AS the debate on changing provincial boundaries and decentralisation rages on, it is worth taking a step back to see what is at stake here. What are the main problems that require attention and which have made several people, including entrenched insiders, declare that the current system is ‘broken’?

The biggest issue being sidestepped by everyone involved (except opposition parties) remains constitutional rule and legitimacy of the state. The current discourse chooses to ignore this, considering it either taboo or a foregone conclusion. Bringing it up seems particularly futile in this discussion given how little it bears on those making decisions and increasingly with those tasked with interrogating these decisions.

The second issue is macroeconomic growth, or the absence thereof. What changes are needed to the form of the state that can help kickstart broad-based and sustained capital accumulation? What needs to be done to make the state fiscally more viable?

The third issue is social development, and the slowdown in improvement of basic education, health, and other human capability-related indicators. What strategy or approach will help break through the current plateau, marked by a slowdown in literacy rate improvement, a persistently large number of out-of-school children, poor learning outcomes, and no considerable progress on health indicators?

When the interior minister talks about a system collapse, the primary subject of this collapse is the state. The Pakistani state, like every........

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