Daily Times

Sir: Inherited, acquired, and/or seized through trickery, monarchs held power by triggering, within their subject, the fear of The Lord, whose divine representatives they claimed to be by removing all claimants to the throne and by ruthlessly crushing any form of dissent. Literacy and education changed the outlook of the people, who became aware of their rights. With that, group/party politics came into being. Political parties began articulating human relationships on the basis of ideologies and in the process created a huge conflict of minds. Human beings went to war in search of their rights. Peace was finally lost; governance became a complex exercise and ever since we have been in search of the meaning of the word ‘governance’.
We in Pakistan have been troubled by the word governance. We haven’t been able to differentiate between good and bad governance. Good governance, to us, is how it looks and not how it does and bad governance is inaccurate interpretation of good governance. Comical!

Masood Anwar
Islamabad