Imploding accountability
May 7, 2021
A strange breeze is blowing across the landscape, signalling the advent of a phase which may have no precedence in the pages of history.
More and more constituents of the beneficiary elite are securing unimpeachable relief from the process of accountability. While there are new faces joining the select bands, let us not forget that members of the bureaucracy were the original claimants of the unique status. They have since been not only the masters of their own fate, but also that of their serfs and slaves – the people of Pakistan.
A report on the bureaucracy, titled ‘Cash poor, perk rich’, recently published by PIDE, contends that “Pakistan’s administrative machinery, particularly its bureaucracy, is profoundly influenced by its colonial legacy”. The ruling British Raj had created a highly authoritative and exceedingly centralised bureaucratic institution to rule the empire. Since Independence, this institution has continued to hinder an effective functioning of the state. So profound has been its hold that as many as 29 commissions and/or committees formed to chalk out a roadmap for civil service reforms have not been able to even dent the monster we call bureaucracy. Not only has it remained completely immune to these efforts, but its functionaries have also discovered dastardly means, methods and mechanisms to stretch this colonial mindset to unsurpassed limits which were never achieved even in the times of the Raj. Instead of being servants of the state as per the Quaid’s advice, they sold their souls to the powerful and criminal political mafias to secure a foothold in the alleys of power and profit.