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November 12, 2005
Failure of nation-building
PAKISTAN, which came into being as a result of a democratic struggle by millions of Muslims of South Asia under the dynamic leadership of a great leader whose belief in constitutionalism and democracy was beyond doubt, has just completed six years of a nation-building operation carried out by the fourth military regime.
General Pervez Musharraf, who soon after his military coup, had established the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) now claims, like his predecessors, that he has put the patient on the recovery path. Whether the country’s democratic culture has improved in any manner needs to be examined.
The devolution scheme is projected as a major achievement of the Musharraf regime. But the type of fairness and transparency witnessed in the recent local body elections belies this claim. However, what is striking to note is that rigging, which previously used to be the work of hidden hands within our state apparatus, has been resorted to on such a large scale — beginning with the first local polls, then the referendum, the 2002 general elections and now the second local polls — that it has turned into an industry.
There were hundreds of complaints in which state functionaries were accused of changing notifications to deny the winning candidates their victory. In some cases, third and fourth position holders were declared winners for a price ranging from Rs50,000 to Rs100,000. When the winners agitated, they were politely told to file petitions with the election commission.
The result of all this was that not only the nation’s self-image was shattered, there was a protest against the rigging by the opposition parties and even by cabinet members and parliamentarians belonging to the ruling party. The foreign observers called the polls a sham. The enigma doesn’t stop here. Like the three tiers of government, there are also three organs of the state — the parliament, the judiciary, and the executive — which have to be functional under any democratic system. After Musharraf’s six years of rule, all state institutions are more dysfunctional today than they were on Oct. 12, 1999. There is a total lack of confidence among the lawyers community in the courts to defend and uphold the Constitution.
The Federal Public Service Commission is fighting a legal battle against the government which has summarily dismissed its chairman and members through an ordinance. The National Assembly has been reduced to a rubber-stamping body, with over 300 instances of a lack of quorum. The Senate is agitating over six months’ delay in the election of its deputy chairman.
The president is not fulfilling his duty by addressing parliament. The horse-trading virus has been re-injected into our body politic. The federal bureaucracy has undergone the highest number of shake-ups and extensions have been awarded on the basis of the president’s personal likes. Poverty is on the increase and there has been a breakdown in basic services provided to the common man.
Is this the right way to build a nation? Why do we have to go through reconstruction surgeries again and again? General Musharraf’s reforms, like that of his predecessors, violate the basic norms and rules of nation-building. The tragedy is that our military rulers’ perceptions are based on military doctrines.
A political structure normally comprises three tiers — national, provincial, and local. But, as we know, for building organizational structures we start from top, not the bottom. Even for raising a battalion you first appoint a commander, not soldiers. Similarly, devolution presupposes that there exist functional national and provincial level structures. With dysfunctional national politics and systems, the holding of local bodies’ elections only brings more chaos and confusion.
Towards the latter half of the 20th century, many developing countries successfully achieved a sustainable path of development. It is the choices which societies and leaders make that determine the fate of any nation. Why some countries prosper while others become poorer? Some people may argue it is because of ‘natural resources’. Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, and Russia have abundant natural resources but still there is a low standard of living. Japan, Switzerland, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore have very limited natural resources and a small size of land but have achieved a high standard of living.
Consider the relative position of two countries, Argentina and Singapore. Before the outbreak of the First World War, Argentina was the second richest country in the world, after the US, in terms of per capita income. Unfortunately, its political instability and poor governance reduced its economy to only a tenth of that of Switzerland. If its international competitiveness had been maintained, its economy would now have been of the size of the UK or Italy.
By contrast, Singapore took only two decades to graduate from a developing to a developed nation. By 1990, Singapore’s GDP per capita had risen to $12,310 from $950 in 1970. It enjoys low unemployment, high budget surpluses, low pollution, and relatively few social problems. In 1965, Pakistan’s manufactured exports were equivalent to the combined manufactured exports of South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. After 25 years, 18 of which were under military rule, Pakistan was hovering around $4 billion while South Korea was around $70 billion, Malaysia $28 billion, and Thailand $23 billion.
Recent changes in global trends provide specific opportunities and threats to nations. The degree to which each nation captures the opportunities or overcomes the threats depends on its capabilities to benefit from the new knowledge revolution and to confront the globalization challenges.
Without a clear sense of direction and positive thinking no nation can achieve higher goals. Also, a nation must adopt a holistic approach and build both its hardware of development, by focusing on its infrastructure, endowments, industrial organization; its software of development by building social capital, pro-development culture, attitudes, and ethics and values to pursue a balanced growth. This was the framework used for developing the Pakistan 2010 Programme.
The time has come for us to make a new beginning by breaking from the previous patterns. General Musharraf should have either produced evidence of corruption against previous leaders in the court of law and had them convicted or stop pronouncing them corrupt. Both the PML-N and the PPP still command vote banks. By denying realities one only fools oneself.
The writer is a former deputy chairman, Planning Commission.
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