EVER since 2005, when an American think tank Fund for Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy, began publishing the annual ‘Failed States Index’, the question of whether or not Pakistan is a failed state has often been asked with gleeful expectation or sympathetic apprehension, provoking an angry denial.

But, as we shall see, the glee, the apprehension and the anger could be held back for another day, that is, until it is understood what the index is all about. To begin from the beginning, since the introduction by the World Bank of the development index and ranking to indicate where a country stood on the scoreboard of economic development, there has been a proliferation of indices to satisfy the appetite of the curious for all sorts of statistical packages and rankings. One such statistical game is the ‘Failed States Index’.

The index has 177 states arranged in order of the degree of failure judged on the basis of 12 indicators, each assessed on a scale of one to 10. The maximum possible score is 120, indicating total failure in respect of all the indicators, while the minimum score would be zero, indicating no failure at all in respect of any of the 12 indicators. In the list for 2011, Somalia with a score of 113.4 is at the top as the most failed state, while Finland with a score of 19.7 is the least failed state, better than, for example, the US with a score of 34.8.

The index appears quite credible so long as one is talking about countries like Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan or Iraq, that are among the top 10, but the moment we shift the focus to countries like France, Germany, Japan or the US, the whole exercise becomes rather dubious. Germany, for example, with a score of 33.9 out of 120, would be a failed state to the extent of 28.25 per cent. This doesn’t make much sense if ‘failed state’ means a state that has failed or is likely to fail to preserve, defend, or justify its separate existence, as the title of the Index would suggest and as was the case with the former USSR and Yugoslavia.

The index would make sense if it is seen as scorecard of the degree of failure by 177 states to respond to such challenges to governance as demographic pressure, group grievance, uneven development, human rights and economic decline included as indicators on the Index.

The whole idea of ‘failed states’ is, therefore, a bit misleading because the authors of the Index have succumbed to the temptation of choosing a sensationalised and attention-grabbing title that has caused much apprehension, acrimony and uncertainty in a large part of the world. The correct title would have been ‘Failed Governance Index’ rather than ‘Failed States Index’. Pakistan with a score of 102.3 out of 120 would, then, indicate failure of governance to the extent of 85 per cent. Under the given state of governance, we can hardly dispute that.

So, whatever the think tanks and magazines may say or imply, Pakistan is not going to disappear or fade out of sight. It is strong enough not to be trifled with by external or internal forces of disruption. Even Somalia, the most failed of the failed states is still there, and not even its pirates can be trifled with. But that’s no reason for us to call it a day and go to sleep. Let me offer another list of indicators to show how formidable the challenges have become during the last two decades. Here is a brief overview.

— The physical lifelines of our land, the vast network of irrigation, power, rail and road are becoming more and more dysfunctional at an alarming rate. We don’t seem to be able to stop the decay of what we have or replace what we have lost.

— The pillars of administrative structure of the districts, the policies, the judiciary and the civil bureaucracy are in a mess due to corruption, inefficiency and politicisation. They can neither protect the innocent nor punish the guilty.

— The foundation of a modern welfare state, schools, colleges and hospitals, are in a state of neglect, starved of resources, and manned by frustrated, underpaid and incompetent staff. They can neither teach the young, nor cure the sick.

— The ethnic, sectarian and linguistic constituents of society are at loggerheads with each other, like hostile tribes barricaded within their little fiefdoms. They can neither create a rainbow of colours, nor a mosaic of harmony out of this diversity.

To sum up: Pakistan is surely not a failed state, but it certainly is a state of failed governance where good hardly ever happens, and evil doesn’t cease to happen. As if paralysed by some unknown disease we behave, as the late US diplomat George Kennan said in another context, “helplessly, almost involuntarily, like victims of some sort of hypnosis, like men in a dream, like lemmings heading for the sea”.

The writer is a retired civil servant.

iqbal.jafar1@yahoo.com