PAKISTAN PROBLEMS OF GOVERNANCE Mushahid Hussain Akmal Hussain Reproduced by Sani H. Panhwar GOVERNING SOUTH ASIA South Asia a habitat of over a billion people, is now one of the most difficult regions to govern. Governance means more than maintaining law and order. It involves managing the affairs of the state, especially political, economic and social change. All South Asian governmentsare nowbeset withformidable problemsofgovernance. This book is part of a series of five volumes on South Asia on Governance, the study was conducted by Centre for Policy Research, for Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka andPakistan.We are reproducing the part writtenonPakistan. Pakistan: Problems of Governance by Mushahid Hussain, Pakistan’s noted journalist andDr.AkmalHussain,aleading Pakistani politicaleconomist. CONTENTS Foreword .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 Preface .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 3 1. The DynamicsofPower:Military,Bureaucracy,andthe People 4 2. The Nature ofGovernance inPakistan .. .. .. .. .. 22 3. Profile ofthe Power Structure .. .. .. .. .. .. 54 4. Governance: The ExternalFactor .. .. .. .. .. 88 5. StylesofGovernance .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 96 6. Policy Recommendations .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 125 FOREWORD This study of problems of governance in Pakistan which we bring with great pleasure to the attention of policy makers and concerned citizens of South Asia, and particularly those in Pakistan, is part of a major project of Centre for Policy Research (CPR) attempting a comprehensive multidisciplinary study of Problems of Governance in South Asian countries. The four other volumes in the series are on Bangladesh, India, NepalandSriLanka. Together, these five volumes, written by some of the finest analytical minds in South Asia, scholars who have long been concerned with the quality of governance of their respective countries and of the region as a whole, offer perhaps the most comprehensive academic meditation on the ills and evils of our political systems and processes as well as their strong and healthy points. Together, these five volumes are a substantialadditionto current politicalliterature onSouthAsia. The special value of the Pakistan study lies in the fact that Pakistan is a democracy of very recent vintage. After several discontinuities in its political history and many years of military rule, democratic values and institutions are necessarily fragile. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia also happen to be the only parliamentary democracies among the community of Islamic states. The success of democratic governance in Pakistan will certainly influence the Islamicworldinthe yearsto come. As in the case of the other volumes in the “Problems of Governance” series, the Pakistan volume is written by two outstanding intellectuals of the country, Mr. Mushahid Hussain, former Editor of The Muslim, and Dr. Akmal Hussain, a brilliant political-economist. We congratulate them on the fine work they have done and also extend our thanks to those who helpedthemwithresearchandcollaboration. The study of governance problems is, in essence, a search of ways and means of managing the affairs of the state, taking into account the obstacles inherent in changes taking place in South Asian countries. These accumulate from various acts of omission and commission on the part of the rulers, and also result from the increasing complexities of each political society and the international milieu in which these political societies function. From the time of the ancient city state of Athens and the kingdoms and empires that flourished in ancient India, giving benign, good and compassionate government unto the people has been a continuing concern of political gurus or saints concerned with governance. Various schools of thought have contended in this field from the dawn of humankind’s political history. Socrates and Plato held different convictions from Aristotle, father of empirical studies. In our own country, the PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 1 concept of Dharma has been and continues to be essentially a praxis of good governance. So are IslamandBuddhism withpreceptsofgoodgovernance. Now at the end of the second millennium of the Christian calendar, we live in a world which is a melting pot of a very large variety of objective and subjective forces. The entire human race is fast coming to its own though at different levels of development. Science and technology press the planet towards a single interwoven universe and at the same time spawn divisive forces. While on the one hand, there are unprecedented opportunities for human development, there are, on the other hand deadly instruments ofdestructionat alllevelsofthe world,domesticaswellasinternational. The task of governing diverse, often seething large populations is no longer easy or simple. “A King is history’s slave” declared Tolstoy. In that vein, all governments and their leadersarcslavesofthe time that loomover andbefore them. All the studies in the present series recommend policy pack ages to the rulers to make better government practicable if the necessary will and leadership are available. However, there is no escape from the adage: "People get the government they deserve". In the first and the last analysis, it is the people who have to govern themselves and govern well. The tide of history has brought nearly the whole of South Asia under democratic rule. The people now have to seize the opportunities created by history and global change to shake off misrule and misgovemance and lead our societies and civilizationsto daysofpeace, development,justice andreasonable harmony. I should like to record my sense of gratitude to all scholars and