Daily Times

A while ago, I watched a video clip of Mr Khawaja Saad Rafiq being interviewed by Mr Hamid Mir in which they discussed how political parties and their leadership have to think about the workers of their parties. It can be arguably said that this statement was said by him due to being disappointed for several reasons. I have witnessed the prolonged political struggle of my father, Dr Jehangir Bader and learned from him since childhood. I have observed his struggle for democracy, which started in his youth at the time of Pakistan’s first military dictator, General Ayub Khan and continued till the last martial law of General Perviaz Musharraf. All four Generals who imposed martial law in Pakistan imprisoned him as a political prisoner fighting for human rights and restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

The point to ponder here is that political parties need to build their parties like an institution, partaking a rigorous yet nurturing political developers of workers as local leaders at different levels. The party organisational structure should be comprised of conscientious people who would have worked and stood with the party in times of difficulties. The workers should be trained for specialised tasks and be prepared for all unforeseeable events and actions. They should be given a task to perform and targets to achieve which will refine their capability and performance of delivery.

Most of the political parties have deteriorated in terms of their organisational performance while either serving as the government of the day or while being absent from governmental positions. This performance has declined due to several reasons mainly not delivering to the general public and their workers as of now workers are not bothered to work as someone else eats the fruit of their hardships. Other reasons which corroded political performance are incompetency, incapability, insincerity, lack of affiliation with the ideology of the party and the role of media has played a massive role by diminishing the leaders from the grass-root level as media only highlights people of their own choice by making them the representative of the people which they are not. Lack of organisational experience is again one of the reasons, which have kept the leaders away from delivering to the people.

The political parties should focus more on developing the people from the grass-root level.

The political parties should focus more on developing the people from the grass-root level. They should also have experts in different subjects or technocrats but their role should be of helping and advising the leaders in the party for the particular expertise they hold. When these technocrats are given a position to decide for the people on the grass-root, they are not aware of the ground reality and their decision ends up worsening the present situation and the inherent effect of that demotivates the workers at all, levels, especially at the grass-root level. This demotivation gives a big dent to the party that either they stop participating in the political process or they change their political affiliation and join some other party.

I have taught this important subject of organisational behaviour and leadership, organisation design and development for many years in different universities to MBA students and had been a consultant for devising solutions to organisations where they face problems. At the same time, I have worked for multinational organisations where I had the practical experience of learning what I was teaching. The theory is different from practical experience. I would have not been able to make a difference in both if I lacked any one of the dual experiences. The comparative analysis of both especially learning from the theory and implementing it in my practical life was a great experience for me. It helped me to identify the problem by jumping into the shoes of another person and feeling what is the problem and giving a solution to it. Many years of this routine enriched my experience and made me help many firms with consultation in their organisational problems.

This life is ongoing learning till the grave. Every day you learn something new/special/breaking news in the village of social media whereby every passing minute there is breaking news or some new information popping up about the latest happenings in the world. In Pakistan, the leaders have to upskill themselves to lead. Digitalisation in the political parties is very important and coaching, training and development of leaders at all levels are very important. This must be done by all political parties as it is the need of the hour. Lacking these will make that party stand out to deliver and perform. The leaders are learning about digitalisation but at many levels in the organisation, the office-bearers, except for a few, have not upskilled themselves and the majority of workers (educated or uneducated) can’t cope with the changes of this digital world. The leaders must guide and help the majority of the workers to learn about the use of technology. Many educated people feel that their education is of no use because of the rapid changes in the use of technology. They feel stand out and out of this race because of the digitisation in this world.

The only way that we cannot complain about the engineered election is to educate the leaders and workers in all political parties about the use of technology. This can be only done when the top leadership is concerned about every political worker of the party. This is a very difficult task to know and be concerned about every worker of the party for that connectivity the use of technology can facilitate the process but in true letter and spirit, the approach from top to down in a way that in the hierarchy the true representation of the leaders like the right person for the right job must be given a position based on their connectivity and reputation as principle and character will make much difference in the public politics in coming future. Corrupt leaders with bad character will not be given the appreciation in the public politics.

The writer is a litigation, corporate and human rights lawyer, a political activist and former Vice-Chairman (SAARC Young Entrepreneur Forum).