Viceregal

The Athenians govern the Greeks, I govern the Athenians; you my wife govern me; your son governs you, said Themistocles.

Who governs Pakistan, is an enigma. Ours is an intrigue ridden democracy. It withers with the whims and when phoenix-like, it re-emerges, it has to wag-tail for its existence, which ironically, remains very transient. In a span of fifty years, Pakistan has had the unique experience of playing hide-and-seek political game, alternating between despotic rules and surface democracy devoid of substance.

Stanley Kochanek observed: Despite almost a half-century of independence, Pakistans political system remains inadequately institutionalized and highly personalized. He further comments: The country has alternated between long periods of military rule and unstable civilian governments controlled by a small elite of landed and tribal families, while the rural peasantry continues to be dominated by powerful feudal families, the urban middles class and working class remain small, weak, poorly organized and subordinated to an autocratic, centralized state .. the Pakistan political system is confronted by direct action, endemic violence and powerful primordial loyalties that have to dominate all policy disputes. The profile presented is not palatable, but it can not be white- washed through platitudes or ignored through ostrich-like mentality. Acceptance is the basic pre-requisite for a detached perception of the dialectical forces that throttle our political culture to be able to initiate structural transformations that promise hope and opportunity.

The propensity to kill democracy takes in its toll all systems of governance - parliamentary or presidential. Nothing seems to work. But why? Bad governance. This is it. How to overcome this pernicious legacy is the basic dilemma that we encounter. Without acculturation into a national life-style that puts premium on consensus-seeking, respect and tolerance for others ideas and beliefs, and attitudinal commitment to off-loading of mistrust, and prejudices there can not be a sound edifice of governance. It is hard to define, as it is a value-loaded concept. A subjective orientation determines as to what constitutes good governance. But the basic ingredients which may serve as the common denominators of the concept, have been spelt out by the Institute of

Governance, Ottawa: Governance comprises the institutions, processes and conventions in a society which determine how power is exercised, how important decisions affecting society are made and how various interests are accorded a place in such decision.

The concept of good governance does not presuppose any fixed system but only a meta-theoretical orientation, which determines its operationalization into any concrete pattern. A concept which presupposes homogenization or total conformity is anti-thetical to the creative and innovative spirit of mankind. Cultural imperatives must find expression to enrich global order.

Good governance is thus an attitudinal construct to ensure that power is not monopolised to reflect a typical viceregal style, where command and control is overly centralized, and decision-making and dispensating of state resources in the prerogatives of one or a few individuals, with serpent-like-mentality to sit tight on the power-treasure.

It is this syndrome, which differentiates a good from bad governance. In essence, the three cardinal principles of participation, accountability and transparency are contained in the same order, in the famous depiction of democracy, by its very ardent champion - Abraham Lincoln: Government by the people, of the people, for the people.

There can not be taxation without participation, is the crowning value of a democratic governance. To the extent nations adhere to this commitment, and decision-making trickles down to the grassroots, determines the elegance and maturity of a political culture. Distaste for concentration of power in some individuals or even one person, and its attendant cult, of ancentoral legacy in politics, is the distinctive feature of a democracy where there is a dove-tailing of structure and the inner dynamics. The structure comprises the formal institutions for power-sharing and crystallising decisions as well as for integrating all communities, irrespective of the diverse ethnic and linguistic identities they may possess. Dynamics refers to the attitudinal force of conviction and faith, and an intrinsic commitment to the system of governance, which ensures social justice and equity.

