Would Devolution Empower “We the People”?

Mr. Gilani is right to criticise Abida Hussain for making uninformed remarks about the plan just like all the other politicians etc. The plan truly is a revolutionary attempt at empowerment. I also agree with Mr. Gilani that DMG officers should not be made DCOs. Instead DCOs should be from architecture and town planning backgrounds or the other fields listed by Mr. Gilani but with management training. However while the thinking and intentions behind the plan are correct there are serious flaws in the plan. No matter how good an idea is, if it is not implemented correctly, its likelihood of failure is high in which case its detractors and opponents will have ammunition to criticise it and prevent it from coming into being. One of the faults is that the police is not independent and therefore open to being misused. Secondly there is no sufficient independent audit, review and monitoring function which should exist at federal level ( such as the UK`s Audit Commission whose job is to monitor and audit the operations of local government). With these two flaws the doors to corruption by at the district level are wide open.

In the letter to the Editor of Dawn, Feroz Shah Gilani shows his confidence over the devolution plan as a means for establishing democracy at the local/district level. Comments welcome

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Democracy through devolution
Dawn, Letter, September 29, 2000

IN her article, `Option before the military government` (Dawn, Sept 24), Syeda Abida Hussain has strongly opposed the devolution plan saying it is a way to ``disenfranchise the people``. She has equated it with Ayub Khan`s `basic democracies`. I wish she had studied the Plan more carefully. Ayub Khan had kept the colonial style bureaucratic stranglehold intact while General Musharraf`s devolution plan aims at empowering the ordinary people which is a sine qua non for a democracy.

In all the democratic countries any local government coordinator is answerable to the elected head. In the United States he is called `manager` and he is appointed by the local government itself. Similarly, police officials are also appointed by the local government concerned. None of the above officials is appointed by any federal or provincial government (state in the case of USA).

If in Pakistan some bureaucrats have to be sent on deputation to the local governments as a matter of initial necessity, then the officers belonging to the DMG group (formerly CSP) are least suitable. This particular cadre is a replica of the colonial days` ICS. The concept of community service is against their grooves.

If at all government servants have to made DCOs they should belong to other cadres like the Audit & Accounts, Education service and engineering services. It will be still better if the DCOs (managers) come from the private sector. They may be bankers, industrial managers or ex-servicemen. It should be a five-year tenure appointment, approved by the district assembly.

FEROZ SHAH GILANI

bahmad #308

I anxiouly await your article on this issue.

In respone to krashid (Reply # 305)
Dear Rashid:

You have asked a key question. Let me rephrase it. The people of Pakistan in each province should be asked if they want to stay together as an “imagined community” (a la Benedict Anderson). Rashid, I am actually writing a short article on this line (please wait).

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

BAhmed #304

I also agree with you regarding role of army.

Whether you agree to my premise.

1- If a certain arrangement is advantageous to a group at the expense of other group, the first group somehow justifies it, whether it is just or unjust does not matter.

2- Although democracy is the better form, but it is essentially the requirement of Industrial, Capital interest and in our case it is sub-ordinated and subservient to the interest of foreign Capital.

Taking these two premises, with Punjab holding 55% population, any democratic or dictatorial experiment will be disadvantageous to small provinces as is evidenced in past. The solution is consensus. That is the reason of me saying strengthening and direct election of senate. (We are talking about Federation).

It is also clear that International capital to perpetuate its interest interferes in the internal affairs of different countries and its people to their advantage and to the disadvantage of majority of population. As is evidenced from China, Iran, Malaysia etc, only a strong Nationalistic Government and strong Nationalistic institution can stand for the advantage of people of that country.

We have to start what we have.

Can our elected representatives stand up to pressure? With the kind of National and provincial assembly which is going to be elected, I doubt that. As past experience shows, they will just perpetuate their own interest.

We need strong political parties. In current scenario, the best chance for us is local bodies election on party basis. Which will be a very effective check on party leaders.

We need to strengthen our institutions. Whether it is judiciary, or press or political process. How to do that is open to question. But one thing for which I am sure that the election for National and Provincial assembly and leaving everything on them is not going to solve the problem.

Otherwise what is the necessity of Pakistan, if people can live the same way or probably better without Pakistan.

In response to krashid (Reply # 303)
Dear Rashid:

Pakistan has historically suffered from several constitutional crises. Democratic values suggest that the worst constitutional crisis is one when the Constitution is unilaterally abrogated/suspended. Needless to point out that the army has been the greatest source of our constitutional crises. I reckon, this process will continue until the army occupies a strong controlling position within our political setup (particularly through its role in the national security council). With this kind of politically agreed constitutional arrangement, army will be able to fearlessly reproduce itself as an institution. What costs and benefits would this accrue to the federation? I really don’t know. I, nevertheless, suspect that it may create further tensions between the Punjab and the smaller provinces as long as our defense budget is significantly lowered vis a vis the entire national pie. Conflicts will not reduce significantly even if the army turns into a perfectly eqalitarian national institution.

