Jalaluddin Kakar
Before I encapsulate my thoughtful observations, let us silently acknowledge that we cannot reach the right destination by walking on the wrong path. This lamentation is really heartbreaking, inasmuch as the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan has never celebrated its heydays. She always came in the throes of revolving-door democracy, politically challenged economy, hybrid reign, military-backed politics, mired health sector, fragile education system, and more humiliating, religious fanaticism in the extremist Pakistani society.
A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) demoted Pakistan 11 places in the global ranking on the state of democracy and downgraded it from a “hybrid regime” to an “authoritarian regime.” As a global parameter, each country is classified as one of four types of regime: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, or authoritarian regime. A case in point is Pakistan, which has suffered the biggest regression in the Asian region, with its score falling to 3.25, triggering a downgrade from ‘hybrid regime’ to ‘authoritarian regime’ and a decline of 11 places in the global ranking. One piece of good news is that it is an “age of conflicts” and democracy all over the world is declining as over 35 years of international advances in democracy have been wiped out in the last decade. It found there are more “closed autocracies” than liberal democracies for the first time in over two decades, with the current “wave of autocratization” sweeping across all regions. It also found that 72 percent of the global population (5.7 billion people) lives in autocracies—a substantial increase from 46 percent a decade ago. Melancholy, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducts an annual survey of the health of democracy in 167 countries, assessing them across five measures. They are electoral processes and pluralism, political participation, a functioning government acting in the public interest, civil liberties, and political culture. Quintessentially, its 2022 report concluded that only 8 percent of people in the world live in a ‘full democracy’, with over a third residing in an authoritarian regime, 37 percent in a flawed democracy, and 18 percent in a hybrid democracy. To cap it all, democracy extinguishes our hope to ameliorate Pakistan’s traumatized journey of 76 years.
What I need to say expressly is that Pakistan is mired in a politically challenged economy that, instead of supporting the nation, has brought them to the IMF’s doors, where the be-all and end-all choice is only to beg for the sake of getting limited breathing space. The matter of fact is that Pakistan has no structural economic policies to boost her economy substantially, inasmuch as everyone is cognizant of this dissatisfying news that Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities have peaked at Rs 81.2 trillion, a figure that grew at a faster pace of over 27% during the past year. To put things in perspective, one can plainly argue that we must not beg for the IMF’s assistance all the time to remediate the economic downturn. This is a one-step forward, two-step back approach. In any case, an IMF program is necessary but not sufficient for the country to achieve economic recovery and embark on a path of growth. A comprehensive set of home-grown structural reforms is needed for Pakistan to escape from the vicious cycle of high budget and balance-of-payments deficits.
What is more regrettable is Pakistan’s ranking among the worst-performing countries, where it stands third after Niger and Gabon. The index points out the establishment’s outsized political influence as a critical factor. What needs to be contemplated is that Pakistan has never experienced a full democracy in the sense that no Pakistani democratic government has yet completed its democratic tenure. On cue, it is not futile to urge that all state machinery provide a level playing field for “hybrid democracy” to facilitate the beneficiaries. To dramatize it more plainly, I will expound that every Democratic Party was made to confess to the military line to come into power.
Along with optimistic interpretations, it is pertinent to point out the stagnant and annihilated health sector, which is on a death bed. Pakistan’s health indicators are hardly satisfactory. Far too many Pakistanis die preventable, early deaths, while debilitating diseases affect the quality of life and productivity of millions. What makes this situation even more disheartening is that state non-profit health institutions are mostly stagnant or working with poor standards. To look upon this through a factual spectrum, we must displease our ears that Pakistan spent 1.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the public health sector in 2020–2021 as compared to 1.1 in 2019–2020, which is a zero-sum attempt to aggrandize the health sector. It is exasperating to see a Muslim state fall short of procuring the basic fundamental rights of 220 million people. People have already been smashed by skyrocketing inflation and unemployment. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos in March, inflation and unemployment were the top public concerns.
At a time when more than 23 million children are out of school, the government spent only 1.7 percent of GDP on education during the last year, while the literacy rate was recorded at a little over 62 percent. The just-released Human Development Report 2023–24 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) places Pakistan in the low human development category. It shows Pakistan has slipped in the global human development index rankings from 161 to 164 outof 192 countries. In youth literacy, which is around 75 percent, Pakistan is second from the bottom in South Asia. One line of thinking holds that, according to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (2017–18), almost half of women in the age group 15–25 are uneducated, and 61 percent of rural women are illiterate. What complicates the matter is that Pakistan left no stone unturned in any sector to suck the blood of poor people to stave off. To cap these shortcomings, the constitution pulled no punches in Article 25A, in which: The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years. If we talk in apocalyptic terms about a state that could not even ensure its constitution, how will she ensure the fundamentals of 220 million people? Concomitantly, there is a constant tug of war between Article 25A and the de facto. Thereof, the Pakistan Economic Survey estimated that the literary rate was recorded at 62.8 percent in the country, comprising 73.4 percent males and 51.9 percent females.
To satisfy both optimists and pessimists, we bet to acknowledge that we are living in a very radicalized and extremist society where there is a one-size-fits-all approach to dictating that every individual falls under the umbrella of religious fanaticism. Contrary to that, Henry Kissinger says in his book World Order that “acceptance of reality is the denial of truth.” What needs to be addressed is that we must have flexibility of thought in order to address the root cause of religious extremism. Machiavelli emphatically airs his view that “only a vibrant society can compete in the contemporary world.”
There are many unknowns going forward. What is not in doubt is that the government must strikingly go for quick-fix solutions and structural reforms in all outdated and mouth-eaten sectors. We mustn’t extinguish the flame of hope and must wait for a better time to come.
The writer is a student of public administration at Quaid-I-Azam university, Islamabad.
