May 13, 2010

Deforming bureaucracy
For a country like Pakistan, the evolution of bureaucracies has been forced and lateral, not natural and linear By Adnan Rehmat All types of governments -- whether elected or self-appointed and whether benevolent or autocratic -- require bureaucracies to govern countries. It is not in the nature of bureaucracies to offer corrections to governments on policies or even to inform priorities, merely to try and implement them as ordered. For bureaucracies anywhere process, not service, drives them. One cannot understand bureaucracies until understanding that for bureaucrats, procedure is king and that performance is for governments. And for a country like Pakistan, which has see-sawed between democracies and dictatorships, the evolution of bureaucracies has been forced and lateral, not natural and linear, with the result that little works and even files of the president and prime minister go missing somewhere between ministries. It does not help that for a bureaucracy that has alternately conformed to diametrically opposed national priorities and agendas in Pakistan over the past few decades as politicians and generals have held sway over uncertain games of musical chairs for abrupt periods in power, the country's bureaucracy was an inheritance from the Raj era and designed for colonial duties in the first place, rather than service-oriented as in a welfare state. Not even the bureaucracy in Pakistan will contest the general perception that it is rusty and ineffective at best. At worst its capacity is severely diminished due to overt politicisation and corruption in its ranks and the abject failure to attract the best and the brightest of the country's citizens to it anymore. Colonial bureaucracy According to Andrew Wilder, who has recently researched the capacity of Pakistan's political institutions, including the bureaucracy, Pakistan's colonial heritage has heavily influenced its political culture as well as its bureaucratic and political institutions. The Indian Civil Service was designed to rule the British empire in this part of the world. While representative institutions were gradually introduced into colonial India, their role was advisory rather than policy-making, and to deal with local administrative matters rather than substantive issues. They were never intended to be democratic institutions that transferred power to elected representatives, but rather were designed to help legitimise and strengthen the authority of the bureaucratic state. The power imbalance between the strong bureaucratic institutions that Pakistan inherited from colonial India and the weak representative and democratic institutions has been one of the greatest causes of political instability in Pakistan since its independence. With at least three distinct decade-long periods of military rule, Generals Ayub-Yahya, Zia and Musharraf in particular helped create and consolidate the rot by institutionalising ad hocism and skewering the natural progression of career bureaucracy. Each time there was a transition to democracy, in the 1970s, 1990s and recently, there was little serious effort made to institute reforms that would inject back professionalism and meritocracy within the executive. This ensured concentration of powers -- usually controlled directly by both civil and military bureaucracies -- in the executive branch stayed put to the detriment of legislature as well as the judiciary. Even now it is the executive supported by the bureaucracy that typically initiates legislation, bypassing the legislature by promulgating presidential ordinances. Patronage bureaucracy Another legacy holding sway in Pakistan's political culture and institutions, as well as its electoral politics, notes Wilder, is the institutionalization of patron-client political
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associations between the bureaucracy and local elites. In exchange for benefaction in the shape of land grants, pensions and titles, feudals, clerics and tribal chiefs were co-opted by colonial managers to provide political stability and collect revenues. After independence, this direct patron-client relationship between the bureaucracy and local elites strengthened the image of the bureaucracy as the providers of patronage, influence and security, thereby undermining the development of political parties that normally would have played this intermediary role. Until the break-up of the country in 1971 the civilian bureaucracy played the dominant role in Pakistan's policy-making and as such was insufficiently controlled or influenced by elected politicians. During this period, there was limited scope for interference from politicians as the bureaucracy, particularly the elite Civil Service of Pakistan, maintained control over the selection, training and posting of its members and was therefore able to retain its institutional autonomy. The political unrest that brought down General Ayub's regime in 1969, followed by the bloody civil war that dismembered Pakistan, seriously undermined the political strength and legitimacy of both the civil and military bureaucracies.

