measure of success is the control over the mobilisation and use of financial resources.

According to 'Devolution in Pakistan’ a study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and UK’s department for international development, “another facet of the resource management problem is the degree to which local officials must respond to programme goals and priorities that they have no hand in defining. More than half of the Annual Development Plan (ADP) in the six districts studied for the report represented commitments to vertical programmes effectively controlled by federal and provincial agencies. Since the funds do not come from local sources and it is difficult to access information about their performance, local citizens have little reason to monitor spending closely. Similarly, local supervisors — nazimeen and their staff — have limited leverage over the size of the transfers, the services they support or the efficiency of their use.”

This conflict between local government institutions and those at higher levels can only be resolved by greater financial devolution. However, before undertaking further devolution it is important to examine its consequences. Some important analytical work was done by the economist Vitto Tanzi some years ago which alerted those who were designing systems of local government to watch out for what he termed political capture by local elites.

Although this work was done while he was heading the Fiscal Affairs Department at the IMF, Tanzi was of Italian origin and was thus fully aware of the corruption at the local level that had become the defining feature of his country’s political structure. This means that in the further evolution of the system of local government Pakistan needs to navigate carefully through various streams that crisscross the political, social and economic domains.

At the time of this writing, it appears to me that the country has finally in place a system of local government that could well serve the citizenry and make a contribution to economic development and social change. That said, the system has many teething problems.

In dealing with them, policymakers need to study its defects and remove them without changing the concept on which it is based. Evolution is the best form of change. That should be allowed to happen. There is no need for further experimentation.

How current stir is different

AS an eyewitness to the civil war of 1971 on the soil of East Pakistan I am not surprised at what happened on May 12 in Karachi and Islamabad, and what has followed since then. It was bound to happen. There is a possibility of more of the same. This perception is the outcome of a complete historical perspective.

Unfortunately this perspective stands blurred by many factors, including a short public memory and the ring-side view provided by the excellent performance of the media. Such a view has the advantage of sharp focus on details and the disadvantage of losing a detached look of the perspective. No wonder the nation is shocked, upset, perplexed, depressed and confused, and, therefore, apprehensive about what lies ahead.

Without reference to this historical context the nation cannot decipher the invisible code of conduct that links together the events of May including the organised killing of innocent people in Karachi, the more or less simultaneous jubilation of rulers in Islamabad, the government’s reluctance to either show remorse at its failure or to order a judicial enquiry and Gen Musharraf’s defence of the MQM. The link goes back to 1954, when a socio-political system germinated from unnoticed seeds. It is elaborated below.

The unresolved murder of Prime Minster Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951 scared feudal politicians into accepting a new arrangement in 1954 that allowed a uniformed commander-in-chief to sit in the federal cabinet as defence minister. The army-feudal axis thus established soon developed into a governing system which saw the politically enlightened and vocal democratic majority of East Pakistan as a threat to its current hold on power and future ambitions. This threat was successfully countered through short-term tactics, a long term-strategy and the cultivation of a cunning, ruthless and unyielding character.

The interplay of these factors has been convincingly brought out by the report of the Hamoodur Rehman commission while exposing the political jugglery in denying power to Mujibur Rhaman, the manipulated ruin of the political scenario, the mock war with India and the quick surrender in Dhaka in 1971

The significant point to note (in relation to May 2007) is that this system has been playing an almost unbroken innings from 1954 to 2007, and is bent on continuing through skilful use of the above-mentioned factors.

After 1971, the system gained more confidence and enlarged itself to the three-member “mullah-military-wadera” alliance and managed to stay in power. The stay was secured by distorting the Constitution, demolishing the state structure, bullying state institutions into illegal submission, breaking the fabric of civil society, and actually patronising negative practices and qualities such as corruption, opportunism, falsehood, avarice, crime, plunder, lawlessness, etc.

The system reached its saturation point of absolutism with the Seventeenth Amendment in 2003. Under the immutable law of nature, however, the system had already begun to decay because of the inbuilt immoral, illegal and unconstitutional defects in its design.

Soon after 2003, it started crumbling (with a lethal fallout in Balochistan and Waziristan) and needed external props. A desperate attempt to ensure the judiciary’s support resulted in the overkill of March 9 and, hence, a movement against the system. May 2007 saw a reassertion of the system to stop this movement.

For a complete view, however, we have to keep an eye on the past perspective and the invisible code of conduct that links together Pakistan’s past, present and future.

