Daily Times

Gunnar Myrdal’s definition of a ‘soft state’ in his ‘Asian Drama’ is emblematic of a general lawlessness and absence of a respect for state laws. The softness is begotten out of the state’s ineffectiveness or unwillingness to enforce its writ over a population that is segmented into various classes and local power centres. The population in soft states is divided on clan, sect, and urban-rural basis, ruled by urban oligarchs and rural feudals, who collude with the power structure whether democratic or autocratic to evade rule based institutionalised governance.

The essence of democracy being participatory governance and the sharing of power by the people is not given due importance. Eventually, democracy degenerates into a ‘kakistocracy’, meaning the rule of the worst. People could don’t give a hoot about who rules them if they are denied a share in the governance. Our present governance model under a Westminster polity denies self rule to the people. A cabal of oligarchs using democracy as a fig leaf prop up their rule at federal and provincial levels without conceding any powers to the people at a tier where it matters the most to them; at the local government level.

The state’s propensity to rule by the bureaucratic fiat has been our undoing since the early years of Pakistan when wily bureaucrats like Ghulam Muhammad and Iskander Mirza weaselled their way into the good books of politicians ultimately supplanting their authority in the governance structures. When the political leadership failed to surmount challenges of national integration and politico-economic development the bureaucrats co-opted military into the power game to act as the gendarme of their political ambitions.

The spirit that sucked the military into the patriot games initiated by the bureaucrats eventually metamorphosed into a messiah complex as they jumped in the fray to give direction in that state of anomie. The governance model ensued hereon was an ‘anocracy’ where the military rulers ruled with the support of the permanent establishment; the bureaucracy and political opportunists amongst feudal and urban oligarchs. The rule of the above clique converted the country into a Garrison state where the national security trumped the development as well human security.

The failure of the state to integrate the masses into governance through inclusive and participatory structures alienated the population and fuelled resentment and ethno-linguistic polarisation. The failure of the state to penetrate the miasma of feudal and tribal oppression promoted ethnic particularism at the cost of politico-economic pluralism envisioned by the founder of the state. The public alienation with the political process that left no stake for common people sedulously shaped their consciousness into a confrontationist mode.

The failure of the state to integrate the masses into governance through inclusive and participatory structures has alienated the population and fuelled resentment and ethno-linguistic polarisation

Confronted with an extortionist state apparatus they started defying state rules and laws reflecting atavistic instincts of survival. The state of alienation, defiance, and disorder resulted in a general predilection to evade taxes and shun public responsibility, which left unchecked for decades, developed into a habit. Ironically the religious evangelism that could act as a moral compass for the nation was also hijacked by the state for strategic projects leading to the militarisation of the religion too. The clerics instead of preaching the virtues of honesty, industriousness, probity, and sacrifice promoted militarism.

A predatory elite comprising power hungry and corrupt politicians, venal bureaucrats, business oligarchs, crime mafias, and feudals, whose prime interest lay in keeping the state deliberately weak slowly entrenched itself in the power structure. By keeping the state weak they could prey easily on the state resources through parallel structures of power and the informal economy. The country was pawned off to a predatory coalition of criminals that imposed a systemic structural violence of the kind explained by Johan Galtung in his1969 article, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research”.

As per Galtung the predatory elite imposes a socio-economic structure upon people that impairs their basic human needs. Extortion by urban mafias in Karachi in the recent past and the bad governance in Sindh are two classic examples that indicate the structural violence imposed upon hapless populace. These examples can be extended to include bad governance in other provinces and at federal level too.

The abysmally low spending on health, education, and public sanitation is a manifestation of the state’s apathy. The wanton depletion of our natural resources like water and forests are clearly a result of the state failure to plan ahead.

The state meltdown in Pakistan has reached an alarming level. It is evidenced in our criminal justice system where the police and judiciary have failed to stem the rot of crime and terror stalking our cities and towns. The country displays the classic symptoms of a state meltdown. Where the citizen cannot get speedy and cheap justice the state would never command the respect and loyalty of the masses.

Our judicial system is heavily weighted in favour of money making lawyers whose pecuniary gains thrive on the misery of the clients. The police and revenue bureaucracy is another area where the poor and weak get the short end of the stick at the hands of those who are supposed to serve them. Corruption is regarded as a concomitant of a soft state by Gunnar Myrdal where the state apparatus does not show enough gumption to counter it.

A disenchanted population in such an environment comes to embrace corruption as an unavoidable evil that slowly corrupts the morals to the point of no return. Pakistan apparently is in the grip of a serious state meltdown where bad governance and corruption serve the interests of the ruling classes and oligarchs.

The country is faced with the existential threats like population explosion, poverty, hunger, disease, environmental degradation, water resource depletion, food insecurity, energy shortage, and debt trap. Confronted with these challenges every ounce of our state planners’ energy must be consumed in thinking about the solutions to those monumental problems.

What are we witnessing instead is a fixation with the fatuous pantomime of fickle politics and a proclivity for evading the tough decisions. The present government being confronted with an accountability drive, the first of its kind in national history has abdicated governance and is busy planning for next elections.

The classic example is that of a group of clerics laying siege to the capital since last ten days adding to the misery of general public. The state apparently did not learn its lessons after Lal Mosque episode where the miscreants were mollycoddled and rehabilitated with active collaboration of state institutions. Those who have winked at these clerics perhaps do not realise that mollycoddling religious zealots for short term gains tantamounts to playing with fire. You cannot raise a Frankenstein’s monster willingly and then hope to bottle it up at will.

What is needed at the moment is a civil-military consensus to take the governance challenges head on. If a political entity does not outgrow its petty interest to realise the gravity of the perils confronting the country the state institutions should step in to restore the balance. Someone has to step in to stop the state meltdown. The propensity to wait till the problems become insurmountable, has landed us in the present state where a mountain of debt, shortage of water, environmental degradation, and religious extremism threaten to undo the state. A slide down the same path will only hasten the incipient meltdown not stall it.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST. He can be contacted at rwjanj@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2017.