Politicized bureaucracy
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto carved out his political strength from this bureaucratic weakness after coming to power and set out to rectify the power imbalance between the elected and unelected institutions of the state. Within weeks of assuming power he stamped his authority by compulsorily retiring 1,300 bureaucrats and followed that up within months by sweeping administrative reforms. This included introducing a policy of lateral recruitment to increase political influence over a bureaucracy resistant to reform. Then through the 1973 Constitution he sliced away the protection of tenure. Rapid politicization of the civil service followed. This model of patronage, which dispensed with professionalism and performance and promoted loyalty to rulers, has been religiously followed by all subsequent governments whether elected or military. Thousands of civil officers are routinely transferred before and after elections to serve the wishes of their political masters, making it difficult for bureaucrats to get postings, transfers or promotions without the support of political or military patronage. While the politicisation of bureaucracy, as a result of Bhutto's administrative reforms, did have the short term positive result of giving elected representatives more influence over unelected institutions but permanent adoption of this model also resulted in the decimation of a neutral and competent civil service. Of the dozen serious attempts to study administrative reforms since Bhutto's hanging, almost all seek to restore constitutional security of tenure and safety from prosecution for the civil servants -- arguing that insecure officers can't perform wonders. Both Generals Zia and Musharraf seriously toyed with the idea of restoring these guarantees but understood -- as did the governments of Benazir and Nawaz -- that to retain their grip on the polity they would require a weak and subservient civil service rather than a strong and independent one, and so backed off.

Militarised bureaucracy
General Zia was in fact clear in what he needed to do. He strengthened and consolidated the military's position not only as the country's strongest bureaucratic institution but also as its strongest political institution. While he did reverse Bhutto's reforms, such as the lateral entry of civilian bureaucrats, he offset this by increasing the lateral entry of military officers into the civilian bureaucracy. In fact he instituted a 10 percent quota for former military officials in the officer grades in the civilian bureaucracy. General Musharraf took this to unprecedented heights. When he left in August 2008, there were over 10,000 serving and retired military officers in the civilian bureaucracy his government had appointed.
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Even well before Musharraf staged a coup in 1999, the military was a state within a state. Today arguably it is the state -- the elected civilian government and 18th constitutional amendment notwithstanding. The military controls all key state institutions through either direct control or through invisible influence -- the civil service, foreign policy, economic policy, home policy, intelligence agencies. The judiciary and the legislature are still recovering from the encumbering if invisible influence of the army. The worry is that due to the emaciated civilian bureaucracy, the administration of state institutions is still transparently marked by the invisible hand of the military and continues to depend on its capacity rather than civilian. Considering that there is no concerted effort at broader reforms, over time, the effect is being compounded, especially since the elected government is increasingly noted for its poor governance track-record of two years. There may have been political triumphs for it but good governance is not one of them. The military has become organisationally and institutionally stronger in the last decade. It has ensured it gets much better governance and administrative training than the civilian bureaucracy even as the latter suffers from institutional decay and heads into the other direction.

Professional bureaucracy
Headed by former State Bank of Pakistan Governor Ishrat Hussain, the National Commission for Government Reforms, set up by the last military government but also tentatively supported by the incumbent elected government, has completed an exhaustive two-year review of what ails the civil service of Pakistan and what can be done to prop it up as a standard bearer of professionalism. The commission offers the following key recommendations as the only way for Pakistan to get a service oriented bureaucracy that can help run the proverbial ship of state properly:

Greater accountability:
The need to strengthen internal and external accountability mechanisms to address widespread corruption within the bureaucracy; Enhanced efficiency and transparency: The need to promote greater efficiency and transparency by replacing manual processes with automated ones and rationalising antiquated and outdated rules, procedures and regulations; Rightsizing: The need for greater efficiency and affordability through rightsizing (most feasibly through natural attrition) of the large number of government employees in the relatively unproductive subordinate services (Grades 1 to 16); Reform of the cadre system: The need to promote equality of opportunities and career advancement within the civil service rather than the tradition of giving preferential treatment in terms of training, positions and promotions to certain elite cadres. Is this the roadmap to recovery? Given the chequered history of attempts to reform and deform the civil services in Pakistan, it seems this is not likely in a hurry -- considering that the timing of reforms is as relevant a tactical issue for military as it is for civilian dispensations. The popularly elected political government wants to break a record by surviving five years and the military establishment is keen to consolidate gains by repairing the damage from Musharraf's overstretch of his last two years. Any serious reforms now will have short term consequences on the principal stakeholders of the political system, including the parliament and the military, each of which is in no mood to lose their respective influence and its attendant benefits. Meanwhile, the only thing that will save Pakistanis from its bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