I personally have no serious difficulty with guaranteed provincial autonomy provided the regional/provincial power elite: (1) help institutionalize a kind of pluralistic form of democracy and the rule of law; and (2) the citizenship and human rights of any Pakistani are not violated within any part of Pakistan (which means that all Pakistanis should be able to live and work peacefully and happily in any province of Pakistan surely under some well-defined and just rules).

Rashid, I agree with your view that important constitutional changes need to made first. Such changes, in my view, must be made through a transparent democratic, political process.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

BAhmed #301

27 years -10 years are enough to see the falsity of Qayyum`s premise.

We have to determine why country is important? It is because people can progress. It is not that country is important so f--- the people.

If 1973 constitution does not prevent Z.A.Bhutto from sacking the NWFP and Baluchistan assembly. If it cannot prevent Nawaz Sharif from imposing operation clean-up in his first tenure and putting Sind under Governor`s rule in the second tenure, what is the guarantee that it will now be successful in giving the rights to provinces.

Moreover the same system has been successfulin forming and strengthening the same faces, with a musical chair game. I don`t see any solution of two main concerns. Provincial rights to be safeguarded. Senate to be more important and elected body. Even with above ammendments, it will lead to hegemony of provincial elites. How can we trust the people elected in National and provincial assembly to relinquish their power to local levels, when all experience in past has been otherwise.

I think important constitutional changes needs to be done to safeguard the powers of local level, before embarking on provincial question with direct election of senate.

As I said before the beaten horse of Nazariati or Gugraphiae Sarhadain is dead. People in small provinces want their rights or seperation.

GENERAL BEG ON DEVOLUTION . . . .

According to the Dawn (September 24, 2000), Former army chief and leader of Awami Qiadat Party Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg said (inter alia) that: (1) the present military regime lacked support base; (2) the induction of persons representing NGOs in the government would further deepen the national crisis; (3) the country needed a democratic platform because democracy had an in-built quality of correcting itself but restive and vested interests don`t give time to the elected people to complete their tenure; (4) no movement against the military regime would be successful because it had never happened in Pakistan before; (5) political parties were themselves responsible for army intervention because they had urged the armed forces to play their role; and (6) local bodies elections would be good thing but first the devolution of power from centre to the provinces be decided after which the parameters of devolution to the grass-roots level be worked out.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

WILL DEVOLUTION BE DELUSION?

In his short newspaper article “Will Devolution be delusion?,” Muhammad Qayyum (I personally don’t know him) made a number of interesting observations based upon Lt. General Naqvi’s recent visit to the USA as a member of Musharraf’s entourage (Frontier Post, September 23, 2000).

Qayyum seems to suggest that General Naqvi had gone to further study the American system of local governance as if it resembles the Local Government Plan 2000. Qayyum reminds us that “under the US system the states are autonomous and the federal government can only intervene in their internal affairs when there is complete break down of law and order or a calamity befalls a state.” He further adds that, in Pakistan, the power/subjects that needed to be transferred in accordance with the 1973 Constitution are “still very much under the feet of the federal government.”

Qayyum questions if devolution would empower the poor at the grassroots, given the fact that some 75 percent Pakistanis still live under the whim of the feudal class (perhaps in view of their poverty and a dismally low level of education). He further points out that traditional clan and ethnic bondage (structure of biradari) will play a crucial role in determining the results of any election at the local level.

In using a mind/brain (province), feet (locality) and body (country/nation) analogy, Qayyum maintains that the mind/brain is the determining agent in the performance of all body (country/nation) functions, and if the brain is deranged the person goes berserk losing control over all his/her functions and has to be quarantined to prevent him/her from being harmful to the society. He suggests that the devolution plan would: (1) make the feet to dictate to the brain in certain administrative, financial, and legal responsibilities affecting the people; and (2) naturally lead to conflicts with the resultant derangement of the political body of the country.

Qayyum then makes the following noteworthy statements:

(1) “To believe that by enabling the deprived majority to self-rule, something impossible, true democracy will be ushered in Pakistan is to say the least is a vainly wishful thinking by those whose job is not the administration of politics.”

(2) “To hope by the devolution the erstwhile political heavy weights’ would be sidelined is impossible without first cleansing the society of the corrupt through impartial accountability, and enforcing of land reforms, to cut the feudals to size.”