thinkers of South Asia who have participated in the CPR project on problems of governance in South Asia. This project, one may note with a sense of happiness, has created a small community of concerned scholars and men and women of public affairs who are now better equipped to understand and analyse why governments go wrong, and how to bring them back to the righttrack. My colleague, Prof. Bhabani Sen Gupa, who is in overall charge of the project, and who has been deeply concerned with South Asian affairs for nearly a decade, deserves a word of special mention. So does the Ford Foundation who funded the project with characteristic total non-intervention in its execution and complete trust and confidence in CPR’s ability to turn out solid and substantive academic and intellectual products. Many senior colleaguesin CPR especially Mr.L.P. Singh,Mr.NirmalMukarji,Mr.Pran Chopra, Mr. George Verghese and Mr. A. P. Venkateswaran have made their valuable contributionsto the successofthe project.I thank themallwithall my sincerity. Centre for Policy Research, V.A.PA PANANDIKER NewDelhi Director PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 2 PREFACE This book attempts to examine governance in Pakistan from the perspective of the relationship between the development of state institutions and the decision making styles of key individuals within the power structure. Three military coup d'états and frequent changes in Constitution have created instability in the relationship between various institutions of the state. At the same time, the personalities of key political leaders, civil servants and military chiefs have contributed to constraining the emergence of a balance between state institutions on the one hand and state and civil society on the other. This study analyses why the rules of the game in the exercise of state power had not been established up to the early 80s and how such rules have begunto evolve overthe last six Years. The book starts with an analysis in Chapter 1 of the economic crisis and the impact of continued poverty, unemployment and regional disparity on the polarization of society. While the task of governance within a polarized polity has become increasingly difficult the ability of the civil bureaucracy and the democratic political system to deal with the crisis has weakened. The consequent change in the balance of power between the bureaucracy and the military on the one hand and the state and civil society on the other is analyzed. In this regard, the actual as opposed to the formal exercise of state power is investigated. In Chapter 2, the changing rules of the game, the nature of political culture and the criminalization of the political process are examined on the basis of hitherto unpublished information and illustrative examples. This is followed in Chapter 3 by an analysis of the power structure with reference to three critical institutions: The Pakistan Army, Intelligence Services and the Civil Bureaucracy. The analysis in Chapter 4 places the exercise of state power in the context of the relationship between foreign and domestic policies. The American involvement in Pakistan’s politics isanalyzedonthe basisofnewdata,the role ofthe Indiafactor andthe influencesofthe Muslim world on the nature of governance are analyzed. The book ends with a chapter on styles of governance. Here the personalities arid modes of decision making of a number ofkey leadersare examined,to showhowtheir individualpropensitiesaffected the evolutionofstate institutions. AUTHOR PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 3 CHAPTER-1 THE DYNAMICS OF POWER: MILITARY, BUREAUCRACY AND THE PEOPLE INTRODUCTION The available literature on the nature of state power in Pakistan has essentially examined how the state apparatus came to predominate over the political system.1 Withinthe state apparatus,the bureaucracy andthe military have sofar beenlumpedas co-sharers of the piece of the power cake that has accrued to the ‘state apparatus’ as opposed to the political elites in the civil society. The dynamics between the bureaucracy and the army and the changing internal balance of power within the state structure itself have hitherto not been analyzed. It would be useful to examine these dynamics, since the bureaucracy and the military are two quite different institutions. They not only relate in differing ways to the civil society, but in fact, it can be argued, have moved in opposing directions in terms of the nature of internal changes within these two institutionsofthe state respectively. This chapter is an attempt at examining the changing balance of power between the bureaucracy and military within the state structure. In Section I, we examine the nature of the crisis that any authority purporting to govern has to confront. In Section II, the intra-institutional changes, as well as the inter-institutional changes with respect to the bureaucracy and military respectively are analyzed. Finally, in Section III the role of the people is examined, as a factor influencing the power structure, in a situation where institutionsinthe civil society have eroded. ECONOMIC GROWTH,SOCIALPOLARIZATIONANDSTATEPOWER The ruling elite at the dawn of independence consisted of an alliance between landlords and the nascent industrial bourgeoisie, backed by the military and the bureaucracy. The nature of the ruling elite conditioned the nature of the economic growth process. However, the latter, in turn, influenced the form in which state power was exercised. Economic growth was of a kind that brought affluence to the few at the expense of the many. The gradual erosion of social infrastructure, endemic poverty and the growing inequality between the regions undermined the civil society and accelerated the trend towardsmilitarization. 