3 comments: 1.

salmanMay 15, 2010 09:10 AM

Pakistans civil bureaucracy has too often colluded with the military establishment to retard the growth of democratic institutions and to gain or retain power even under elected civilian governments. At the same time, over-centralization and establishments interference in political matters have undermined government capacity to tackle the major problems. Meanwhile the civil service is resistant to radical change in order to sustain its hegemony. In case of Pakistan Peoples Party, bureaucracy always played a monstrous role and hindered its functioning till the end. Perhaps PPP was always ominous for the bureaucracy because of its poor friendly policies and agenda to empower lower class. Bureaucracy must abandon its old bad ways as Pakistan is not in a condition to absorb more shocks. PPP is no way of change and turned over a new leaf to nudge country on the path of progress and key changes, so it must avoid hindering Government function.
Reply 2.

SalmanMay 15, 2010 09:13 AM

This comment has been removed by the author.

Reply 3.

Anima

Pakistan people linked with military bureaucracy, civilian bureaucracy, politicians, feudal and industrialists have created a nexus and benefit each other. Whenever any tried to break this nexus, he faced music and President As if Ali Zardari has not been that lucky. His governments attempt to put the ISI under the Ministry of Interior could not succeed. It was a good step and way to block involvement of agencies in the political matters. It would be most fruitful for Pakistan that civil and military organisations, instead of sticking to their traditional turfs, should enter into negotiations for a gradual and respectable retreat of the military from civilian administration. Military intervention in political matters resulted in marshal laws and we witnessed worst dictatorships. It would be more convenient that if military bureaucracy and other institutes confined them within their specific fields only.1