The past reminds us of two similar movements in 1969 (against Ayub Khan) and 1977 (against Z.A. Bhutto). The overwhelming anger of the people was undoubtedly directed against the system, but only the rulers changed and the system stayed intact with the same stakeholders. So did the rising misery of the people and the continuous march of absolutism.

This happened because both the movements were started by political parties who were an integral part of the system with an almost equal share in the profits. They never intended to change the system, but were only aiming to replace unpopular and ineffective rulers to save the working arrangement. The rusted parts of the machine had to be replaced to regain its efficiency. Hence, both movements died when new generals emerged with better deals for political parties.

The present is somewhat different and has the following new features:

(a) The movement in 2007 has not been started by politicians but is a spontaneous outburst of the people. The lawyers (representing the educated people) are in the lead and the political parties have been forced to follow them to avoid ouster and oblivion.

(b) The slogans for an independent judiciary are genuine. The people are demanding what they want. The politician’s slogans are mere mimicry. They are outwardly demanding what they do not want in their hearts. Their desire is already known to us through the politicisation of the judges in 1996 during the second tenure of Benazir Bhutto, and the storming of the Supreme Court in 1997 during the second term of Nawaz Sharif.

The future is uncertain but one can distinctly see some dangers. Any deviation from the present character of the movement can be fatal. If the leadership of the movement shifts from the lawyers to the political parties there is every danger that the present movement, like in the two previous cases, may end with the coronation of another military dictator.

The real danger, however, is from the code of conduct of the system. Its three components are undemocratic and anti-people (i.e. the army is trained to kill, the wadera is willing to cover it and the mullah is eager to bless it). Its conduct is autocratic, self-righteous, and ruthless. To stay in power it can do anything, as it has been doing in the past e.g. dismember the country, dismantle sovereignty, dismiss, banish or kill prime ministers, cede territory or rivers and drop territorial claims and bombard its own citizens for others or make them disappear for profit or revenge.

True to this code of conduct the system organised the May killings in Karachi, and is now busy covering it up and providing a safe exit to the culprits. There is no inclination of any compromise with ground realities. As in 1971, it is bent on giving a tough fight, even at the cost of national security. A crushing martial law, or an engineered civil war, could be included in a variety of options. May 2007 can be considered either a veiled threat or a trial run for such adventures.

Under the law of nature, however, we can see two rays of hope on the murky horizon. First, the system has failed to eradicate the good from our society. For the last five years or so the people were not responding to anti-Musharraf calls of discredited political parties, but one bold call of conscience from an aggrieved victim of the system has electrified them. Because of the latent good in the Pakistani people the Chief Justice has inadvertently induced the first-ever organised tussle between the good and the evil in Pakistan’s history.

Second, only 10 weeks of selfless and non-partisan mass agitation appears to be weakening the 50-year old totalitarian grip of the mullah-military-wadera system. The nation has tasted a new flavour of genuine people’s power. For the first time the people are discovering themselves. It may give them a new insight to abandon the tried horses of triple alliance and develop an alternate leadership.

The lawyers’ community should harness the current momentum into a new political party based on the textbook version of democracy, which has no room for personality cult and nominated office-bearers. It will be a great day for Pakistan when the first hand is raised to elect a political party’s leadership in a free and open election. Only such a party can bring democracy in Pakistan and rid us of the corrupt system created by the triple collusion of undemocratic forces.

Blair’s divisive legacy

JUST a few days before Labour swept to power in 1997, Tony Blair was visiting a health centre in Brentford when a Sikh man approached him and asked: "What about us Asians?" Had Blair stopped to listen, as my colleague Jonathan Freedland did, he would have learned that the man was concerned about a possible EU directive that would have stopped him from wearing his turban under his motorbike helmet.

If ever there was an ideal opportunity to triangulate, this was it. So long as the turban did not violate British safety laws, why should the EU interfere? With racial sensitivity he nods to the left, with a well-placed jab at Europe he nods to the right. But Blair had an entirely different audience in mind. "You're part of Britain," he snapped. "We'll treat you the same as everyone else."

Racial and ethnic diversity has always been less of a problem for most of Britain than it has for Blair. What most of us long regarded as a source of cultural strength, the New Labour leadership has always deemed an electoral weakness. Driven by crude majoritarian impulses, this government has not only refused to lead a more hopeful, progressive national conversation about race, it has refused to even follow the one that was available.

