IS PAKISTAN A FAILING STATE?

IS PAKISTAN A FAILED STATE?
PROPAGANDA OR A REALITY.
The reality on the ground is the measure to prove or dismiss any analysis or impression. It’s of no significance whether it comes from a friend or foe.
To ignore the ground realities is the most naïve approach. If some thing cannot be proved by logic, is very unlikely to be true.
For the last few years this issue is the topic of discussion in vey serious circles in and outside Pakistan. Our rulers and intellectuals reject any opinion that is contrary to their process of thinking, without going in to the details of it.
Let it be the propaganda of our enemy, but sanity demands that is better not to reject it right away. No idea and analysis should be approached with a fixed frame of mind and preformed opinion. Fixed frame of mind and preconceived conclusion shut the mind to all logic and reasons.
Constant denial and rejection quite often, does lead to a disaster followed by remorse and resentment.
Will it not be good idea to take the matter seriously and sanity? If it is proved wrong, it won’t cost us anything. If it is true, it provides us a chance to chalk out our approach to the problem.
State is an organisation that runs a country according to certain rules. The state has 5 main pillars, law making, decision-making and judiciary. The free press and the armed forces are the two other major establishments. The duty of the last is to protect the external aggression and to help the government where the writ of the government is challenged.
Under the supervision of these top organs the whole country is run according to the law laid down by lawmakers, if there is confusion the judiciary is to do interpretation.
Lawmakers are the elected body of the people and have the delegated power of the people. The difference between delegated and absolute power is that in delegated power, one is answerable but not in absolute power. In a democratic set up the power lies with the people and exercised by the lawmakers on their behalf.
Is Pakistan a failing state?
This best way to approach this question is to analyse the functions of each pillar and the state of co ordination between them.
Looking right back to the birth of Pakistan, these pillars were neither built nor have been given the sanctity which they worth. Personal wishes, whims ran superior to law.
Even after a long authoritarian rule by two most vicious dictators, Zia & Musharaf the so-called politicians are following the same rules and ruling in the same way. This is what I call Islam Abad frame of mind.
The centralisation of authority in president house has left the parliament disabled and useless. Law making apart, the revival of 73 constitutions has been abandoned.
Judiciary is left to settle the prices of day-to-day commodities and the major issues are untouched.
The executive, the law enforcing authority in this lawlessness; without fear to obstruct the growth of the system and to loot as much as possible, urging the law makers too, to avail the opportunity.
In the normal circumstances the prime minister has to be the chief executive but all the powers are with the president, who is in the siege of self-seekers. He has completely lost his contact with the realities on the ground.
It reminds me the words of an Indian journalist who commented on the fall of Late Mr, Bhutto that he advanced with his armoured core, leaving his infantry behind, forgetting the fact, that it is the infantry who solidifies the occupation.
The armed forces are not physically there but have the ultimate say and works as a referee. At the same time they are busy in cleaning the dirt left behind by their seniors. They are engaged in the bloodiest fight where the enemy is not visible. It is a fight in pitch dark.
Basically there is no system, but the issues are rising every day, mostly by the governments because of its incompetence or loss of touch with the masses.
In the absence of system the government takes one step forward and then slips two steps back under pressure. So for all the decision made by the government have not been according to the book but under pressure.
The newfound freedom by press is being abused. In their political discussions on national issues there is hardly any representation of Pukhtoons, Sindhies or Baloch. According to their sweet whims they make prophet out of a sinner or sinner out of saints. To discuss the issue of Swat, FATA or Baluchistan they invite analysts and intellectuals from Lahore, Karachi and Islam Abad as if there is no sensible persons in the small nations.
Coming to the conclusion that if all the vital organs of a state are sick, it is bound to be a failed state. A failing government will always lead to a non-viable country. A non-viable state with nuclear capability becomes a liability and attracts super powers to interfere.
This is a simple logic that Pakistan is a sick state beyond any shadow of doubt and it does not need any knighted intellectual from Lahore or Karachi to diagnose it.
On third of November there was a feeling in the public that the state is about to go in coma. There were eclectic activities by military and civil servants, shuttling between presidency, P.M. house, Lahore, London and Saudi Arabia.
Those who claimed to be the friends were giving their valuable advice on a private channel. Those who were assuring that their shoulder would not be used by third party but were facilitating the same indirectly. The card house was about to collapse. The two had the same aim with different approaches. The interview for 30 minutes on ARY was more blunt than asking the president to resign.
There is a complete breakdown of trust and no co ordination between the vital organs of the state. The party in government, for the reason best known to them, cannot take a bold step and the opposition refuses to take seat in the house to dodge responsibility. Minus one, 234, NRO and FCO are the diseases eating the state.
As for we are concerned we don’t believe that 37 years old document of 73 can meet the challenges of today. It failed just after it was framed to stop the dissolution of two provincial governments. And even to stop the judicial murder of an elected prime Minister and subsequently the exile of two elected Prime Ministers.
But before the lawmakers go through the whole document, the 17th amendment and 6B should have gone by now and the process of accountability should have been started.
The house does give status to people but it is more dignified that the person himself gains that status. Sonia Gandhi is the shining example. By no means she is less powerful than Mohan Singh. The question arise, have we a politician of her status? The answer is emphatically.
We feel that the alternative in our present circumstances is much worse than the present one. The incumbent state apparatus should give immediately a kiss of life to the dying system and the further treatment can take its due course. The alternative is so horrible, it sends a cold wave in the spine of small Nations. Mian Sahib stance is evident about small nations identity
Dr. Khurshid Alam. Dated 5th Nov.2009 khurshidalam5@hotmail.com