http://thebeautifulpakistan.blogspot.com/2010/05/deforming-bureaucracy.html

THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY

The German sociologist, Max Waber, says: "highly trained bureaucratic experts will prevail against the less expert ministers who ostensibly run the administrative units, the cabinet which ostensibly guides over any policy and the legislature which ostensibly make policy." The bureaucracy in Pakistan is not an exception to such predictions. It is this group of bureaucracy who has been, along with the military generals, formulating the policies and political as well as ideological framework of Pakistan. And being permanently in office, unlike the politicians, who come and go at their behest, it is they who have the power to actually govern the state as an administrative group. In the formative years, from 1947 to 1951, it was a period of turmoil and turbulence, but major decisions regarding foreign policy, economic development, fiscal arrangements, internal security etc. were being taken by the bureaucrats. During the 1951-1958, the democratic governments were in the name but the shots were called by the bureaucrats while the military was supporting them as a junior partner. From 1958 to 1971, during the regimes of General Ayub Khan and General Yahya Khan, while the military was a senior partner and bureaucracy as a junior partner. Feudal politicians supporting the system from the outside. The populist autocracy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1971-77), witnessed the military and bureaucracy playing a second fiddle, because of the debacle in East Pakistan. General Zia's first eight years (1977-1985) rule may be described as a bureaucratic rule once again in which the military was a senior partner while bureaucracy as usual a junior partner. A crowd of religious leaders, discredited feudal politicians, opportunistic professional groups, supported the system from the periphery. In the last three years of Zia's rule when he lifted the martial law on 31st December 1995 after Junejo's government approved his changes in the constitution, the democratic government was in name only and the military and civilian bureaucracy continued their role as senior and junior partners. Finally the autocratic democratic rule from 1988 to 1999 was marked by a strong army and weak bureacuracy. The stark reality is that most regimes in Pakistan, even martial law, have played into its hands. Only in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's time was it eclipsed for a while, but it must be admitted to its credit that it rebounded back into the driving seat in his last year. He introduced administrative reforms in 1973 that, inter alia, modified the constitutional safeguards of public servants against dismissal etc. Under Section 13 of the Civil Servant Act of 1973, the competent authority could dismiss public servants of the rank of additional secretary (grade 21) and above in public interest. The administrative reforms of 1973 were a major setback to the well-entrenched Civil Service of Pakistan, as the CSP was made the prime target of these changes. A large number of officers were again sacked like the Ayub Khan era. Constitutional guarantees of civil servants were withdrawn. A system of lateral entry was introduced. At the same time, powers of arbitrary dismissal of senior officers were given to the chief executive. The ground for the reform was prepared by the purge of 1303 officers under Martial Law Order No. 14 in 1972, and the dismissal of 18 senior officer in 1973 to facilitate the "speedy implementation of the government's socio-economic reforms. In the new dispensation it was not
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merit, hard work or efficiency, but loyalty to the master which was the basis for all recruitment, promotions and postings. Bhutto inducted 514 lateral recruits into the bureaucracy in three years and diluted the authority of the Federal Public Service Commission. During Zia's period, the bureaucracy was finally politicized, which not only meant pursuing the policies of the ruling party, but also serving their personal whims and covering up their misdeeds. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so grandiose disorder, loot and plunder were let loose. The feudal lord had reached his destination along with a modern munshi, the bureaucrat. The caretaker Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi amended the Civil Servants Act of 1973 to provide security of service for the bureaucracy and to help it function without political pressure. Confirmation and seniority rules, subject to acceptance by the successor government, were also promulgated. Under these rules, a seniority list was to be issued on a regular basis. The discretionary powers of the President and the Prime Minister to relax the upper age limit of public servants was proposed to be eliminated. The Civil Servants Act was amended but did not include all the recommendations of Moeen Qureshi's government. Under the amended Act, tenure and conditions of service could not be changed to the disadvantage of the civil servants. If transferred, civil servants were to be place in equivalent posts. In our society, bureaucracy is not a set of individuals who act according to their whims and fancies or merely to promote their selfish interest. Pakistan has inherited the bureaucratic structure and procedures from the British colonial master. It has grown up, with the needs of time, in a highly developed "power complex", like a machine or a system of self-sustaining living organism. It exists on the basis of rules, regulations, laws and constitutional provisions. It would be correct to say that bureaucratic "power complex" was invented by British to rule their colonies. Britain itself did not have a "power complex" to regulate its life as the one it created for India and other colonies. Its rule was responsible to none but to the government in London through the governor-general. The bureaucracy -- the Indian Civil Service -- was essentially a