Daily Times

The appearance of law must be upheld, especially while it’s being broken

—Boss Tweed in Gangs of New York

The above-mentioned quote summarises the reality of countries like Pakistan where a symbiotic linkage between crime and political patronage leaves the state institutions enervated and famished of a will to separate the two evils in the interest of public wellbeing. Despite state’s earnest desire to ameliorate the lot of common people, the crime-patron bond remains cemented ever so strongly to the detriment of law and order. Johan Galtung’s “Structural Violence” seems to be stalking our socio-political landscape where the top dogs in the socio-economic hierarchy have developed a stake in keeping the underdogs in perpetual bondage.

The bondage and servitude equation worsens when a kleptocracy degenerates into a “crimeocracy” through an institutionalised nexus between the ruling elite and the crime mafias. A deliberate entente cordiale is fostered between all stakeholders in crime and politics, which deliberately emasculates the state apparatus to help informal economy, and crimes of patronage thrive at the expense of people. The most apt metaphor of above reign of plunder is the above-mentioned quote that celebrates the venality of institutionalised corruption. Crime, violence, and injustice are all intimately interlinked in a systemic exploitation of the masses in the name of democracy in our country, where those who are supposed to protect law and rights of public conspire to violate the same.

What else explains the sordid saga of a brother of a sitting home minister of a province who actively abets a criminal, and obstructs a law enforcement agency from nabbing the culprit required for investigation into serious crimes? It is indeed sad when a police force more beholden to political masters abdicates its responsibility to protect the interests of common citizen, and starts protecting absconders from law. Why has that happened and who has allowed it to happen? The answer is not difficult to divine but the people are so helpless and disempowered in this unjust system of governance and politics that their voice carries no impact. Rangers, a paramilitary force primarily responsible for border control, has been sucked into this quagmire inextricably, and is being constantly hamstrung in its quest for crime control through machinations of political patrons of criminals, who extract rents for their masters as a recompense for illegal protection.

Now it is worth asking another question. Whether the political patronage of criminals and the corrupt is not akin to shenanigans of Italian mafia ruling roost in the Italian mainland and the USA in the early decades of last century? In which civilised country would someone cavil at the law enforcers’ exertions at nabbing extortionists, swindlers, and kidnappers in any part of the province? One is frankly amazed when the highest political office denounces the Rangers’ action in interior Sindh as unconstitutional, and there is not so much as a whisper of protest from the urban political stakeholders or the civil society in Karachi. The denunciation of Rangers’ actions in interior Sindh is akin to criticism of army’s action in Balochistan to recover the son of the Chief Justice of Sindh from the clutches of kidnappers.

There are some more piquant questions worth asking. Why the Sindh police having an annual budget of about 70 billion rupees are ineffective as compared to Sindh Rangers with an annual budget of only 22 billion? Why despite getting better salaries and budget than Rangers, the police have failed to earn the respect of common citizen kept at the mercy of criminals and extortionists? The answer to all these questions lies in separating crimes from political patronage, an undertaking beyond the capability of this system of governance thriving on politics of patronage and crime. It is a historically proven fact that when the existing political and economic system fails to lift the masses out of depths of penury and injustice, a countervailing force emerges to deliver the masses from oppression.

It is that time in our national history where public frustration and the institutional decay have started coalescing into a clear and present danger to the political lineaments of a non-delivering system. There are already haunting echoes of Edmund Burke and Huntington’s advice about the public order and institutionalisation before democracy and liberalism. Before the ghosts of Lee Kwan Yu, Mao Zedong, and Mahathir Mohamad start attaining a heroic hue, it is time our democrats and politicians separated crimes from patronage. That will only happen if they outgrow parochial predilections for pecuniary gains, and work for the welfare and prosperity of people. If that doesn’t happen the prognosis is really grim for a dysfunctional polity.

The writer is a PHD candidate at NUST, and can be reached at rwjanj@hotmail.com