Back to the beginning

PAKISTAN'S legal and administrative reforms, promulgated at intervals, had a lifespan no longer than that of the regimes conceiving them. Every time it was left to the succeeding ruler to discover and inform a wary public that his predecessor's 'reforms' were intended not to assure equity or efficiency but to secure its author in power. On no occasion were the people made a party to the advent of the reforms or, later, to their demise. They were no more than spectators on both occasions losing or gaining little in the process. The western half of the country which survived the reform experiments of Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan has been since contending with the violent extremism and economic downturn bequeathed by the even more radical thoughts and opportunism of Z.A. Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. The elected governments, in between the military rules and since Musharraf's forced exit, have been only adding financial bankruptcy to general disorder. In destroying the established laws and institutions, Gen Musharraf went further than any other elected or military head of government before him. The confusion that he left behind, consequently, has been greater and worsening since his departure with no resolution in sight. The reforms which he introduced were born of a presumptuous notion that the "political and administrative systems based on the colonial ethos of control" had collapsed and he was ordained to build them anew through "devolution of political power and institutionalised participation of the people at the grass-root level". The cornerstone of his administrative scheme was the accountability of career public servants, including the police, to district nazim, or mayor, elected by local councils. That became a source of constant conflict between the government of the province and district governments and also between the provincial legislators and the local councillors. The conflict degenerated into confrontation when the nazims whom the law required to owe loyalty to no party turned out to be more partisan than the party ministers. The confrontation acquired an edge sharper in Sindh than elsewhere in the country because of the ethnic divisions of the province. The Mohajirs, or descendants of the Urdu-speaking migrants from India, with their concentration in Karachi and Hyderabad (and in some other towns) quite naturally tried that the city-district governments remain as resourceful and autonomous as was envisaged in the local government laws and scheme of governance. In that they had the full backing of Gen Musharraf who looked upon urban Sindh as the base of his personal power in a future elective set-up. Such is the political dominance of these two cities in the province and their economic importance nationally and so enormous were the powers vested in their district governments under Musharraf's scheme that the provincial ministers, legislators and bureaucrats felt humiliated on losing control of the municipal administration. Over eight years, two nazims — the first one backed by a doctrinaire religious party (Jamaat-i-Islami) and the second by an aggressive ethnic outfit (MQM) — looked up to the federal government for authority and allocation of resources bypassing the provincial government. At the expiry of their second four-year term, elections to the local councils have not been held nor are likely to be unless all political forces in the country agree to a new division of functions and resources between the provinces and the local councils. An essential feature of the new compact has to be that the district government for its powers and finance must look up to the provincial legislature and not the president or parliament. But once the tax jurisdiction and functions of the district government are determined the provincial governments should not be able to cut or curtail. Secondly, the local government's yearning for power must be matched by responsibility to generate income to sustain its activities. Grants from the provincial government should be in proportion to the resources raised by the district itself. Thirdly, the district government, or its nazim, must have no concern with law and order which should remain, as it has always been, a responsibility of professional administrators and police. Musharraf's Local Government Ordinance and Police Order both required the district nazim to perform law and order functions. The district police officer was also made answerable to the nazim but no tools were provided to enable him to discharge that role. Instead, the police through a series of committees were made accountable to federal and provincial ministers subverting their professional command structure. For maintaining law and order and controlling crime until a better arrangement can be devised, the best that can be done would be to reinstate the time-tested laws and institutions which Musharraf abolished. Three provinces in fact are already set on that course, only Sindh dithers because of its urban-rural divide and the MQM's keenly felt urge not to lose the hold it has acquired over Karachi and Hyderabad through its majority in their district governments. To devise an arrangement that is both durable and workable it would be appropriate to establish a commission comprising administrators and non-political public leaders for parliamentary approval. In the final analysis, the success of an administrative system in a deprived and diverse society can be assured only by equitable treatment of all citizens. That principle has fallen victim to factional, sectarian and regional interests. It is hard to resist the thought that the discontent countrywide, and more particularly in Karachi, finds its origin in the outrageously arbitrary manner in which jobs and lands are being treated as largesse of individuals or parties rather than a sacred public trust. kunwaridris@hotmail.com