mercenary force in which the sons of the local collaborating elite were inducted to do the dirty work for the colonizers, which they did with extreme "efficiency." Its interests and orientations were, therefore, diametrically opposed to those of the people and those of the post-colonial independent societies. The bureaucracy thus was the biggest hurdle in the way of decolonization of our society and the creation of a truly democratic state in the post-independence era. In the late forties and early fifties the political parties played different roles in the two wings of Pakistan. While in the eastern wing the parties had a mass appeal and they could win elections on the basis of their popularity, in the western wing such popular appeal was lacking and hence elections could be managed at the bureaucratic level. It is this opportunity which pushed the position of bureaucracy to greater heights and they could rise above the politicians in the western wing. With the passage of time the failure to produce a constitution in time further lowered the position of the politicians. The rise of three bureaucrats, Ghulam Mohammad Malik, Choudhuri Mohammad Ali and Iskandar Mirza gave moral support to the strength of the bureaucrats and they could manipulate the Central government in a manner that suited them. This led to disenchantment between the two wings of Pakistan. The comparatively better position of the bureaucracy and the politicians in the western wing of the country played a decisive role in making the politicians weaker and weaker pushing up the bureaucrats to higher position of not only executive control but also policy making. Governor General, later President, Iskandar Mirza could also manipulate to form the Republican Party. Thus for all practical purposes the politicians in the western wing came to play in the hands of the bureaucrats. Such a dual role of a
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government can be played better by the army personnel than the civil bureaucracy since army commanders are more disciplined and hard working. Thus the door was opened for military rule, not because the politicians failed but because the bureaucrats would not give any chance to the politicians to play a genuine role by going to the people for support. Democracy, which started well in Pakistan, was throttle by the civil as well as military bureaucrats. The first public exposure that who was really in control of Pakistan political system, behind the facade of nominal parliamentary institution, came with governor general's dismissal of the Prime Minister in April 1953. Ghulam Mohammad, a bureaucrat by profession had taken over power as governor-general after the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan. His dismissal of prime minister Khawaja Nazimuddin's cabinet impugned the role of the legislature as the maker and sustainer of government. This showed how in-effective was the link between the prime minister and the institutions of party and parliament. Thus the establishment of a system of central executive rule, rather than of cabinet government based on a representative legislature encouraged the concentration of power in a group of officials divorced from mass politics. Playing persistently over the wicket of "external security threat" from India, from the very inception of Pakistan on the one hand and, negation to evolve strong, stable and genuine political institutions and forces in the first decade of our independence on the other, paved the way to the emergence of new political actors along with bureaucratic lineal decedents of ICS. In 1958 the army did not only overtly jumped in our politics but in fact it proved as a foundation stone for the subsequent martial laws of 1969 and 1977, which in turn facilitated the emergence of military bureaucracy and a group of people composed of both rural feudals and urban corporate interest, that could be rightly called "capitalist and elite" force. The bureaucracy and the police play an important role in the running of the system. The standards and quality of life being apparently enjoyed by the majority of our bureaucrats today leave no room for doubt that it has over the years become an extremely lucrative and comfortable business to be a bureaucrat. The comforts and glamorous lifestyles reserved for the bureaucracy in this country are with very few parallels in the contemporary world. The sizes of the Deputy Commissioner houses, Superintendent of Police houses, Commissioner houses and so on, alone are sufficient to support and corroborate this allegation. According to a retired bureaucrat, the present bureaucrats could be divided into three categories: the obstinate uncompromising old type, the bewildered transient, and the accomplished ones. The self-disciplined old type, still hanging on to his professional ethics, is treated by our society as a fossil. He is today an insignificant residue, appearing as a mole, cyst or pimple on the muscular mass. His normal abodes are the dark, dingy, desolate and unfrequented corners of the administrative world. The rulers are happy to keep him in cold storage because he can say "no" to them. The bewildered transient is in the evolutionary process of forced conversion from the old to the new. He is unable to withstand the social compulsions around and the career ambitions within. Internal conflicts notwithstanding, he goes along with the rulers unwillingly. The show, however, is stolen by the new bureaucrat who nods, but he nods only to those who matter. All the antennae of his personality are attuned to the corridors of power. He has perfected the art of extracting the full price for selling his soul. His creative genius pours lyrical praise in royal ears. His Midas touch converts don'ts into do's, because his dexterous dynamism is not deterred by rules, regulations, procedures or systems. To sum up, he has been elevated from "government servant" to "government partner," eligible for a holy alliance with the politicians. For his career prospects even the sky is not the limit.