The South Asian brand democracy, in varying degrees, reflects an apparel- democracy model, where sheer democratic structure is worn by the society, but its inner core remains devoid of the spirit which is the prime-mover and its quintessential element. Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi rose to the apex of power in India to be the Prime Ministers, due to the charisma that the Nehru family enjoyed. Similar was the case with Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Haseena Wajid in Bangladesh and Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka, who rose to power, primarily on sympathy votes, for brutal elimination of father/mother/husband through assassination or hanging through courts verdict. The common feature is a cultural trait, where the progenies or spouses tend to perpetuate the personality cult. It is not to convey that they are invariably devoid of any interistic merit, but this is not the major determinant of their popularity which catapults them into power

The Rabri phenomenon - Mrs. Yadev coronation as the Chief Minister of the Bihar Province in India, is an ironic reflection of the fact that mere conjugal tie may qualify one to assume political power. Her supporters cite a parallel that if Sonia Gandhi, wife of Rajiv Gandhi could be a presidential candidate of the mighty Indian Congress, on no different credentials, what was wrong with Mrs. Yadev, for after all, she too has acquired lot of political acumen just being in company of her husband for very long. Tragically enough in Pakistan, the filial ties, even with the dictators promote power-seeking ambitions. These indeed are reverberations of the traditional strains that plague the South Asian political culture.

The dynastic leadership, the residual syndrome of hereditary rule, has always stood against effective governance. A story goes that a Duke of one of the states in China (In 535 BC, when Confucius was sixteen years old) tried to remedy the situation, by removing his noble relatives from their hereditary positions of public offices, and installing qualified men from other states to perform their functions. This was taken as a great crime against the established custom and privilege, and the relatives banded together and assassinated the Duke. So overpowering was the hereditary control over governance that even Confucius refrained from outrightly condemning it. He only persuaded such rulers that they should reign but not rule. Moral uprightness of the Ministers, to think and act as per dictates of conscience, was considered a basic predispositional trait. He is reported to have once told the Duke of Lu that if a rulers policies are bad, and yet none of those about him oppose them, such spinelessness is enough to ruin a state. We have had such sycophants in abundance, who gravitate around dictators and bureaucrats as well as the elected breed, with a predilection for a typical feudalistic abhorrence for any dissent. The responses to deal with such conscientious objectors may range from total elimination, dismissal, suspension or placement as officer on special duty (OSD) a category just allowed to survive in hybernation.

Accountability, a trumpeted virtue of good governance, is only capriciously applied in our context, as a tool merely to bring the recalcitrant and opposition members in line with the ruling coterie. Unless the public officials, elected or appointed are answerable for their conduct to their institutional watch-dogs and the country at large, accountability, loses its credence and candour. With a crisis of credibility, any accountability is only a mirage. Transparency lends

resilience and robustness to institutionalize patterns of decision-making. Openness to public scrutiny does not conflict with the imperative of security to safeguard the interest of the state, provided it is not a ruse or a cover to camouflage the shady and

machiavellian high-handedness to accentuate power, for fulfillment of personal greed and rapacity. State security is often a blanket terms to mean regime security. A transparent discussion, as to what constitutes out-of-bound information, ensures fool-proof maintenance of national security requirements. Without availability of a free-flow of information, a nations mind could never be tuned towards creative adjustment and actualization of the potentials of individuals. Blocking of information creates a national blind-alley which obscures vision and sense of purpose.

In the machinery of good governance, justice is the lubricant. Atomised people have the inherent power to mobilize themselves against the dictates of the state. Vaclov Havel in his brilliant essay, The Power of the Powerless, emphasised that disillusionment was constant in East European societies and that at the lowest prepolitical levels, opposition, in its broadest sense occurred on a daily basis. It was manifest in the private lives of individuals long before it emerged on the visible surface of society. Paradoxically thus the measures which are essentially meant to restrict and control behaviour patterns of individuals, are in a way facilitative as it encourages taking of practical measures to circumvent the state- control operations.

There are always two options, the ruling elites may take. Either to rid the society of independent organizations through force and repression, or to dilute their own power by accommodating autonomous groups. The latter is the right course. Mere formulating stiff or draconian laws do not bring peace in the society. Let us remember what Isocrates said: where there a number of laws drawn with great exactitude, it is a proof that the city is badly administered; for the inbahitants are compelled to frame laws in great numbers as a barrier against offenses.