Development & the people

Today I bought a book by Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate -Economist. He was an inspiration to me to study development economics and poverty. The name of the book is Development As Freedom. The book evoked so many memories of my experiences in the field and of the time when I work with the people-- the time I feel happiest as well as sad. I feel happy when i come into contact with normal people, all sorts of people, when I observe them and listen to them, and the most when I am able to help them. But I feel sad when I look at the squalid existence of the majority of the people of Pakistan, their eyes without hope , given to fatalism, unaware and not confident of their rights because they have never been allowed to aspire so much by the ruling classes, of course I am a member of it, which makes the burden of guilt even greater. Our people lack trust in the system, the bureaucracy, the ruling classes, whoever they might be, they see the State as the enemy still after half a century of supposed independence. Our rural poor have all the qualities so vividly described of colonized people by Albert Camus's The Wretched of The Earth. That book was an eye opener for me when i read it while a trainee officer in the Elitist DMG campus. He was describing Algerians but the description was of the average Pakistani.They are sharp, they are always ready to get around authority to get their due , however little they get it. they lie ,cheat and derive pleasure from wrondoing.why is that? I am reminded of my visit to Australia in 2005 when I observed that their zoo animals and birds would approach people with trust in their eyes, hoping for love and food, in stark contrast to pakistani wildlife in zoos, which runs in the opposite direction or attacks when it sees humans. Expectations are always conditioned by experience. So it is with our people. Development is direly required all over the country and is the means of a better life experience for people, affecting their outlook and expectations from life. But we the ruling classes have made development another tool for blackmail, subjugation and politics. It is bartered for allegience, obeisance and control, and many times used for vendetta against rivals. By linking development to politics, we punish a person for not voting for a certain gentleman and voting for another. He sees his side of the colony or city languish and fall into disrepair, without basic amentities and maintenance, while the rivals side prospers, develops and blooms. Then development is done piecemeal, as sugar drops to a child from time to time, a street here, a road there, not resolving issues in a holistic way. To be sure, if you give something to somebody completely,why would they be at your door all the time? Therefore, development has become a means of control, not for serving the people. The traditional politician would expect that giving a job to a man would ensure gratitude in that family for the next two generations. I shudder to use the word change for obvious reasons, but the government, who ever heads it, needs to rethink how we treat our people, and how we perceive them. Development as freedom in Pakistan is a faraway dream. Choosing development projects independently is unheard of especially in rural areas and smaller cities, where problems glare at one in the face but are not solved due to biases and local vested interests .In such scenarios the people turn to the bureacracy to maintain balance, and respect us for it if we do. But our ability to maintain balance is fast eroding.Nevertheless, an independent way of prioritizing development is necessary. Political mileage can be a part of it but it should be fair and unbiased, not the only consideration. It would be a fine balancing act given competing interests after scarce resources,but we should give it a try. We should give our people a better standard of living not as a favour, but as their constitutional and human right.

Rain in the Capital

I was in love with rain since childhood. Befitting then that I ended up in a city where it rains more on average than any other major city in Pakistan. But here we have a different way of dealing with rain than in my native Lahore. We do not celebrate, like they do, but merely acknowledge, with a nod of our heads, a look out of the window, and carry on regardless. Most of the residents in this city are pursuing very important tasks which have implications on a national level, so we just give the rain a look and go on with our routines. It is a rarified atmosphere that we live in here, far removed from common people and their problems, and not a very good sense of the ground realities prevail here as far as the bureaucracy is concerned. The pace is slower, not a great sense of urgency apart from some offices. There is a far greater opportunity of making a difference, if one wants to. But we lack freshness, new perspectives, out of the box thinking. Islamabad needs waking up. It needs to become more frantic, more desparate to find the twentififth hour during the day to get things done. I wish we could do that. But why would the best officers come here to work, who want to or could make a difference. Living and working is difficult for younger officers here. The Pak Secrtariat is falling to pieces while CDA looks the other way. Authority is diffuse among ministries and the buck doesnt seem to stop anywhere. Each day humans wake up and set out to create order out of the perpetual chaos that surrounds them, we are supposed to start afresh each day to keep chaos from taking over. Yet it is difficult to discern order from chaos here. It is quiet, beautiful, peaceful. Still. Yet chaos prevail. In an ivory tower, the pulse of the people is hard to hear. One is surrounded by courtiers, who say little and only what their agenda allows. But common people expect us to better their lives. Can we be sure to deliver through our myopic thinking and set systems, and predictable schemes and strategies? The system of doing things needs to be changed. Im not sure if reform is a big priority of the federal government. It is direly needed if we are to move forward. We could start by making life easy for the staff and downsizing. Ministries restructuring is great and welcome. Downsizing would be a bigger, more difficult task. But how and why we do things should also make sense and be more transparent. Right now it doesnt. Some people think Im too outspoken for a government servant. But what is new in what I say? We all know about these issues but choose to look the other way. I think i need to clarify...These are my views, not necessarily my own personal experiences. Hope to provoke thoughts only.