HERE is a thought experiment. Let’s say you are from an administrative town, within a major urban city in Pakistan, and you see a broken park or light bulb in your street or neighbourhood. Do you know exactly who to reach out to within the government machinery to try to get that bulb fixed? Do you have the confidence that the broken stuff will be fixed within a reasonable time frame?

Getting light bulbs replaced in a community sounds deceptively simple.

Either the citizens should know whom exactly to reach out to or the local government should be responsive to neighbourhood needs. There are other things at play, eg procurement, development priorities, budget, resource allocation etc. The time it takes, amid all the red tape, to get things done is also of paramount importance.

For if a state cannot somehow fix its light bulbs within a reasonable time frame, how can one believe it is able to handle more arduous tasks?

Do we have a say in how our locality is managed?

I am located in Lahore, a political power centre. I conducted a small survey online and the majority of those who responded didn’t know how our local governments work. (Surprisingly, even a couple of PhDs and a former federal minister didn’t know whom to contact to get broken neighbourhood features fixed.)

Even the internet didn’t help. The main web page of the City District Government, Lahore, may give the illusion of information, but 90 per cent of the links in the portal don’t work.

Likewise, when I browsed through the Local Government and City Development, Punjab, web portal, I couldn’t figure out who exactly to contact to get my neighbourhood fixed. I asked people in my network; they didn’t know the answers. It baffles me that I couldn’t locate the right person in the political hierarchy responsible for fixing issues in my neighbourhood. Admittedly, I don’t know the details of how local governments work but I don’t remember being taught at school how exactly the government works at the local level either.

Are citizens denied access to the affairs of their city? This is surprising given the bulk of public development expenditure is focused on the same city.

I grew up and will likely spend the rest of my life in this city, and I find three facts very odd. First, a lot of people don’t know how the local political machinery works. Second, the government is not making any serious effort to make the local political set-up transparent and understood. Third, I don’t have any say in how my neighbourhood is managed. Imagine what people from other parts of the country, distant from power centres, go through.

How can one feel connected to his/her community when he/she is not given ownership? Psychological experiments have demonstrated that people simply attach more value to the things they own. Isn’t this the reason many Pakistanis have given up on improving their neighbourhoods?

Politicians often complain of a lack of public spirit, but I think the French political scientist Alex de Tocqueville was right when he hinted that public spirit fades when power is centralised and local governments aren’t responsive. How are we supposed to offer resistance to crime when our public spirit is weak because we have been excluded from the civic sphere and the politics that affect us, our families and those around us?

The absence of responsive local governments is also a barrier to the participation of common citizens in politics. Only those with the means and connections can aspire to take part. I don’t know anyone in my circle who has participated in decision-making related to the city and its neighbourhoods. Imagine living in a home or working in an office where your advice or thoughts are never welcome.

Further, doesn’t the absence of interactive local governments also mean that the nursery for future politicians is hardly there?

Doesn’t this mean that those who make it to the houses of legislation have potentially skipped the most basic and fundamental part of their political training? How can politicians look after state affairs when they didn’t look after smaller communities?

It is also important to note that when people vote in an election they may vote on the basis of whether they agree or disagree with the policies or ideologies of a certain political party, but most problems would still be related to where one lives, works, entertains or is entertained, sends children to school and gets medical treatment, and how one travels in the city, how safe one feels, etc. All the more reason to strengthen the local political machinery.

When citizens are excluded from local politics, it alienates them and weakens the social fabric and their national identity. We need responsive, functional local governments to help increase citizen participation and strengthen our society.

The writer works in the technology sector.

Twitter: @wyounas

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2017