1 Seeforexample,HamzaAlavi,“ClassandStateinPakistan”,inH.GardenandJ.Rashid(eds.)1983:TheUnstable State.Vanguard,Lahore. AyeshaJalal:TheStateofMartialRule,CambridgeUniversityPress.Cambridge,1990. Akmal Hussain, “The Crisis of State Power in Pakistan: Militarization and Dependence”,in Wignaraja and Hussain (cds.):ChallengeinSouthDevelopment.DemocracyandRegionalCooperation.OxfordUniversityPress,1990. PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 4 In this section we will examine the relationship between an increasingly militarist state structure, andthe nature ofeconomicgrowth. 1. EconomicGrowthand SocialPolarization While the average annual growth rate of GNP fluctuated during the regimes of Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq and Benazir Bhutto, the overall trend of growing poverty andsocialandregionalinequality continued. During the Ayubperiod(1960-1969) the basic objective ofthe development strategy was to achieve a high growth rate of GNP within the framework of private enterprise supported by government subsidies, tax concessions and import controls. Investment targets were expected to be achieved on the basis of the doctrine of functional inequality. This meant a deliberate transfer of income from the poorer sections of society who were thought to have a low marginal rate of savings, to high income groups who were expected to have a high marginal rate of savings. It was thought that by thus concentrating incomes in the hands of the rich, total domestic savings and hence investment couldbe raised. During the decade of the sixties when the above strategy was put into practice, while income was transferred into the hands of the rich, they failed to significantly increase their savings, thereby obliging the government to increase its reliance on foreign aid in order to meet its ambitious growth targets. The particular growth process in Pakistan during thisperiodgeneratedfour fundamentalcontradictions: 1. A dependent economic structure and growing inflow of foreign loans. (They increased from US $373 million between 1950-55 to US $2701 million in 1965- 70.)2 2. An acute concentration of economic power (43 families represented 76.8 percent ofallmanufacturing assetsby the endofthe 1960s).3 3. The polarization of classes in the rural sector and a rapid increase in landlessness.4 For example, while the incomes of the rural elite increased sharply 2 For an analysis of the economic strategy practiced during the Ayub period see: Keith Griffin: Financing DevelopmentplansinPakistan,GriffinandKhan:GrowthandinequalityinPakistan,Macmillan,London.1974. 3 AkrnalHussain,"CivilSocietyUndermine"Chapter1stStrategicissuesinPakistan’sEconomicPolicy.Progressive Publishers,Lahore,1988.“PastMistakes,presentFollies”,NewslineArticle.December1990. 4 Foradetailedevidenceonindustrialconcentrationsee:L.J.WhiteIndustrialConcentrationandEconomicPower inPakistan,PrincetonUniversityPress.Princeton,1972. PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 5 following the “Green Revolution” the real incomes of the rural poor declined in absolute terms. The per capita consumption of food grains of the poorest 65 percent of Pakistan’s rural population fell from an index of 100 in 1963 to 91 in 1969.5 Similarly, according to a field survey, 33 percent of small farmers operating less than 8 acres suffered a deterioration in their diet. During the 1960s asmany as794,042smallfarmersbecame landlesslaborers.6 4. A growing economicdisparity betweenthe regionsofPakistan.7 These consequences of the economic growth process during the Ayub period generated explosive political tensions which not only overthrew the Ayub government bringing in Yahya Khan’s martial law, but also fuelled the secessionist movement in East Pakistan which ultimately resultedinthe formationofBangladesh. During the Bhutto period economic growth slowed down sharply. Industrial growth fell from an average of 13 percent during 1960 to only 3 percent during the period 1972 to 1977. Similarly, the agricultural growth declined from an average 6.65 percent in the l960s to a mere 0.45 percent in the period 1970 to l976.8 At the same time, the nationalization of banks and credit expansion for financing loans to capitalist farmers and industrialists led to heavy deficit financing and an associated increase in the money supply. (Notes in circulation increased from 23 billion rupees in 1971-72 to 57 billion rupees in 1976-77.) The sharp increase in the money supply during the period of virtual stagnation was reflected in a sharp rise in the inflation rate. (The whole sale price index rose from150in1971to 289by 1975.)9 It appears that although nationalization of industries and credit expansion enabled the PPP to acquire the support of a section of the urban petit bourgeoisie through the provision of jobs, licenses and loans, the available funds were not enough to enrich the entire petit bourgeoisie. In fact, the section of the lower middle class that did not gain 5 For an examination of thepolarization phenomenon in Pakistan’s rural sector see: Akmal Hussain, Changes in theAgrarian StructureofPakistan. with specialreferenceto thePunjab Province196O-l97D. PhilThesis, Sussex, 1980. Technical Change and Social Polarization in Rural Punjab. in K. Au (ed): Political Economy of Rural Development.Vanguard.Lahore.1976. 6 N.Hamid:“TheBurdenofCapitalistGrowth:AstudyofRealWagesinPakistan”,PakistanEconomicandSocial Review.Spring1974. 7 AkmalHussain:ANoteonRuralPovertyandAgrarianStructureinPakistan.Paperpresentedatthe18thWorld Conference.SID.Rome10-14July,1985. 8 For detailed analysis of disparities among regions of West Pakistan see: Naved Hamid & Akmal Hussain: “RegionalInequalitiesandCapitalistDevelopment”,PakistanEconomicandSocialReview,Autumn1974,Lahore. 9 AkmalHussain,StrategicissuesinPakistan’sEconomicPolicy.op.cit. PakistanProblemsofGovernance: Copyright©www.bhutto.org 6