Where are we heading?

Business Recorder

16-07-2025

We are still almost four weeks away when on 14th August, we would, God willing, celebrate our 78th Independence Day. Yet, my mind is beset with anxiety filled thoughts of what have we done with our hard fought gains of Independence. What were the promises then?
What were the expectations? Have those been delivered upon? The achievements of 1947; have those been converted into valuable elements of strengthening of the nation or have those been squandered?
Every citizen of this country must resort to some introspection, regardless of their profession or social status, to evaluate, if as 'individual entities' we have delivered our part of the contribution to fortify our independent status. With certitude, each of us has failed — many to a very low level of negligence and some significantly because of position held and authority wield.
In July 1948 or thereabouts, our Quaid, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, gave an interview to the then highly prestigious magazine, 'LIFE' of the USA. I have a copy of that issue and often I go back to reading and re-reading the views expressed by him — the challenges that he mentions faces the nascent and newly independent Pakistan are worth focusing on — we have with or without, either by intention or otherwise, knowledge or ignorance carried forward those challenges, from one year to the next. The challenges not only remain but have acquired a Himalayan status. Why?
Pakistan was extremely unfortunate to have lost its founding fathers in less than seven years from Independence — starting with Jinnah, who succumbed to Tuberculosis (an ailment, that was a best kept secret); followed by Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, who was sent upstairs with bullet holes in his physical self, pumped into him by an assassin, who worked for whom is a mystery unsolved. God alone knows — he was eliminated on the spot.
Other leaders of stature and acceptance too departed in quick succession. Indians were lucky, although they too lost Gandhi in the same year, again to an assassin with links to RSS (party of the current PM Narendra Modi, who is rightfully awarded the epithet 'Butcher of Gujarat'). Nehru led for seventeen long and eventful years on a continued basis with no break; only death took him away in 1964. With political stability, Nehru strengthened the pillars of the State institutions.
In contrast, we were faced with political intrigues and machinations of diabolical nature for the entire decade of the 1950s. Political experimenting about what type of dispensation suited us resulted in alienating the Bengali population. This led ultimately to the separation of the Eastern Wing and creation of Bangladesh. In a historical first, the majority seceded from a union.
Since the seventies, we had two long interregnum of disguised democracy or disguised martial law (readers' choice to decide between the two). Democracy prevails, however lame and toothless or however steady and strong it appears.
Leadership has more to answer than an ordinary follower to the caption of this piece, where are we heading? The purpose of this interrogative title is not to indulge in liberal and wholesale lamentation about the past but of a desire to identify the pathways that are open to us as a country to traverse and catch up with the developed world.
The setup in Islamabad is focused upon fixing the economy, which has been hit worst in the last 25- 30 years by neglect and political instability; coupled with lack of clarity and consistency in the economic design and architecture that required pursuit. This focus is essential, without doubt. In doing so, the leadership must clarify to itself and to the several economic constituents of what are the primary concerns and what areas would receive attention, focus and support.
Since we have to be a ' nation in rush' to catch up on lost time, it is best to create working groups with full authority to frame and implement strategies through well designed policies. No fresh hiring must be done; instead talent must be identified and picked up from available pool of human resources. This would help and enable a speedy response to the multi- faceted challenges besetting us.
In the creation of these groups, extra care with ruthless honesty in place is a prerequisite, so that nobody gets to be member or chairperson of any group based on nepotism, that arises out of misplaced sense of loyalties to individuals or to the political parties—the best minds should be chosen. Let's for a change and forever abandon the policy of placing square pegs in round holes.
Empowerment must come to the competent and to those who have in them a heightened sense of judicious utilisation of authority conferred. Can someone in our setup behave like Abraham Lincoln; consequent to winning the presidential elections, he started to hire and induct into his cabinet his arch-political foes, some of whom had lost the election to him. When asked what was he (Lincoln) up to? He coolly replied, 'I need the best brains to advise me in running our country and these people who contested against me are competent'. He never feared his opponents and foes.
In this vein, it was such a breath of fresh air when prime minister Shehbaz Sharif appointed young Bilawal Bhutto to lead Pakistan's delegation to various important capitals to explain our stance and to get their buy-in to our principled stand in relation to the Pahalgam incident. Political adversaries are not personal enemies. We are learning. In politics and in life too, generally speaking, there should be no room for permanent enemies.
The result of this venture of trust has been remarkably favourable. Pakistan's narrative was accepted, India's wasn't. Shashi Tharoor failed to impress the leadership in those capitals. Let's therefore do more of collaborative efforts regardless of party's affiliations in the building of this nation.
There are several areas demanding the need of 'immediate fix' but of most critical importance is our approach to trade, its growth and finance.
The need is to reengineer with faith that the economy has to be driven by growth in exports. We must earn foreign exchange (not borrow) to build and shore up, our foreign exchange reserves. Most countries of Northeast Asia and South East Asia have followed the Chinese example of export-led growth — Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore are a few to name.
We must learn to negotiate well with friendly countries, induce them to invest and not dole out dollars. China is a formidable friend; why cannot we ask them to come and make one of our SEZs to work. They are almost idle and dead. We must revive them. SEZ framework must be chiseled in stone, not to be rewritten by every incoming government.
I have no exalted view of a compliant bureaucracy. They must display their spine. 'It is an inevitable defect, that bureaucrats will care more for routine than results' (Walter Bagehot). The words of Lord Reid shouldn't be our gain: 'By the time the civil service has finished drafting a document to give effect to a point of principle there may be little of the principle.' Let no horse be designed to look like a camel. Enough of this. There is an impelling need to abandon passionate intensity for the worst actions and instead place the best in our convictions to do the right and to do it well.
Only in unity of purpose and action lies our success.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025