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We have two wars on two borders, a crippling petrol price hike, enhanced electricity charges, fresh solar burden on consumers, and repeated warnings that things will get worse before they get better. If they ever do.
And meantime, what is government doing to share the people’s burden?
It’s a good question, but a silly one. The government(s) are, among other things, buying private jets, luxurious SUVs, and a fleet of cars for elected and non-elected officials. They are also doing zip, zilch, and zero to even pretend to apply hard measures on themselves. The government’s tone-deaf approach to our citizens’ plight is – to put it mildly – callous to the extreme. Pakistanis are angry, cynical and disillusioned. They have a right to be.
The current context is obvious. A 55-rupee increase in petrol price per litre announced Friday night will burn a massive hole in people’s monthly budgets. It will fuel inflation and will have a devastating impact on the lives of the most economically vulnerable segments of our society. The federal government trooped out its ministers to explain to a wary public that they had no choice but to go this route; that the oil supply disruption in the Gulf war had elevated price per barrel beyond 90 dollars; and that the government would scale back petrol price as soon as international rates came down.
This explanation is, from the official point of view, expected to placate public opinion. It is also expected to absolve the government of responsibility for the petrol price bomb. It does neither.
It is not hard to figure out why. Beyond the mathematics of fuel charges, adjustments and levies; beyond the timing of oil imports, tanker dockings and prevalent rates; and beyond the acrimonious debate about energy policies, short-term planning and incompetence of bureaucrats – beyond all this lies the core of the problem: the government’s inability to signal through its words and actions that in times of peril, it will sink and swim with the people.
Will belt-tightening by the government lead to lower petrol prices? No, it won’t. Will it reduce our import bill by a significant margin? Perhaps not so. Will it fix structural problems plaguing our energy sector? Highly unlikely. What it would do, were it to be implemented – far more important than all these things – is to generate a spirit of resilience among the rest of us; it would reduce the yawning trust deficit between the governed and their governors; and it would, most crucially, show the people that the government, believe it or not, actually cares.
But does it? Can it?
Never a better moment than now to prove that it does. Or at least, tries to. All it takes is an order from the chief executive(s) announcing drastic austerity measures on use of petrol, vehicles, and travel for all officials employed by the state, federal and provincial governments. And yes, this applies especially to the bloated and pampered bureaucracy of Punjab that has recently been gifted perks and privileges far beyond their contribution to the welfare of the people of their province.
Austerity is a much-maligned word in the Pakistani context. And for good reason. Repeated governments have made a mockery of it by announcing, at various periods in the last few decades, measures like no tea or use of air-conditioners in official places of work. Such silliness has worked neither for optics nor for any genuine saving of the national exchequer. What it has done instead is to prove for the umpteenth time that people in power in our country can never ever genuinely take steps that lead to curtailing the wastage of taxpayer money. Despite claims to the contrary, today is no different.
It is no different because there’s something deeply rotten in the state of Pakistani officialdom; something that breeds an inherent sense of entitlement that becomes second nature to those who hold offices and wield power over those outside the system. There is a reason why we are unable to reform the bureaucracy, or the police, or the judiciary or other arms of the state that continue to grow fat on taxpayers’ expense. It is this very reason – a deeply embedded institutional culture of entitlement – that can never be eliminated or curtailed because decision-makers are themselves its beneficiaries. Superficial as this may sound, there is hardly a deep intellectual explanation for a phenomenon that can, theoretically, be hacheted away by a few official orders.
Pakistani citizens’ deepening disillusionment with their governments will never go away in the presence of this culture of entitlement. Such ostentation is the most visible manifestation of a governance matrix that today rightfully belongs in the history books, not in the Red Zone. In times of crises like now, we are reminded yet again that when Pakistanis need their governments to be at their most responsive, they are found the most wanting.
We are living in an era of hard power politics and deepening conflicts. Here in Pakistan, we face threats and dangers on three borders. Inside our borders, terrorism continues to spill precious blood. A state of perpetual uncertainty may have already become the new normal. In order to operate successfully in this new normal, we are told, Pakistan must become a hard state. Perhaps we have already become so. All the more reason therefore that a hard state must aim to produce and provide soft governance. A hard state should be hard for adversaries, not for its own citizens. In these tough times, a hard state delivering soft governance is the recipe that may address adversaries’ threats and citizens’ aspirations in equal measure and proportionate balance.
But an officialdom that fattens itself on perks and privileges; that guards its petty institutional fiefdoms more jealously than it does the rights of people; and that abhors sharing the burden of its own failures while forcing it upon the citizenry – such an officialdom has neither the ability, nor the capacity, nor the desire to acquire the art of soft governance.
We shall all be reminded of this harsh reality every time we pay the extra 55 rupees per litre at the petrol station.
