Fifteen committees, dozens of members, the interior minister to chair 11 of those committees — is the National Action Plan to combat terrorism destined to suffer that oldest of fates — death by committee?

To be sure, the complexity of the militant threat requires a range of interrelated and sustained responses by the state. Militancy will not be defeated by edict. Yet, a multiple committee system to be superimposed over the pre-existing decision-making and administrative systems is rife with potential of the wrong kind.

Consider the heavy bureaucratic presence in several of the committees that have been notified. Trained and schooled in a cautious, plodding style of administration, the bureaucrats’ chief contribution is likely to be to endlessly debate issues, pass files back and forth, delay decisions and mitigate risk to themselves and their organisations as much as possible.

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Where that is not likely to be the case, it is in committees with the military leadership participating. There the decisions will likely skew towards whatever the uniformed officers suggest, rendering meaningless such broad-based committees to begin with.

Yet, it is not just the composition of many of the committees under NAP that is the problem, it is their sheer number too. Consider the formation of a new committee to deal with the Karachi law and order problem. Members are to include the interior minister, Sindh governor and chief minister and DG Rangers. But the Karachi issue has for more than 15 months seen several high-profile meetings, an on-again, off-again security operation and killings of alleged terrorists in purported encounters. Is the new Karachi committee to pick up where the old decisions left off?

Will the Karachi committee replace other coordination mechanisms between the federal and provincial governments and security apparatus? With no real clarity of mandate offered by the PML-N government but the Karachi committee already notified, will ad hocism prevail? History suggests so.

Consider also there are to be separate committees, and so separate recommendations, on the issues of sectarianism, proscribed groups, hate speech and madressah regulation. Simply combining those separate recommendations may require another committee at the next stage. And finally consider the sheer number of meetings key political and military officials are scheduled to attend thanks to the government’s committee system. It is inconceivable that more than a few meetings will have the full attention and interest of the participants.

The problem with recommendations is that it delays action and bypasses a fairly well-developed state system. If proscribed groups are already legally banned, then why not simply authorise the security, intelligence and legal apparatus to ensure those groups are shut down?

If hate speech is in fact illegal, then why not have local administrations act against proponents of it immediately? Why reinvent the wheel each time instead of simply getting the existing wheels to turn?

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2014