Pakistan: needing institutionalized insight in public policy

By Qudrat Ullah

Pakistan and India are the two estranged bed fellows destined to live in the
close proximity of each other by virtue of their geographical periphery. Both
the antagonists share a long and complicated history of conflicts, internecine
and protracted wars which further widened the historical divide. In fact, the
never ending religion based socio-political spar between Hindus and Muslims
in South Asia can be termed as the primal example of Clash of Civilization
theory. The emphatic history of Sub-Continent is but a witness to continuous
chasm between different faiths and ethnic minorities as they continually
effort to survive in an environment of insular browbeat. The great divide of
1947 did not end the historical divide but proved force multiplier with India
being the hegemonic player and Pakistan the prime victim.

Pakistan, as the history proves, is the only state after Israel which has faced
stiff résistance and cross-border terrorism by a hegemonic neighbor the size
of India. But unlike Israel which not only gets unequivocal support from the
international Jewish community, but also has a world-class spy agency like
MOSSAD which secures its security interests vis-à-vis hostile Arabs; Pakistan,
on the other hand, has miserably failed to protect its vital national security
interests because we failed in institutional building. The actual fault line in
our policy planning is the Establishment which considers policy development
as its exclusive domain-beyond the reach of any other institution.
Furthermore, Pakistan is also suffering from heroism syndrome. We worship
our temporal heroes and abate state institutions for petty gains. This has
hampered strong institution building in Pakistan while neighboring India
strengthened the provincial autonomy and made its institutions more vibrant
and proactive to keep the multi-ethnic multi-cultural society intact. Its
leaders also believe that popular democracy is the only panacea for the
ordinary people. Therefore, they sell it well- both inside and outside to gain
economic, military and political mileage against traditional enemies like
China and Pakistan.

The 62 years history shows our never-ending disregard towards

institutionalization of policy planning and rationale analyses. There is hardly
any rational decision making process in Pakistan at any level. We did not
bother to develop an institutionalized approach for understanding the
Bengali nationalism in its true perspective. And the end result was the
debacle of 1971. Post 1971 scenario was also marred with growth of rivaling
Sindhi and Mohajir jingoism, Baloch insurgency and frequent Bonapartism.
The situation gets even worse when Establishment tries to control federation
with some sporadic administrative and coercive measures, ignoring the
sentiments of the people.

On the contrary, almost all the developed nations of the world have already
setup their multimillion dollar research and policy planning institutions to
safeguard their foreign policy and economic interests in the rapidly changing
world and to provide necessary intellectual input to the political leadership
for decision making. They have given an institutionalized approach to the
statecraft. Even the USA is giving utmost importance to this aspect. The
Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State, USA was created way back
in 1947 by George Kennan at the request of then Secretary of State George
C. Marshall. It serves as a source of independent policy analyses and advice
for the Secretary of State. The Policy Planning Staff's mission is to take a
longer term, strategic view of global trends and frame necessary
recommendations for the Secretary of State to advance US interests globally.
Its mission is “to serves as an internal think tank for the Department of
State-undertaking broad analytical studies of regional and functional issues,
identifying gaps in policy, and initiating policy planning and formulation to fill
these gaps.” Recently, the Staff has also included foreign service officers,
academics from universities and think tanks, intelligence analysts, former
Congressional staffers, an emergency room physician, a retired military
officer, a business consultant, an arms control expert, and an economist.
This section also serves as an institutionalized "second opinion" on policy
matters - providing recommendations and alternative courses of action to
the Secretary of State.

Modern nations do not trust their bureaucracy for decision making or policy
planning. They have their well designed institutionalized infrastructure for
this purpose. A study in the early 2009 has found that a total of 5,465 think
tanks are working worldwide. Of that number, 1,777 are based in the United
States and approximately 350 are placed in Washington, DC alone. This
shows important role of think tanks in the policy analyses and global
planning. On the contrary, Muslim world, despite rich natural resources like
crude oil and gas, is still intellectually impoverished, struggling to cope with
the issues like terrorism, poverty, women rights and dictatorship. It has no
leadership vision to steer the Muslims to prosperity and development.
Regrettably, the Islamic world, which was a center of learning a thousand
years ago, is far behind the West in terms of technological development,
today. On the other hand, Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than
1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to have the highest ratio of
university degrees to the population in the whole world. Israel leads the
world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145
per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the US, over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in
Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions,
Israel places first in this category as well. And not last but least, Israel's $100
billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
Perhaps, the trouble lies in our ineffective system and mindset of the
fraudulent ruling clique in Muslim countries, which have failed to deliver
while the corrupt and self-servient bourgeoisie is plundering resources and
playing with the destiny of the people. Our intellectuals, writers and poets
are also unsuccessful in highlighting the real issues.

According to a media report, approximately 120 countries are developing

ways to use the Internet as a weapon and target financial markets,
government computer systems and utilities. In a post 9/11 scenario, Pakistan
is left to counter the new axis of enemies with India playing the leading role
to stage an all-out warfare against Pakistan. This great game is being fought
both psychologically as well as militarily by our foes. Axis of enemies
perceives Pakistan's ideological and geographical position as a stumbling
block against their grand chess board of political and ideological hegemony.
We should, therefore, remember that a policy of strewn reaction never wins
warfare; we will have to have the acuity of a mutual adversary to mold public
opinion for national cohesion.

It is a good omen that our forces have defeated the Taliban terrorists but
the bigger war is yet to be fought and that is the struggle of survival in an
age of economic and military rivalries. In this complex situation, Pakistan is
needed to develop think tank institutions to study primal enemy like India
and its weaknesses should be learnt for their prompt exploit in our favour.
India is already reaping the fruits of as many as 14 Pakistan study centres’
discreet research which keep on probing our domestic weaknesses and their
work helps the Indian Establishment in proper policy framework for Pakistan.
It is therefore, expedient for Pakistani Establishment to institutionalize the
policy planning and a Pakistan Institute of India Studies (PIIS) should be set
up, in the initial phase, for institutionalized planning involving all
stakeholders. However, its fate should not be like that of federally funded
Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS) at Punjab University, Lahore which is
not only working sans a regular/permanent Director for quite some time but
also has only one Ph.D. researcher- and that too from the University
hierarchy. Other Ph.D. researcher Dr. Jehangir Tamimi has since been retired
and is given two years extension on reaching the age of superannuation, for
academic work- if there is any.

Unfortunately, we have a habit to react in haste against local and global

happenings that have some relation to Pakistan and Pakistani public is
deliberately kept divided among themselves by their opinion leaders who
have no vision of their own. It is a win-win situation for everyone to twist our
arms as a state and ask us to do what is not in our interest. We should
remember that only institutionalized approach in foreign policy will counter
it.

Will we ever learn to fight back with vengeance? Only time will decide.

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