June 29, 2003

The Civil Service in Pakistan is increasingly being militarized. But, then, it is nothing new. The process dates back to the time of independence

DONALD Rumsfeld strikes again. The warmonger is unstoppable! This time, he has turned his guns on Uncle Sam and has sworn to destroy America’s Civil Service of its 25-year-old system of hiring, firing, paying, promoting and disciplining bureaucrats. The Government is the largest employer here and pays billions each year in salaries to pen pushers good at clogging up foggy bottoms all over the United States, including mother lode, the State Department.

And the practice pitch for the Rumsfeldian experiment is his own backyard, the Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defence, the world’s largest office bloc. He wants to convert the 750,000 civil servants embedded there into cavies to showcase other government departments on how to run America. Waiting for wheels up, the Defence Secretary is set to dump the old (including Colin Powell’s foreign ministry but not the General, much as he would like) to bring in the new.

Preparing a template catering for the two million plus government workers all over America, Rummy demands “flexibility” that will give him and his gang imperial powers to sit over judgment on the fate of Pentagon’s civilians, sealing their careers vis-‘-vis merit, demerit and pay raise. Tough luck, if the Rummy claque hates your guts or looks. Or if you are a Democrat sympathizer. There is no recourse for appeal. “Workers are understandably anxious about this work force revolution, warning of a retreat toward the 19th century spoils system of patronage and cronyism,” editorializes the New York Times.

In Pakistan, it’s the other way around. Instead of civilians calling the shots regarding their makeover, it’s the khakis who kick the civil servants around. To a great extent, the Civil Service has been its own nihilist. With fractious mentality bordering on Machiavellian malevolence, the bureaucrats bitten with envy and malice have always gone for each other’s throats. Frozen out over the years, they have ended up permanently kowtowing to the military men holding a whip over their heads.

Dictators Ayub Khan and Zia made incursions into the Civil Service, but Musharraf’s policies have lacerated the service totally. Today, having spiked out the bureaucrats, the President has installed 76 Generals and 600 Brigadiers and Colonels in civilian posts! Strategic agencies responsible for generating Pakistan’s economy have had their controls handed over to army crackerjacks by Musharraf junta. To name a few: Karachi Port Authority; National Shipping Corporation; National Fertilizer Corporation, Pakistan Steel Corporation, Oil and Gas Development Corporation and the Minerals Development Corporation.

Most shameful misuse of military power is Musharraf’s appointment of a General and a Colonel as Vice Chancellor and Registrar of the Punjab University respectively, the oldest and most prestigious institution of learning in Pakistan. But hold it: five more Universities have Vice-Chancellors who are military men!

“These appointments speak volumes about the disrespect for higher education in Pakistan. Does this mean that education will be administered by the Army? In which country of the world does this model prevail? I have not heard of a General being appointed Vice Chancellor in India, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, countries at similar levels of development to ours. The Army has left the parallel madrassah system alone fearing probably a storm of protest from the mullahs! One shudders to think what will happen to research and higher learning in Pakistan, already in a state of terminal decline, under the semi-educated Army wallahs,” a Pakistani professor living in the US declares.

Actually the baton of administration passed decades ago from the ICS (Indian Civil Service) swaggering brown sahibs with stiff necks, but exemplars of professionalism and honesty, to riffraff that followed later. It was further precipitated by the pervasive in-house wrangling for power evidenced immediately after Independence. The ICS/CSP clan was pitted against each other and comprised the Urdu-speaking officers who opted for Pakistan but looked upon as usurpers by the so-called sons of the soil, the Punjabis. Clever of tongue, the former soon ingratiated themselves with powers that be, while the latter, laid-back and rowdy, added to the existing turpitude. With powerful patrons (federal ministers and upwards) on both sides of the divide, jockeying for positions of influence went on noxiously until the mid-sixties by which time the military had quietly taken over reins of government machinery.

Remember Brigadier F.R Khan who invented the “Basic Democracies” circus in the early sixties to mollycoddle Ayub Khan? What a flop that proved. Now Musharraf wants Daniyal Aziz to reinvent the Civil Service through his Devolution Plan. Danny, as he’s known to friends, is already on the defensive for such a travesty of reforms. Famous for an independent mind and rebellious nature, young Danny may have sold himself cheap in return for a ministership?

Sandwiched in-between Ayub and Musharraf era are wisenheimers Shahid Hamid and Fakhr Imam who wasted the nation’s resources and precious time pretending to come up with brilliant ideas on how the babu brigade could be made more efficient. Shahid Hamid — once a babu himself who masterminded Benazir Bhutto’s sacking by Farooq Leghari (also a bureaucrat once) — was duly awarded a cabinet post and given a carte blanche to spatchcock the Civil Service. Later, Brutus-like he turned on his benefactor Leghari and saw his sacking for which he was again rewarded by Nawaz Sharif who sent him to the Governor House in Lahore! Fakhr Imam, our erstwhile Speaker, went on a world odyssey at the taxpayer’s expense only to unload a heap of garbage on our civil servants when the stone-faced and silent Speaker returned. Excoriation of bureaucrats was his sole contribution to his project!

Politicians and the Army’s stench over the years has vitiated the Civil Service. An ICS, heading the Punjab government, remembers how the 1950 floods inundated the province forcing the then Governor Nishtar to get army’s help.

Click! General Azam, the GOC Lahore, grabbed the opportunity and began barking orders to the administration, brazenly stealing the thunder from them while Nishtar fecklessly watched on. Ambitious as Azam was, he “not only messed up with a clear-cut function of the civil government but sowed the seeds of army interference in civilian matters which in course of time had vast repercussions on the destiny of Pakistan.

“It is doubtful if the Prime Minister (Liaquat Ali Khan) or even the Commander-in-Chief knew anything about the incident,” recalls the ICS officer who had a hard time fending off Gen. Azam from his turf.

In another instance, Government’s inaction during the 1953 attacks on the Ahmadayya community in Punjab, point to how two sparring politicians allowed looting, arson and death of citizens while they played a cat and mouse game with each other. The government of Khawaja Nazimuddin in the Centre “kept sitting on the fence” while riots took place and Punjab Chief Minister Mumtaz Daultana telegraphed to his Commissioner Rawalpindi to go easy on the culprits who had perpetuated the crimes because he wanted Nazimuddin to look bad. The Commissioner, however, went ahead and did what was best in the interest of maintaining law and order under his jurisdiction.

Thereafter, Defence Secretary Gen. Iskander Mirza accompanied by Cabinet Secretary Aziz Ahmed flew into Rawalpindi to confer with the then C-in-C Ayub Khan and while complimenting the Commissioner’s proactive role, lamented the politicians laxity, hinting at something ominous to come. Sure enough, the next morning Martial Law was imposed in Lahore and General Azam (raring to go) made the Administrator while Daultana and his cabinet sacked.

Thus was paved the way for military men to butt in whenever a crack appeared.

Today, militarization of the Civil Services having come full circle with Musharraf abolishing the old District Administration model and putting the Nazims on top, the Army has completely muscled in the Civil Services domain and established an institutionalized quota for its personnel in the DMG, Police, Foreign Affairs and other groups.

While Rummy rustles up the Pentagon, Musharraf wreaks havoc on the civilians back home. And both the scofflaws rule the roost with spoils system!

But this too will pass one day.

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