Daily Times

Sher Ali Pataudi writes in his autobiography, The Story of Soldiering and Politics in Pakstan and India that the nature of a democracy is directly linked to the means adopted to win the electoral game. He prognosticated a chaos after elections in 1970 because of the way both the major parties had conducted their electioneering. The electoral battles were divisive and rancorous with two demagogues promising the moon and playing on the visceral hatreds amongst communities and ethnicities. The political megalomaniacs stoking the fires of linguistic and ethnic particularisms led the people up the garden path of heightened expectations which even in the event of a political rapprochement would have produced conflict. In actual case as things unfolded in the Western wing, the Bhutto government fell victim to an agitation by an expectation-starved population. In the Eastern Wing another demagogue failed to meet the expectation threshold of a highly charged population weaned on the munificence of his promises and paid with his life.

Here in our neck of the woods a new government is finding the political heat of its pre- election sloganeering a bit difficult to handle. Frustrated with years of poor governance by a dysfunctional political system under two “full term” governments, the people wanted change. Along with the change they wanted a reason for their miseries and a deus ex machina to solve all their problems. In Imran Khan they found a deliverer; for their miseries they found a reason. The reason articulated by the political populism of a new kid on the block was the menace of corruption. A narrative was sedulously cultivated that if corruption could be tackled the country would get on the path of economic progress post haste. A single point agenda was touted as the vade mecum of the new Pakistan. What the populist slogans drowned in the cacophony of rhetoric was the simple truth that corruption was but one dimension of a dysfunctional polity imposed upon an undisciplined nation.

According to Ronald Inglehart high trust societies give birth to stable democracies. High trust societies are created through a social intercourse when enforcement of laws and the contracts is ensured as a societal norm

Corruption was in fact a subset of a bigger malaise i.e a lack of discipline in every sphere of national existence. It was a lack of moral discipline that spread in the society because of lack of certainty of punishment due to lax enforcement of laws. When the government adopted a reductionist approach by putting all its eggs in the anti-corruption basket, there was the fear that the focus of analysis would shift towards inquisition, instead of search for the solutions of real problems. The real problems include our weak industrial output, poor export performance, untrained human resource, rising income inequalities, ever increasing expenses on defence and debt servicing and a poorly regulated investment environment. Economic progress and development as per Acemaglu and Robinson depend upon inclusive political and economic institutions. Inclusive institutions mean involvement of all stakeholders in the policy formulation, which indeed is the essence of the democracy.

According to Ronald Inglehart high trust societies give birth to stable democracies. The high trust societies are created through a social intercourse where enforcement of laws and the contracts is ensured as a societal norm. The same attribute is essentially required for accountability and transparency, the two joint enemies of corruption. So the focus of present PTI leadership with full support of all state institutions should in fact have been on social, political and economic transformation. A leader leads and does not pander to the whims of the masses. We need a real transformation in the new Pakistan which cannot be achieved through a one-dimensional accountability, leaving alone the structural underpinnings of the corrupt practices. The structural underpinnings include our weak justice system that instead of meting justice creates obstructions for the litigants. What drives the moral compass of a nation, is the certainty of justice.

What we have instead is a legal system that prolongs litigation at the cost of dispute resolution for pecuniary motives. It is a taboo subject that is not touched by most governments. In the name of judicial independence the people’s representatives shy away from judicial reforms. Some critics of our democracy ascribe this inaction to the moral failures of our political class. But then it was all in the past. What is stopping the PTI leadership, perched atop moral high ground, from initiating the much needed judicial reforms? These reforms are required to make our judicial institutions worthy of people’s trust. It is such institutions that can lay the basis of a high trust society which is a prerequisite for socio-economic progress. The leadership needs to do some tough talking to the populace in the arena of community and civic governance. Standards of civic behaviour and public accountability have to be first introduced and then enforced in order to spawn a climate of discipline that produced nations like Japan and China.

What we have instead is an undisciplined horde whose waywardness is pampered and encouraged through populist slogans. As per sociologists’ research high trust societies are richer than low trust societies. Interestingly as per political scientists democratic institutions do not instill inter-personal trust rather the discipline in a society. The national leadership at this juncture therefore needs to frame a new social contract for the people based on both the state as well as individual obligations. A benevolent and just state would ensure deliverance of public goods like justice, law and order and politico-economic security while the people would keep their end of the bargain through willing compliance to the laws of the land. While it is all very well to engender a culture of accountability it is equally important to spawn a culture of lawfulness. People need to be educated in equal measure about their rights and obligations.

At this crucial juncture of our national existence when the external and internal threats are testing the limits of our statesmanship, it is a matter of right priorities. What should those right priorities be? We need to start with a complete overhaul of our justice system through fundamental reforms in the system of judges’ selection, justice delivery and legal education. Next on the list should be our educational system wherein the state should reclaim the space lost to private entrepreneurs masquerading as educationists. A common national curriculum in sync with modern age should be introduced and the allocation for education in our budget doubled forthwith. The vocational and technical education should be accorded more weight in national education plan to provide a highly trained reservoir of manpower for domestic as well as foreign job markets. The third priority should be economic revival through internal resource mobilization and import reduction. The provision of a supportive investment environment to boost industrial productivity should be the top national priority.

To tackle external and internal security threats diplomacy should be employed as the first line of defence. Keeping the country out of the spider web of Indo-US strategic collusion, while embracing regional security alliances with emerging global powers, should figure high on our strategic calculus. Lastly, we should remember that gaining internal strength through genuine reforms based on right priorities is the key to national survival.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST