General Syed Amjad Hussain is getting warmer by the day. He has so far nabbed a former prime minister, a couple of former chief ministers, several former federal and provincial ministers and advisors, and a few former and currently suspended MNAs, MPAs and Senators. Most of these “elected representatives” or “politicians” are reputed to be crooks. All are being investigated for corruption, misdemeanour or misrule on a princely scale. In due course, many more of their ilk will probably meet the same fate at the hands of the good general. And when they get their comeuppance, not many tears will be shed over their political demise.
But what about accountability of the bureaucracy? The Civil Service of Pakistan was once the awe-inspiring “steel frame” of the state. But it has now become a rotting “branch” of government. Manifestly in the jug are two former principal secretaries to two prime ministers (an accused and an approver), a couple of former grade-22 federal secretaries and the odd Eng.Lit. policeman thrown in for good measure. But if truth be told, and man for man, the civil bureaucracy, high or low, has become as malevolent and malignant as its political masters. Why has this happened? Why didn’t the civil servant resist corruption in the post-colonial period as he had done in the colonial era?
Power is corrupting. But absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the colonial era, the bureaucracy was answerable and accountable to an immaculate colonial master. But when the powerful civil bureaucracy inherited Pakistan in 1947, it became its own lord and master and ruled the roost during the halcyon years of “licence-raj” from 1947 to 1968, the last decade in partnership with its armed brethren. Then came the “socialist” ’70s and “Islamic” ’80s when a demagogue and a hypocrite breathed fire and venom, forcing the bureaucracy to pay obeisance. This was climaxed by the glorious ’90s when the ravenous politicians befriended the bureaucracy, stormed the citadels of power and pillaged the coffers of the state. Hence the catch-all term: “politicisation of the bureaucracy”. Why didn’t the bureaucrats resist the politicians?
Apologists claim that they had no choice, that they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t, that they went along with the politicians because they were not sufficiently anchored or institutionally safeguarded in the 1973 constitution. It is pointed out that the Government of India Act 1935 provided the civil servant with ample protection against arbitrary or illegal orders. That is why the bureaucracy could, and did, stand up to accountability in those times. Much the same was true of the 1956 constitution. But the 1973 constitution of Pakistan, unlike the earlier ones or the current constitution of India, was not terribly benevolent to the bureaucrat. In fact, as a matter of jurispolicy, it deliberately threw the civil servant at the mercy of the politician in power. There was, we are reminded, a method in Mr Bhutto’s madness: he was, after all, a budding Bonaparte (l’etat, c’est moi!) who had planned to rule for twenty years with the “help of the bureaucracy”. So the bureaucracy had to be bent or broken to do his bidding.
There is some truth in this line of argument. If the law and constitution had been more hospitable for the upright civil servant, perhaps some civil servants would have had the spine to defy immoral political authority and lived to tell the tale. And to that extent, perhaps the Chief Executive and his legal eagles can all put their heads together and make notes for the future. But such safeguards are only a necessary condition for survival on one’s feet. Their presence is not sufficient to thwart corruption just as their absence isn’t a recipe for misconduct.
Let us be candid. The bureaucrat is, after all, of the same breed as the rest of us. Like the rest of our “civil society”, and thanks to the hypocritical ideologues of our times, he too has progressively learnt to cloak immorality with piety and character with personality. It is immeasurably simpler and more rewarding to bend with the wind, to cling to the perks of power and privilege, to numb the conscience, than it is to seek refuge behind cheerless rules and regulations in the official wilderness of “special duty”.
The road-map is clear. If the constitution is to be amended to build job security for the civil servant so that he is able to resist corruption and arbitrary or discretionary power, it must also be amended to build deterrence so that he is punished if he succumbs to them. And if NAB is within its rights to nab the errant politician and inject a dose of deterrence into his successors, so too with the bureaucrat who has stooped to please such politicians. And just as it is necessary not merely to disqualify a corrupt politician from standing for public office but also to punish and dispossess him, so too is it imperative that we must disown and discard the bureaucrat who owes his loyalty to the government of the day rather than to the state.