It is unusual for top politicians like prime ministers to say what they truly feel about the bureaucracy. In a speech in mid-1996 PM Benazir Bhutto did the unprecedented. She called senior officers arrogant, mischievous and sycophantic and interested only in their own progress and promotion. A very serious accusation was that they leaked out confidential information to the secret agencies (and the World Bank) in order to curry favour with them, not bothering if they let down the government they were supposed to serve. In her charge-sheet Ms Bhutto also said something that had been left unsaid before, that senior officers only wanted posts in which there was clout and money, and that most of them were as corrupt as the politicians whom they blamed for the ills of the country. 2

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

There is no denying the fact that a democratic, politically stable, and moderate Pakistan will serve its own interests. The democracy in Pakistan has not worked to its full potential not because something is inherently wrong with it or with the country as such but simply because the ruling elite resisted it in a bid to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately, like the previous military regimes, the policies of the present military government are seen working in the same direction. The military has ruled the country for a large part of its existence and, both by default and intention, promoted specific policies and personalities. It presided over the national destiny in the 1960s, during the East Pakistan crisis and all through the late 1970s and 1980s and cannot absolve itself of several crucial as well debilitating developments in the past. It is this very institution which has encouraged and in many cases fostered and nurtured forces of violence, reaction and discrimination in society. Given the present situation, the fundamental task remains the de-colonization and democratization of the state. For that we need basic restructuring of the political, economic and social set up. Pakistan has evolved into a highly centralized, unitary and oligarchic instrument which continues to operate in a neo-colonial framework. We need to introduce radical constitutional and administrative reforms. The multinational character of the Pakistani state must be recognized and the political and economic rights and powers of the constituent nationalities must be conceded. There must be total decentralization of power up to the lowest tiers, so that development programs embody the local needs and aspirations, and the people at all levels are involved in their implementation, and benefit from them. The federal structure, confronts the same dilemma that it had before the separation of East Pakistan. Just as East Pakistan has a larger population than the other four provinces of West Pakistan put together, Punjab today outnumbers (according to official census result that has been challenged by the smaller provinces) the combined strength of the remaining three provinces. Unfortunately, narrow parochial considerations, political exploitation and decades of authoritarian rule have further increased the mistrust and misunderstandings between provinces. A repetition of the unfortunate events of the past be avoided by accordingly the demands of the smaller provinces for real federalism. The federal government should be entrusted only with responsibility for foreign affairs, defense, currency, inter-provincial trade and communications and foreign trade. This is a popular demand of a number of political parties from the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan. Strengthening of the federation, removal of inter-provincial disharmony and restoration of national cohesion was one of the seven-point agenda announced by General Musharraf on
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October 17, 1999. However, the military government was unable to take any significant move in this direction in the first twelve months. Criminalization of politics in Pakistan is a real issue because the electoral process has legitimized the power of, what may be called, crime syndicates and has granted popular acceptability to individuals who used high public offices for criminal plunder of national resources. There is a general consensus in Pakistan that democracy must be restored but without a due process of law and checks on the power of the executive, it would remain a sham democracy. It appears that the people of Pakistan are losing faith in the present political system. The turn out in the February 1998 elections was only 26 per cent of which the Muslim League received about 15 per cent of the votes. Not more than 5 per cent of the adult