Beyond the Files: Conversations with Pakistani Civil Servants
The Living Scripts Project (Volume 1)
Edited by Syed Abu Ahmad Akif
Institute of Policy Studies
ISBN: 978-969-448-856-1
386pp.

After winning an election (fairly or otherwise), politicians’ promises and declared policies during the election campaign are largely handed over to an invisible bureaucracy for implementation on the ground.

Consequently, the success, failure and prospects in future elections of incumbent politicians are largely determined by the bureaucracy. For their part, British colonisers effectively ruled over the almost entire Indian Subcontinent with only about 1,500 trained, faceless civil servants.

Beyond the Files: Conversations with Pakistani Civil Servants is undoubtedly a very interesting and instructive compilation of autobiographical narratives by 12 senior Pakistani civil servants. The compilation not only provides inspiring life stories and struggles of some of the most educated and talented individuals of the country, who vie to serve as the backbone of the most fundamental pillar of Pakistan’s governance, but it also provides insight into their internal organisational dynamics, career building and evolution over the years, alongside the political environment in the country.

The book is well edited by Syed Abu Ahmad Akif and is an engaging read. He is the Series Editor of The Living Scripts Project Volume 1. Akif’s preface is lucid. Among other aspects, he elaborates in detail on the significance and the background of ‘oral history’ as a subject. The 12 civil servants featured in the book started serving between 1958 and 1987 and continued until recently. All the officers included in this book are marked by distinguished personal accomplishments. They were involved in the affairs of the state through important historical events and interacted with prominent personalities of Pakistan and other countries.

Through conversations with 12 distinguished civil servants, a volume of oral history offers a rare glimpse into Pakistan’s bureaucracy, revealing the triumphs, frustrations and contradictions of those tasked with translating political promises into state policy

The conversations with them are arranged by the seniority yardstick, beginning with the senior-most, former Additional Secretary (late) Masud Mufti’s narrative. Mufti is well known, perhaps better known, as an author of several popular fiction and non-fiction books in Urdu. He was born before Partition and served during the most eventful years of this country, including during martial laws, as well as during elected governments. He was also in service at the time of the ‘fall of Dhaka’ and was taken as a prisoner of war by India.

The late Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi was 11 years old at the time of Independence. In the 35 years of his service in the police department, he rose to head the Punjab Police. He also witnessed the creation of Bangladesh and doesn’t mince words when it comes to assigning culpability for the events of 1971.

“As a police officer, I served across the country and found policing divergent due to the distinctive geography and social norms of every region,” he points out. “Overall, the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa neither use foul language nor tolerate it… On the contrary, the practice is common in the Punjab police… likewise, the police in Sindh are not as efficient as KP’s or Punjab’s,” adding that “by and large, policing is missing in Balochistan.”

Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf was also born before Partition. Rising from the very lowly education of a ‘taat’ [floor mat] school, he rose to the most prestigious public service in the country. “I was witness to the country’s chequered history as well as the rise and fall of the bureaucracy. Unlike today, there was a time when bureaucracy was a key pillar of the powerful establishment, but it wasn’t tainted with corrupt practices.”

He worked through all four military regimes that have ruled Pakistan, as well as through the ostensibly democratic polities. He describes his efforts in working on the reforms of the civil service and the internal anomalies in the service.

Most of these officers refer to increasing political intervention as a major obstacle in performing their duties diligently for the country, and the deterioration of the bureaucracy as an institution.

Umar Khan Ali Sherazi, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is a native of the Kurram tribal district bordering Afghanistan. He served in Kandahar during 1999 under dangerous conditions and had frequently met the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, which he describes in his conversation.

Shoaib Mir Memon served from 1987 to 2018, and subsequently served in a prestigious capacity as a member of the Federal Public Service Commission. “Throughout my career, I faced many challenges, especially threats to life,” he tells the interviewer. “Oftentimes, honest and upright conduct invites transfers, but these should not be seen as punishments — compromising one’s moral code is a greater failure. While civil servants don’t create history, they stand at the fringes of history-in-the-making, witnessing and bearing testimony to its unfolding.”

Some of Memon’s crucial challenges, such as abrupt transfers and postings, including being posted out of the country against his will, originated outside the service. In February 1994, he was made deputy commissioner of Thatta. “Although this was a prized posting of the province, it was not to last very long — at most six or seven weeks.” He states that this posting did not go well with a person who was “the most powerful man. This person was not only my cousin but also my brother-in-law.”

He adds, “He wielded more power and authority than even the prime minister at the time.” Later, “Though I had reconciled with my cousin who, as the husband of the premier… virtually ruled the entire bureaucracy by quasi-official diktat, his deep unease and insecurity about me persisted.”

There is only one woman officer included in this volume — Naghmana Alamgir Hashmi — who “has served as one of the most successful Pakistani diplomats.” She joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1983 and served in France, Indonesia, Denmark, China, Ireland, Belgium and the EU. She retired in 2020 as Pakistan’s first — and so far only — female ambassador to China.

Despite misfortunes in life, such as losing her father at a young age (she was adopted and raised by her maternal aunt) and later her husband to cancer, Hashmi spent an energetic civil service career as a spirited person. “Looking objectively at the state of Foreign Service today, I am obliged to admit that the standards are light years apart from the elite service that it was till the late 1970s,” she says. “Like everything else in our society, the Foreign Service has also nosedived.

“With each passing day, the situation is worsening, and we are beginning to resemble the rest of the ‘babus’ in the country. With the decline in intellectual abilities and the deterioration and insecurity that is forever hovering over the heads of civil servants, the culture of excellence and the courage to speak and act with integrity have rapidly eroded.

“Senior officers have become increasingly compliant with political and other dictates. They are now glorified clerks rather than policymakers and senior advisers to the government, which is their basic role and justification for being in the service.”

She adds, “I think a lot of our work has been usurped by other state institutions, and rightly so. I mean, if one is weak, then everyone will prey upon you.”

Similar chronicles by the other officers featured abound in this book.

After going through these fascinating autobiographies of outstanding individuals, some observations precipitate in a reader’s mind. One, all these personal accounts are subjective individual self-profiles. Including some objective balancing view of these versions could have been more valuable.

Moreover, most of these officers refer to increasing political intervention as a major obstacle in performing their duties diligently for the country, and the deterioration of the bureaucracy as an institution. The reader wonders: couldn’t these powerful, competent planners and policy formulators, whose own perks and privileges have become controversial, contribute towards safeguarding national interests of a non-political nature?

Couldn’t they be more instrumental in promoting issues such as the literacy rate, population control, supremacy of law, honouring merit etc? In fact, the resourceful bureaucracy has been increasingly accused of devising or promoting schemes that have made these issues worse.

Another observation or question arises in tandem: how come such brilliant minds, who basically formulate our national development plans and policies as well as implement them, were not able to perceive in time, arrest and address the deterioration of their own turf — the bureaucracy’s decline itself, as acknowledged by all of them?

The reviewer is a freelance writer and translator.

He can be reached at mehwer@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 5th, 2026