(3) “Our experience of the last fifteen years, not to speak of the earlier eras, when Zia introduced non-party elections thereby facilitating the corrupt rich to purchase votes, has so vitiated the thinking of the mostly illiterate electors that, it will be a miracle if they would defy their ‘benefactors’, the feudal, the business tycoons, the narcotic goons and the smugglers not to speak of industrialists turned politicians with stacks of hidden money.”

(4) “The desire and the declared intent of the NRB chief that the corrupt will not be allowed to make a come back can only be a chimerical vision grounded in unfulfillable imagination! Surely the regime can not prevent any one from planning and organising his/her political scheme to either get elected, or if not possible under certain conditions then to field proxies, who may be either the progeny, a relative, or some trusted henchman.”

(5) “To expect that the erstwhile players in politics, most of whom belong to the rich classes, will allow the scuttling of their traditional power bases is tantamount to being ridiculously over-optimistic.”

(6) [If] “the scheme is a repeat drama of the basic democracies of Ayub, and of the Shura of Zia, then it is bound to meet the same fate as those experiments by the two dictators.
But if implemented the devolution scheme will have a far deeper political fallouts, with disastrous consequences, especially in Sindh, where the MQM with its long declared policy of separation from Sindh and creating ‘JINNAHPUR’ for the so-called ‘muhajirs’.”

(7) [The devolution plan] “may generate tendencies and conflicts at local level, which may endanger the very edifice of the federation.”

(8) “The nationally agreed Constitution of 73 if truthfully implemented, and not interpreted in parochial interests, then there can be no reason for it not to serve true democratic dispensations.

The only condition that must be enforced in the effective implementation of the 73 constitution should be that the provinces be given the promised autonomy, and an amendment be issued as a presidential ordinance stipulating that after the general elections and elections to the provincial assemblies are held, elections to the local bodies must be held within three months. Also the local bodies may be given some more powers to raise minimum essential taxes to finance their administrative commitments locally. It is not the fault of 73 Constitution but it is its non-implementation by successive govts both civil and military, which has led to the sorry state of affairs prevailing in the country. To find escape routes of political expediencies instead of following the 73 Constitution will be the opening of Pandora’s box with unpredictable consequences for the nation. The devolution may prove an unbearable delusion.”

Chowkwallas: Do you find Qayyum’s arguments convincing? Does he provide a more fail safe approach than the one proposed by the National Reconstruction Bureau? After reading Quyyum’s views, would you still concede (if you ever did) that the devolution plan is a revolutionary attempt to establish grassroots democracy in Pakistan? Would the devolution plan “prove an unbearable delusion”? Should we consider a strict implementation of the 1973 Constitution (assuring provincial autonomy) as a first true step toward true devolution? What guarantees does the 1973 Constitution provide for a fair and effective protection of the human and citizenship rights of all Pakistanis in all parts of Pakistan?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

WOULD THE GENERALS YIELD TO THEIR DEMAND?

At present, the top district administrator is the Deputy Commissioner (a very powerful Grade 19 officer), but according to the Local Government Plan 2000 the power of District Coordination Officers will be reduced somewhat drastically (though the pay scale will increase from 19 to 20). According to the Local Government Plan 2000:

“The district administration will be co-ordinated by a District Co-ordination Officer who will be a Civil Servant (BS 20).”

“The provincial government will post the District Co-ordination Officer, District Police Officer and district officers to the district.”

“In his [?] interaction with the provincial government the DCO will not by-pass the Zila Nazim.”

“The Zila Nazim will have the authority to transfer the DCO prematurely but only after giving him a formal warning. In such an eventuality the Zila Nazim will state his reasons for the transfer in writing to the Chief Secretary, who will be obliged to transfer the DCO within a week.”

“The Zila Nazim in consultation with the DCO may prematurely transfer any officer of the district but only after giving him a formal warning. In such an eventuality the Zila Nazim will state his reasons for the transfer in writing. In case of a difference of opinion between him and the DCO, the Zila Nazim will prevail.”

“The Zila Nazim being the head of administration will initiate the performance evaluation report of the District Co-ordination Officer (DCO). The technical reporting officer of DCO will be the Chief Secretary, and the counter-signing authority the Chief Minister.”