Margaret Hodge's comments last week followed by Ofcom's rebuke of Channel 4 for its code breaches in Big Brother illustrate just how far New Labour had sunk. Presented with the racist views voiced by Jade Goody, our popular culture pilloried them while our political culture panders to them.

The polarising effects of terrorism and war accelerated the regression to atavistic notions of Britishness and race. But they didn't start it. As Blair leaves office he has the curious distinction of having realigned the level of public racial discourse with his own - by lowering it. This was no accident. The pressure came not from voters but within New Labour, which for all its bravado was always an essentially defensive project. Emerging from 18 years of electoral defeat, it identified itself not by what it could be but by what it would no longer be - namely old Labour. Race and immigration were regarded as achille's heels of the old.

But while the spin doctors were still working from a playbook written in the 1970s, the rest of the country had moved on. Thanks primarily to demographic drift and cultural engagement, the number of those willing or able to imagine Britain without non-white people had dwindled. Labour's first term saw Chris Ofili and Steve McQueen win the Turner Prize, White Teeth win the Whitbread, Ali G emerge as a comic force, and the number of non-white MPs double.

The issues of race (the colour of people) and immigration (the movement of people) were decoupling. Britishness was losing its synonymity with whiteness and its antithesis to blackness. Racism had not disappeared; but it was no longer the electorally potent force it had once been either. In 1997, the BNP had no council seats. According to a Mori poll six weeks before the election, the country ranked race and immigration the 12th most important issue - just below inflation and above BSE.

So from the outset, the potential existed for New Labour to play midwife to a confident, inclusive, hybrid sense of Britishness. Instead, it sought to strangle it at birth. Less than a month before polling day, Peter Mandelson unleashed Fitz the bulldog on to a party political broadcast. "The Labour party is the patriotic party," he explained. "[The bulldog] is an animal with a strong sense of history and tradition. The bulldog is a metaphor for Britain." For a party seeking to present itself as a modernising force, this was a curious choice of metaphor. The bulldog signified the land of John Bull and empire, not Kelly Holmes and Little Britain.

Shortly before the last election, Blair promised tougher asylum and immigration legislation against the backdrop of the white cliffs of Dover. Had he stood again, we might well have witnessed a walkabout down the Old Kent Road flanked by a Pearly King and Queen to the soundtrack of Chas and Dave. These anachronistic symbols belied chequered legislative and political achievements. The Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the resultant Macpherson report and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act were particularly high watermarks; the asylum bill, ID cards and loyalty pledges were particularly low.

New Labour understood that racism was bad; it just never quite grasped that anti-racism was good. Progressive initiatives were overshadowed and undermined by crude rhetoric. In the days following Le Pen's election success, David Blunkett echoed Thatcher's fears of being "swamped" by non-English speaking immigrants; Ruth Kelly spoke up for "white Britons [who] see the shops and restaurants in their town centres changing [and] do not feel comfortable". Peter Hain blamed "a minority of [isolationist] Muslims for [leaving themselves] open to targeting by racists and Nazis".

Over the decade, the ethnicity of the scapegoated "other" kept changing. At different moments the focus shifted from asylum seekers to Gypsies to Muslims to eastern Europeans. The basis for the fear changed too: from drugs to jihad, from race to religion, from crime to culture. Often the scapegoats were in fact white. Indeed, the only thing that has remained constant was the need for an "other".

As ever, this "other" was most useful in helping the powerful define themselves. In a period of globalisation, devolution and post-colonial decline, defining contemporary Britishness went from parlour game to profitable industry. Those most keen to define us were most likely to violate the principles by which they defined us. Even as they shot innocent young men on the tube and at home, or tortured them abroad, they told us we were a "tolerant", "welcoming", "law-abiding people", who championed "fair play". "Liberals" who once argued for integration now demanded assimilation; those who had called for assimilation now made the case for exclusion. Debates about race became a race to the bottom.

None of this denies the daunting challenges this government has faced. Immigration has escalated massively and there are finite public resources. The trouble is that New Labour contributed in no small part to these developments. Specifically, it backed EU expansion - a good move, but with consequences and clearly without adequate preparation. More generally, the neoliberal policies it has supported at home and abroad created a vulnerable low-paid workforce that feels threatened by those seeking asylum from poverty and war. Which brings us to Iraq, where Blair helped create far more asylum seekers than he ever took in. The overwhelming majority of Britons opposed the war and terrorism. We have ended up with both — expanding the market for Islamophobia and jihad, and returning the myth of the west's civilising mission to an ever degrading public discussion.

— The Guardian, London