population of the country turned out to vote. Our experience since the 1985 non-party elections of General Zia has proved beyond any doubt that the same interest groups (feudal-capitalist-army) would return to the national and provincial assemblies whenever elections would be held under the present system Therefore, basic changes are required in the electoral system in order to make it possible for the ordinary people to be represented in the national and provincial assemblies. Population of the country has doubled since 1973 when the constitution was framed, this increase should be reflected in the assemblies strength. Doctoring of election results has become an established norm with our ruling elite. To ensure free and fair elections, the election commission should be made completely independent of government control. It cannot be denied that the Inter-Services Intelligence, which since 1976 has been directly under the prime minister, has been used to finance candidates and political parties in order to influence the results of the elections. The ISI's political cell should be abolished and it should not have any political role. Elections should be held on joint electorate and proportional representation basis. Voters should be asked to vote for a party candidates and its program rather than for individuals. Political parties, in order to qualify for participation in national elections, should be required to hold elections within the party. Besides, those who elect a person must have the right to recall him whenever he renegades on his election promises and commitments or sells his loyalty. The voting age, that was reduced during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's regime from 18 to 21 years should be restored to 18 years. We need to introduce and strictly implement basic land reforms so that the feudal grip on our political and economic process is broken once and for all. Landless peasants and belowsubsistence farmers may receive land, thus raising the level and quality of life of the rural masses and enabling them to enjoy basic human rights and freedom. Meaningful rural development projects, involving the rural masses can be initiated and implemented, only when the feudal hold is broken. Unfortunately, introduction of any land reforms was not on the agenda of the present regime because any meaningful land reforms are likely to alienate a powerful feudal community against the regime. General Musharraf has announced to levy income tax on farm income from the next financial year that begins in July 2000. However, the feudal lords are resisting even a nominal farm tax imposed by the provincial governments. On Jan. 13, 2000, disposing a petition by land lords against the imposition of provincial income tax on agriculture income, the Peshawar High Court declared agriculture levy as "illegal" and "unconstitutional." Meanwhile, on January 31, 2000, a number of senior and junior officers of the Pakistan Army, through separate writ petitions, has challenged the imposition of Agricultural Income Tax on their lands. Major Geneneral M Shafiqullah, Brigadier Muhammad Aslam and Lal
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Zumarad, Lt Col Manzoor Ahmad Waheed, Major Muhammad Yousaf, Irshad Ali and Muhammad Abdul Wahid, Cap Masudul Haq, Lt Muhammad Jamil and Havaldar Muhammad Anwar in their separate writ petitions have challenged the imposition of agricultural income tax on their lands. The army officers are allottees of agricultural land under the Remount Breeding Scheme prepared under Section 10 of the Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912. They were asked to pay Agricultural Income Tax under Act 1 of 1997 and coercive measures were under process against them for recovery. They contended that under the terms and conditions of the allotment of their lands, a tenant under the Colonization of Government Lands Act, 1912 neither fell within the ambit of Agricultural Income Tax Act, 1947 nor within the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1967 and as such could not be deemed the owner of the land. This confirms the fact that the forces of the status quo are too well-entrenched to allow any meaningful change possible through drastic reforms in the present setup, while the new world environment is raising the expectations of the people. Hence, no meaningful change is possible unless our ruling elite responds to the international and regional realities of the post-cold war era. It has to take a painful decision to loosen its grip over the society and surrender its privileged position otherwise, the economic, social as well as political compulsions may trigger unforeseen events and force some catastrophic changes.3