After Altaf Gohar`s initiative to oppose the Local Government Plan 2000, several top Pakistani bureaucrats have maintained that they don’t want to work under the District Nazims (see the report below). Chowkwallas, kindly make critical comments and provide some supporting information.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad


Dawn; September 24, 2000
Bureaucrats not ready to work under district Nazims
Bureau Report

ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Top bureaucrats of the federal government have demanded that the district coordination officers (DCOs) in the proposed district governments should not be made answerable to district Nazims. The demand was made at a meeting of the federal secretaries committee here on Saturday. The meeting was presided over by the cabinet secretary, Masooma Hassan and attended by over two dozen federal secretaries and additional secretaries in charge. He said the major issue discussed at the meeting was how to provide protection to the DCOs, who had been placed directly under the control of the district Nazims. Since the DCOs would be from the DMG [District Management Group], it is understood that the bureaucracy is not happy with the plan to place them under the control of the district Nazims in the devolution plan. The senior bureaucrats, he said, suggested that the DCOs should be given the same protection, as had been provided to the district police chiefs under the new plan. Initially, the district police officers were placed under the district Nazim but later it was decided to make them answerable to an eight-member district public safety commission. The bureaucrats, the source said, were of the view that placing the DCOs under the district nazims could severely jeopardize their independence and make them vulnerable to political pressure. They maintained that considering the past experience, when bureaucracy was used by the politicians for their personal ends, the possibility of misusing the DCOs in future could not be ruled out. They committee, he said, had suggested to the government that instead of placing DCOs under the control of the district nazims, they should be made answerable to the public safety commission, like district police chiefs. He said that the demand had been sent to the cabinet division, which would place it before the cabinet.

DEVOLUTION AND GRASSROOTS POLITICS

In his recent critique of the devolution plan, Altaf Gohar (one the leading, now retired, Pakistani bureaucrats) maintains that: (1) previous local body elections generated an entirely new generation of political leaders whose performance remained suspect; (2) each successive local body elections led to greater conflicts and enmities (see Reply # 289).

In an authoritarian, neo-colonial state, the rule of top-down danda is usually established to keep the masses in control and to create a sense of deference. Local elections in the context of such social relations are likely to generate enough conflicts. How many of such conflicts are really a product of the divided and rule policies of the power elite themselves? Nonetheless, the common people in Pakistan need be educated about their rights and duties and the ways to resolve the conflicts peacefully and amicably.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

DEVOLUTION, AWARENESS AND FINANCIAL STABILITY

In my Reply # 289, I posted the thoughts of Altaf Gohar on the devolution plan (Frontier Post, September 16, 2000), where Gohar seems to suggest that Western grassroots democracy fails to work well in the absence of “awareness among the public and financially stable government.”

Is this a rejection of the “Western” grassroots democracy? If not, what kind of public awareness is needed? What do we need to do to create and/or sustain public awareness and financially stable governments? If we have failed to create civic consciousness among our masses, is it essentially a product of too much centralization of the state power within a neocolonial socio-political structure? How could governments be financially stable if they are not somewhat autonomous to do the needful?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

DEVOLUTION AND BUREAUCRACY

In my Reply # 289, I posted the thoughts of Altaf Gohar on the devolution plan (Frontier Post, September 16, 2000).

In concluding his thoughts, Gohar writes: “Bottom line is focus on what we already have and make it more transparent so that corrupt are automatically identified and committed are rewarded.”

Gohar need to inform us clearly his understanding of “what we already have,” and what kind of doable/successful reforms does it need.

Gohar, being one of the leading Pakistani bureaucrats, needs to tell us: Did he play any noteworthy role in making the Pakistani political/administrative system (more) transparent? Did he also try to keep the public well informed? If the answer is in negative in either case, what stopped his from doing so?

Furthermore, in order to take his views about devolution any seriously, he needs to inform us in details: Why our political/administrative system is so corrupt, inefficient, and unresponsive? What role does geography play in matters concerning an efficient, effective, and equitable distribution and provision of national resources and goods and services? (Side note: Gohar’s wife was a professor of geography at Government Women’s College, Karachi. She moved to Rawalpindi/Islamabad after the transfer of Capital from Karachi).

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

sadna #295

Sadhna,

Ok, I will pray for India too :) And if they win, I will sing saray jahaan say accha Hindustaan hamara for you. Cool? :)

fairdinkum #293, bahmad #291

I agree with you that debate and discussion not only clarifies important issues through two-way communication, its gives a feeling of effectiveness and control, also two-way.

As bahmad says rightly, ``our political elite are not prepared to adequately understand the significance of a transparent political process and political legitimation. ``, very applicable to India, too.

In India, there is too much discussion on some topics and too little on others. The Indian press doesnot help when it chooses to concentrate on the spectator sport of who said what to whom and what will happen next and not on throwing light on matters of more immediate importance to the general public.

Speaking of spectator sports, fairdinkum, hope you are having fun and do kindly spare a few prayers for `you-know-which-team`, too:-).

Sadhana

Faridinkum #293

Although I agree with you that people are pragmatic when voting.

But G.M.Syed and his party I think has a contribution towards awakening and education of Sindhis.