Pakistanis one of the most important countries of the Muslim world with an army of over 500,000 soldiers, a formidable conventional firepower and a stock of nuclear arsenal. It has a huge population of some 200 million and a vibrant workforce. However, the economy of the country has not expanded correspondingly for the past four years with a GDP of $250billion (recently projected at $280billion with foreign exchange reserves hovering around $20 billion for the past many years. The exports have stagnated at an unimpressive level of over $20billion – much less than Bangladesh. Until recently, there have been wide current account and trade deficits. The mismatch between the military strength and the economic resources of the country has been affecting the social allocations.
Poverty has been on the rise with social sectors like education and healthcare remaining in steep decline. The state’s failure to provide education to the children of the country as provided in the Constitution has resulted in the mushroom growth of seminaries. The religious class engaged in the spread of seminaries has emerged as a well-organized and vocal class to reckon with. They have developed formidable street power and can paralyze any elected government. The state has been unable to register the seminaries and bring about changes in their curriculum. This problem has to be addressed if we want to set the country on the path to progress and modernity.
There is a simmering unrest in the smaller federating units of the country particularly in Balochistan and Sindh. The Baloch have been struggling to have ownership over the economic resources of their province since the very inception of the country. We have relied more on the use of force to subdue Baloch than on political dialogue with the leaders of the province in a bid to strengthen national unity. We have been following this erroneous policy since the amalgamation of Balochistan in Pakistan in 1948. The policy has miserably failed to yield positive results. The trust-deficit between the federal authority and the Baloch has kept widening. The unrest in the territorial bounds of Balochistan has been excessively exploited by our adversaries to weaken the federal bonds in the country.The population balance in the province was disturbed by the huge influx of Afghan refugees deepening the political fissures there. Along with the use of force, we have followed the imperial policy of divide and rule. This policy did not help us in the former East Pakistan, orthe Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It would also fail us in Balochistan.
The situation in Sindh is not much different from Balochistan. The connivance between the landed gentry and the powerful establishment has so far succeeded in keeping the nationalist movements in check. The province has serious differences with the federal government over the Financial Commission Awards, management of seaports, allocation of irrigation waters and natural gas, construction of dams on Indus River and provincial autonomy in terms of the 18th Amendment. These problems are exploited by the miscreants to sow the seeds of discord in the country. Instead of correcting these unjust policiesby the Federal Government, the security forces of the country have been depending on the same failed strategy of forced disappearances and dumping of dead bodies. The workers of the Jiyee Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) and Jiyee Sindh Mutahida Mahaz (JSMM) have borne the brunt of the disappearances.
The politicians and their cronies in the bureaucracy siphon off development funds and dispose of public lands at throw-away prices without any fear of accountability
The ethnic polarization sowed long years ago by dictator Zia has taken strong roots practically dividing the province into two parts. The rural and urban divide aggravated by the undue interference of the establishment has the potential of ripping Sindh apart. Political parties are hostage to their narrow political interests and have been fanning this ethnic divide between Pakhtun and Baloch in Balochistan and the Sindhi and Urdu speaking populations in Sindh to the peril of national unity. A country so deeply divided by economic and political interests cannot emerge as a powerful nation merely on the strength of its firepower. It is imperative that we address these internal issues shunning political antagonism, parochialism and nationalism and dealing politically with the factors causing national disunity.
Since the past two decades, the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh have witnessed the worst kind of misgovernance, corruption and plunder and enormous growth of poverty. The country has no trust-inspiring institutions of accountability. Over the years, the Federal Investigation Agency and the Provincial Anti-Corruption Establishments have turned into cesspools of inefficiency and corruption. They have proved tools in the hands of the ruling party to harass opponents. The Chief Ministers’ Inspection Teams have been more disappointing than NAB, FIA and ACEs.The politicians and their cronies in the bureaucracy siphon off development funds and dispose of public lands at throw-away prices without any fear of accountability. The scoundrels use their education and intelligence to eke out evil.
Scores of senior and mid-ranking bureaucrats in Sindh have benefited from the plea bargain clause of the NABOrdinance and regained their lucrative posts. The list of such bureaucrats submitted to the Supreme Court had stretched into a staggering number of over 500. How disgusting and disappointing it is to see that people have been appointed against the vacancies of the sanitary staff in the municipal and town committees who draw their monthly salaries regularly without any sanitation work. This is an innovative form of favoritism that only our dear democrats could think of. The maladministration or the mismanagement of the administrative structure, as recently pointed out by a Supreme Court Judge, is worse in the Punjab than in Sindh or Balochistan. The way corruption has travelled from the top to the lowest rank in bureaucracy, political leadership and political workers is alarming.
How long, the poor masses would have to watch helplessly the ruling class and bureaucrats picking up on the precious resources of their lands.
The writer was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books