Crisis of governance
Out of the gaze of international media, Pakistan is turning into another failed state and a potential hot spot of instability. The legitimacy of the state’s authority is eroded by the subversion of institutions and the ruling elites’ corruption and feuds. Most public institutions are being restructured for short-term political gains and personal rivalries. Their legal-moral foundations are being shaken by unjust policies and corrupt practices.
Pakistan has been in a governance crisis since its beginning. In its 77 years history, the military chiefs have ruled for 33 years in three separate periods, but in other years, shifting loyalties and buying/selling of party affiliations kept elected governments weak and susceptible to the military’s interventions. The present government is an acknowledged hybrid of military rule with a civilian mask.
The crisis presently brewing has both historical and new elements. Historically, Pakistanis have shown limited tolerance for repressive and inept governments. All military rules ultimately were brought down or weakened by sustained public protests, including one that sparked an armed rebellion resulting in the breaking away of East Pakistan in 1971. The elected governments similarly lost their mandates quickly as their inefficiencies and corruption came to roil the public. People readily come out to express their discontent as governments falter. This is the tradition in Pakistan.
The new element in the present situation is the politics of personal feuds. By all indications, the Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI) a party, and its founder and absolute leader Mr. Imran Khan are the most popular political force presently. Though Khan came to power in the 2018 elections presumably favoured by the military establishment, he fell out of favour for interfering in defence appointments. Despite his unremarkable rule of four years, Khan’s popularity among urban middle classes and youth including women remains undiminished.
The 2024 elections were conducted by breaking many laws and norms to get Khan out. Surprisingly, it resulted in the majority win of his nominees, despite disallowing his party to put legislative candidates in its own name. Its nominees contesting as independents but propagating their affiliations through social media won the largest share of seats (149). However, the PTI’s success was neutralised by putting together a coalition of parties that had fought against each other for years.
A great sensitivity is being shown by both the military establishment and the current civilian government to pro-PTI trolls on social media. The national internet service has been frequently blocked or slowed. Another hastily crafted legislation has been pushed through to suppress criticism of the government institutions and even their senior executives on social media Peca legislation.
Politics of vendettas
Khan’s defiance and determination against the establishment has set in motion a new saga of revenge politics. He has been put in jail on many charges and is now convicted on a charge of misappropriation of public funds for a 14-year prison sentence. But for his followers, these cases have been set up to remove him. They keep protesting and rioting on his commands. Many of them are in jail, including numerous women—a first in Pakistan. Also, his social media-savvy supporters abroad keep challenging the legitimacy of the cobbled-together civil government and questioning the supremacy of the establishment.
The confrontation between Khan and the heads of the establishment and government has evolved into a personalised enmity. The politics of personal fights and the rise of uncontrollable social media are the new elements of Pakistan’s long political crisis. They are accelerating the breakdown of public institutions.
Recently, the judiciary’s independence has been compromised by expanding the executive’s control over its appointments, organisation, and authority through a hurriedly enacted 26th amendment of the constitution. Military courts have been established to try civilians, mostly Khan’s followers, on charges of riots and damaging public properties. The civil administration has been emasculated by reducing the security of tenure and postings of public officials.
The sociological and cultural makeup of Pakistan demands accommodation of diverse interests, but the political, legislative, and administrative structures are inimical to diversity and equality
Power-seeking gangs as political parties
Political parties themselves are not much more than bands of loyal power-seekers surrounding a leader. They may have a sprinkling of ideology and constitution proclaimed as a ritual, but effectively they are individual enterprises of leaders. Though Imran Khan’s PTI is also his fief, he is a new face with a reputation for charitable work and a clean man.
The political parties have little or no grassroots and local organisations. Local governments are not functioning in three of the four provinces. Overall, there are not many channels for people’s needs and feelings to be communicated from the bottom up.
Unity and diversity
Pakistani society is a mosaic of multiethnic and multicultural provincial and regional communities of diverse vernacular languages and customs, e.g. Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baloch, Muhajirs.
