Invisible deep states live on a well thought narrative. By nature a national security state, they cannot afford to allow free enquiry and debate. For that state, the nation state is like a proverbial cantonment; where everything should be regulated. As things stand in Pakistan; today, the ground realities are not different either. Pakistan as it is now has been the natural outcome of the running of affairs like that, which is ill affordable if the polity, economy, and the society, has to move forward in any true sense of the word.
Societies which tend to be forward looking, need to have a stable polity, allow uninterrupted development of intellectual space for the citizens, and consequently an economic system which is geared to encourage economic dividends for the same. In a few words, for a developing nation; a steady and stable growth of a knowledge-based economy and society is the first prerequisite for changing its status from developing to developed nation state. Nation states like India and to an increasing degree Bangladesh vouch for that strategy.
A generation scared of intellectual questioning and programmed to say ‘yes’ might be good for a staged electoral process; but not for a much-needed growth of the knowledge-based economy. The civil structures, whatever left, have the responsibilities, even like study circles or reading forums, to stir enquiry. Today discourse might not stimulate a political reader as it is not needed, but has the required food for thought for the academics that they might be the critical signpost for taking the polity, economy and society back to the desired track or even out-of-the-box paths for ‘change’. Nation states like Pakistan with a type of cultural diversity and content; do not deserve the ‘Silence of the lambs’.
To begin with, in Pakistan, it is not uncommon to find people who lament that South Korea prospered on the economic models copied from veteran economist Dr Mahbub ul Haque, who was the brain behind the second five-year plan of 1960-1965. They tend to forget that the Korean state, despite being a theatre for the free world conflict with Communist world for almost four decades, has been able to create infrastructures which promoted human development. It was no coincidence that if on one hand the Korean economy threw up brand names like Samsung and Daewoo, it also boasted to have the strongest collective bargaining union infrastructure. Likewise, the student movement in place in Korea was potent enough to make its presence felt on the political landscape.
In Pakistan, the so-called prescription of economic development crash-landed in the Third Plan period, when the lack of collective bargaining infrastructure gave way to the exploitation of workers’ grievances by politically opportunistic groups for their own ends. The ensuing agitation held back many growth goals. Not to forget the fact that the fall out of a false narrative of the deep state that it can ‘do all’, landed the country in an unwarranted war in September 1965. The war upset all the economic planning, which was a prerequisite for the same second-plan period’s growth rates. The war, stagflation, political agitation and centrifugal currents, all punctuated with the stubbornness of the deep state based on its narrative; precipitated more misfortune.
The dismemberment of the Eastern wing, followed by near bankruptcy of the deep state forced it to hand over affairs to the late ZAB. The leftwing party has never imagined being handed over power in such circumstances. The PPP government had to devalue the Rupee to the tune of 131 percent in one day, sliding from Rs 4.75 per US Dollar to Rs 10 in the matter of a few hours.
The prime reason behind all these developments were the narratives the deep state advocated to make its ends meet. That narrative had its roots in the premise that people are the human fodder provider for the industry, which was compliant to the established order, agricultural elite that ensured food security, and a standing army to protect that system; or accidentally protecting the geographical boundaries. It is a fact that each time the boundaries were not attacked first; rather it was the other way round.
There was no vision, which ensured skill development for the urban or rural young men to innovate; but they became the human resource for supply chains, sale points and auxiliary services. Such tasks only needed a nominal education, with not much of the reading habit required for enrichment. Any higher education initiatives taken by that state were the elite business schools, churning out Post-Office-like CEOs, whose only task was to implement the global MNC agenda, down to the advertising logo/slogan or caption or copy (advertising content) for the target audience.
The crisis of 1971 in fact was the watershed moment for the alert minds when a narrative-based society was best discarded for a more knowledge-based one. However, history suggests otherwise. Pakistan only jumped from cold war mode to Jihad mode in the 1980s. Apparently, it left CENTO when it was dead after the February 1979 events in Iran. However, it was recruited again in the same franchise under the tag of Afghan Jihad. Later the same infrastructure was used to dismantle the Jihadist set up under the banner of war on terror.
Many readers might argue that it was only the sideshow of a government. It was not. The deep state through its actions demonstrated where the priorities for the economy, polity and society still lay. It was not the priority to brace up for an economy of tomorrow, which is invariably going to be knowledge-based. Rather, what was accrued as a way of life for Pakistan, being a perpetual battlefield for others’ wars was enforced. The false bonus propagated for the general public consumption was that “being a part of the free world wars brings economic benefits (read assistance)”. For obvious reasons, it was for the knowledge seeking middle-income groups, who thought and felt that with no encouragement from the state, it was better to fend for themselves.
Here another query can be raised. That geopolitical dividends trends were enforced by extra-constitutional forces. These could have been done away with by the democratic forces. The fact has been that the democratic forces periods were in fact ‘democratic interludes’ whose priority was to co-exist with the establishment. What has been perfected in the aftermath of the 2018 political engineering has been to make that arrangement more professionally.
If that priority deviation was not enough; on top of that, unlike India, where the economic strategy took the front seat, in Pakistan, conflict mongering took the driving seat. While in November 1994, Indians were enthusiastic to sign the Uruguay Round for the formal launch of WTO; the Pakistani Ministry of Commerce was no more than a sleeping signatory. The following years did not witness any conscious planning to make the most of the opportunities.
That approach however, needed a sort of fractured public approval through an engineered electoral process. The 2018 elections and the formal launch of ‘hybrid-ism’ ushered in a period where the formation of the fifth-generation narrative was deemed more important than making the economy competitive for the post-WTO trade order. The younger generation was groomed to be the foot soldiers of the national security state, but not professionals; whose place in the international knowledge-based economy is assured; benefiting him or her and also the economy in the long run.
The controlling of minds through fifth-generation media management works well, but is not a recipe for growth, unfortunately. The recent events; where the space has been lost by the civil society and polity, does not bode well in the long run. Today; there might be some noises fading away in the ‘setting darkness’, but the way forward is not promising.
A generation scared of intellectual questioning and programmed to say ‘yes’ might be good for a staged electoral process; but not for a much-needed growth of the knowledge-based economy. The civil structures, whatever left, have the responsibilities, even like study circles or reading forums, to stir enquiry. Today discourse might not stimulate a political reader as it is not needed, but has the required food for thought for the academics that they might be the critical signpost for taking the polity, economy and society back to the desired track or even out-of-the-box paths for ‘change’. Nation states like Pakistan with a type of cultural diversity and content; do not deserve the ‘Silence of the lambs’.