Introduction
Pakistan entered another phase of its history on 12th October, 1999, when the army took over power for the fourth time. To no ones astonishment, the change of government was enthusiastically welcomed by the masses as it raised false hopes that the countrys unjust political, economic and social system would be reformed for their benefit. However, as the military government of General Pervez Musharraf completed one year on October 12, 2000, it became apparent that it was following the path of the previous military governments to maintain status quo that surely benefits only the privileged ruling elite that is a conglomerate of civilianmilitary bureaucracy backed by feudal and capitalist class. This work is an attempt to highlight the working of the ruling elite in maintaining the prevalent political, social and economic set up of the country where more and more people are being pushed every day into poverty as the world entered the new century. The course of politics since independence has been determined and dominated by a small segment of society and nothing has happened during the half century of economic turbulence and social chaos to alter the class composition of the leadership, which still comes from the feudal-army-bureaucracy conglomerate. It cannot be denied that political power and authority were snatched away by the bureaucrats and generals after the assassination of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, in October 1951. The first chapter, Hegemony of the ruling elite, traces the role of civil and military bureaucracy since 1951 when an exbureaucrat, Ghulam Mohammad became the Governor General after the assassination of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. He dissolved the first Constitutional Assembly that was about to finalize drafting of the constitution. His illegal action was condoned by Chief Justice Mohammad Munir, in a verdict that still haunts the country. With the appointment of General Mohammad Ayub Khan as Pakistan's first Pakistani commander-in-chief in early 1951, the civil and military bureaucracy, operating in tandem, began to tighten their grip on the institutions of governance. General Ayub Khan , who later confessed to his own political ambitions, teamed up
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with the Defense Secretary, Major General Iskandar Mirza, to consolidate his grip over the levers of power. This work also throws light on the feudal system in Pakistan that continues to exist and flourish with all its evils and colonial legacies which has virtually disenfranchised the bulk of the population by its monopoly of power. This system creates areas of oppressive influence for the feudal lords, particularly in the vast rural areas constituting 70 per cent of country's population. With only two per cent of the population the feudal lords are able to capture bulk of the assembly seats, thus denying the poor and middle class their legitimate share in the government. Any electoral process which throws up Mazaris, Jatois, Mirs, Legharis, Tiwanas, Bhuttos, Nawabs, Sardars and the like as the elected representatives of the poor haris, laborers, petty shopkeepers, office workers and other segments of the working class in this country is not fair, transparent and well meaning. It makes a mockery of the most fundamental principle underlying the concept of a democratic form of government, viz. that those who run the government must be the representatives of the people. In Pakistan's constitutional history, neither the politicians nor the military leaders respected the Basic Law. General Zia had once proudly proclaimed that he could tear up the constitution and throw it into the dustbin whenever he liked. This he nearly did with his wanton disfigurement of the constitution through the Eighth amendment. The second chapter deals with the subversion of our constitutions by our democratic and military autocrats. Subversion of the basic law began with the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly in October 1954 when it was about to complete the drafting of the constitution. Governor General Ghulam Mohammad dissolved the Assembly that was clipping his powers. The second Constitutional Assembly, selected by the provincial legislatures, finally approved the first constitution that was enforced on 23 March 1956. Major General Iskandar Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, on 7 Oct. 1958 abrogated the 1956 constitution and appointed General Ayub Khan as the Martial Law Administrator. The 1973 constitution, unanimously approved by the National Assembly, has been distorted by our democratic and military rulers beyond recognition. It has also been put into abeyance by two military governments. The political power of the armed forces of Pakistan is greater than the power of the elected representatives of the people as well as of the judiciary. Time and again the former have proved their supremacy. Since the days of the speaker-ship of Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan, the legislature of Pakistan has been humbled on several occasions. The Constituent Assembly could not be dissolved in 1954 without the backing and blessings of the Army Chief General Ayub Khan. The third chapter, Generals in Politics, relates the story of our armys role in politics that is now being formalized through the National Security Council appointed by General Pervez Musharraf. It may not be a too harsh judgment to say that Judiciary in Pakistan has functioned at the behest of authority and has allowed itself to be used to further the interest of the state against its citizens. Given the five-decade long record of our higher judiciary, popular perceptions and criticism, particularly of its judgments on constitutional petitions, is that hhenever martial law was imposed, the Courts seemed to have been waiting in the wings to provide it legal cover of validation. Moreover, the courts have hardly ever pronounced any judgment against any ruler while he was in office. Hence, our judiciary has played a very significant negative role in the development of political process in the country. Chapter four enumerates the Supreme Court judgments since 1955 that backed almost all the illegal and unconstitutional actions of our rulers. We inherited our bureaucracy from the British Raj that was evolved to rule a vanquished subject.
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Unfortunately, more than 52 years after independence, our bureaucracy bears the same Saheb and Ghulam (lord and servant) mentality. Chapter five traces the role of bureaucracy in manipulating the levers of power. Accountability remains a popular slogan with our rulers since the days of first prime minister, Liuaqat Ali Khan. However, it turned out to be an effective tool in the hands of our subsequent rulers to suppress their political opponents. Chapter six deals with the accountability process that has now been undertaken by the military regime as one of its seven major objectives. Human rights violation has also become an important issue, particularly during the last 11 years of democratic rule when the governments resorted to mass arrest of people, condoned extra-judicial killings and framed special laws to legitimize brutalities of the security forces. Chapter eight enlists and human rights violations. Islam has played an important role in the politics of Pakistan since its establishment. However, its systematic exploitation for political ends began with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and climaxed during General Zias regime. This caused a havoc to our social fabric and only helped in promoting the jihadi and obscurest in the country. Chapter nine highlights the negative role of religion in our politics.4

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