Pakistan’s polycrisis is a self-created source of political instability that is eroding state implementation capacity, risking economic development and social progress, and challenging the state to manage crises effectively. The widening dissonance between constitutional commitments and power politics, the resulting political polarisation, disenchantment and lockdowns are at a crisis point. Festering grievances are fast eroding legitimacy that provides the essential basis of voluntary compliance, public order and national security. It begs the questions: Why are legitimate grievances becoming intractable governance and security challenges? With the spread and intensity of violence, why are political and security assessments failing to appreciate structural and governance failures as risks? Who is responsible? How can stability and security be restored?

Pakistan has been here before and unfortunately lost half the country. In an interview with Voice of America and in a The Friday Times article, Prof. Akbar S. Ahmed, recounted his stint as assistant commissioner in the former East Pakistan, and made the poignant observation: “If 90% of Bengalis were for Pakistan before the military action, after the shooting began 90% were against it… Bengalis needed balm not bullets”. He noted how delusional and detached the Pakistan leadership in the West was from events and sentiments on the ground in East Pakistan. Crucially, it should have taught us that legitimacy is a matter of doing what is right, not might. 

A genuinely representative political system mediates and aggregates society’s conflicting positions peacefully and constructively. But when governance becomes exclusionary by its narrow composition and/or criminalises anything outside of a narrow range of opinion, all other........

© The Friday Times