Pakistan from the beginning has sought to impose a unity of homogeneity based on centralised order and the Urdu language. This centrist view has cost the breaking away of East Pakistan. Now it is a source of considerable provincial/regional tensions about economy, autonomy, and identity.
The sociological and cultural makeup of Pakistan demands accommodation of diverse interests, but the political, legislative, and administrative structures are inimical to diversity and equality. This is a critical challenge of governance.
Pakistani institutions have structures but functionally they operate in an informal system of connections, loyalties,power, and money exchanges. In this sense, they are ‘hollow’ institutions’ having the form but not the substance of their functions. This is a critical impediment to Pakistan’s capacity.
Pakistan is a populous country, 241 million people (2023 ), with a high annual growth rate of 2.55% adding 34 million people in six years, 2017-2023. For a country of limited resources, 5-6 million new mouths to feed yearly presents a Malthusian nightmare. Yet population growth remains an unattended problem.
The influence of the military in the form of direct rule or as the overseer of political governments has inhibited the growth of a rooted (in people), democratic, and accountable government
It is a lower middle-income country with a per capita GNI of $1669 Bureau of Statistics. Undoubtedly it has made economic strides since its birth, but poverty remains very visible and persistent. The poverty rate according to the World Bank was 25.3% in 2024, adding 13 million more people in this category in the past year. Pakistan’s economic problems have compelled its government to seek IMF loans 22 times since its independence, 6 of those being in the 2000s.
Undoubtedly the floor of the standard of living has risen. According to Pakistan Bureau statistics data, 95% of households own a mobile phone. In the province of Punjab (53% of the national population), about 17 million registered motorcycles equalling the number of households suggest that a motorised two-wheeler is now a common possession.
Yet the differences in living conditions of the lower and upper classes have increased. The privatisation of public resources, in the form of gated communities on expropriated lands, shopping malls, and favourable public works, has separated the influential and rich from the common citizen. What such well-off people spend in fancy restaurants for a meal often equals the monthly income of a clerk or labourer
What is sustaining the poor is the informal economy, estimated to be 30-50% of the GDP. They survive with multiple jobs and unapproved housing.
The breakdown of the political process and institutional structure are fostering ‘a thousand mutinies’ to borrow Naipaul's phrase. There are two active insurrections, characterised as terrorism. One in Baluchistan was fuelled by economic disparity, enforced disappearances of activists, and ethnic grievances about transferring provincial resources. Second is Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) based in the tribal belt of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’ aiming to enforce an Islamic system. In nine months, up to September 2024, there were 817 incidents of violence resulting in 1537 persons killed and 1211 injured including members of the security forces, mostly in these provinces.
Apart from this ongoing insurrectionary violence, there are daily incidents of people attacking a hospital, police station, or electric and gas companies’ installations in some parts of the country to air their grievances, as they do not expect any redress otherwise. If there is an accident on the road, it is not uncommon for a crowd to gather to beat up the driver or burn the vehicle. There is turmoil somewhere in the country almost every day.
Ordered disorder of daily life
Life goes on in Pakistan, despite corruption and institutional disorder. The laws, rules, and market mores lay the framework for making ad-hoc deals involving bribery, connections, and power-play to carry out personal affairs, from employment to getting medical care. Almost everybody has an ad-hoc pattern of managing daily life. A lot of energy is expended on the task of living. The discontent with the system is loud and pervasive.
All in all, the Pakistani state is consumed by institutional breakdown, false goals, and corruption, much of it the result of a person-focused political culture. The ruling elite has to learn from historical lessons. A political consensus to end the vendetta politics is the first step in bringing about institutional integrity.
The influence of the military in the form of direct rule or as the overseer of political governments has inhibited the growth of a rooted (in people), democratic, and accountable government. A ‘saviour’ syndrome has exacted a heavy social cost.
Yet society has the resilience and energy to build a just and dynamic polity. Its diversity must be recognised. A unity of diversity must be forged out of the regional/ethnic/class interests to build a vibrant country. Similarly, by rebuilding broken institutions an equitable and effective state can be developed.