Pakistan will not change until there is a comprehensive overhaul of the machinery that runs its system. In Pakistan’s system, that machinery is the bureaucratic layer that sits between the people and the houses of power. It functions on a shared sense of camaraderie and works only when it suits its members. It is a cringe-inducing element of our state that is stale, slow, and stubborn. Its attitude is colonial, and its output is negligible. Its only job seems to be moving files between various government departments. There is no mechanism to hold its members accountable for the crimes they often commit. They fear no one except the stronger institutions, which are also part of the same bureaucratic monolith, sitting on the sidelines while watching people and politicians curse each other for doing nothing.
Every government department we have suffers from a certain degree of dysfunction. Just visit the Pakistan Secretariat in the Red Zone in Islamabad someday. You will find a sea of people: officers, non-officers, Class IV employees, visitors, and every other category. You will start wondering how so many people can possibly be doing so many things. Then you will look at the state of development in the country and realise that these people are not there to do much of anything. They came looking for a “permanent job,” or a “sarkari nokri.” They found one in whatever capacity they were willing to accept. Knowing that they could not easily be removed from their offices because they were “permanent,” they settled into a life of ease. They relaxed and, slowly, became rigid.
If you go to any government office in the country and present them with a problem, the first instinctive response you will receive is that your problem cannot be solved. Hopeless, you will search for a contact in a higher office or, if you are smart, offer a little more bakshish. Then you will see your file start moving. In order to keep it moving, you will have to continue lubricating the bureaucratic cogs with bakshish until the job is done. This is, in fact, a very basic description of the system we have.
They want to retain those libraries of registers because that is what sustains their jobs and gives them the power to extract money from ordinary people.
Every time I enter a government office, I get a sense of regressing back in time. I observe a certain disorder. I see offices full of files, broken equipment, leaking roofs, spelling mistakes, smelly corridors, extremely unsanitary restrooms, no accessibility for persons with disabilities, rude manners, tired people, and no eagerness to work. You can often guess that they are government babus simply by looking at their attire. They will often be wearing traditional shalwar kameez with waistcoats. If you barge into one of their offices and ask for something, most often you will receive the reply that “the concerned person has left” or “come on Monday.” You will see visible irritation on their faces if you ask them to do something. These are the people who do not want modern project-management software to be installed because it would make the system more transparent. They want to retain those libraries of registers because that is what sustains their jobs and gives them the power to extract money from ordinary people.
These are the lower-ranked officers. When it comes to those in BPS-17 or above, they are no different. They make sure that they also get a piece of the pie because they cannot change the cancer that eats away at institutions from below or above. They, too, came in search of a “permanent job.” That was the objective function that drove them to pursue government employment. Why would they give it up for another similar officer who is indulging in corruption? They will not. Either they will sit on the fence or, someday, give up and dive in to take part in the loot.
These government officers have broken the strength of this country. Their conversations revolve around promotions, pay raises, bonuses, foreign trips, and petty office politics. These are the driving factors behind their actions. Over a long period of time, they become dead from the inside because they also know that what they are doing is wrong. So they become sadistic in their demeanour. You cannot help them. Nobody can.
PIMS incident is a natural consequence of a system that rewards “government jobs” with unlimited wealth and access to capital for essentially doing nothing but pushing files around. It is a system designed to establish an “us versus them” divide between ordinary people and the ruling elite. It will remain this way until the legal regime governing it is reformed. Such tragedies have happened in the past, and no action was taken by anybody. If the past is any guide, no action will happen again until we encounter another tragedy and have another topic to talk about.