WHEN Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi recently declared that Pakistan’s existing system had failed and could no longer solve country’s problems, his remarks predictably ignited a national debate. Some welcomed the statement as a rare acknowledgement of reality, others treated it as an indictment of the government. Current beneficiaries rushed to defend the system, while former beneficiaries, now excluded from power, applauded its condemnation. Amid all this noise, one voice remained conspicuously absent: that of the ordinary Pakistani, who bears heaviest cost of the system’s failure but has little influence over its future.
The controversy soon faded, but the underlying reality remains. Pakistan’s political, administrative and social order is severely paralysed, though not for everyone. For those with money, connections and influence, the system remains remarkably responsive. Doors open, stalled files begin to move, laws are activated and decisions arrive with surprising speed. Its paralysis becomes visible only when it confronts a citizen without political patronage, financial power or access to right telephone number. The real question, therefore, is not whether the system works, but whom it works for.
The roots of this dysfunction are evident in Pakistan’s political culture. Most parties speak endlessly of democracy but remain unwilling to practice it internally. Party elections are often ceremonial, leadership revolves around families and personalities, and disagreement is treated as rebellion rather than an opportunity for correction. Parties that cannot tolerate democracy within their own ranks cannot establish it nationally. The pursuit of power has likewise become detached from public trust, performance and policy. Political actors seek backroom support, destabilise governments and prosecute rivals. The party in office calls the arrangement democracy; once removed, it denounces same arrangement as authoritarianism and injustice.
The justice system reflects this inequality. Cases remain unresolved for years, sometimes decades. For an ordinary citizen, justice is expensive, exhausting and needlessly complicated. Court dates accumulate, but judgments do not arrive. A poor person accused of a minor offence may spend years behind bars, while a powerful defendant can exploit influence, elite legal assistance and every procedural opening available. Justice that is neither timely nor equally accessible eventually ceases to be justice; it survives merely as a constitutional promise, solemnly repeated but selectively fulfilled.
Education and healthcare expose another face of this unequal order. Pakistan’s education system does not bridge class divisions; it reproduces them. Expensive private institutions provide access to opportunity, while public schools struggle with inadequate teachers, resources and facilities. Too many children remain outside school, and countless others receive an education that fails to prepare them for dignified employment. Public hospitals similarly face overcrowding, medicine shortages and insufficient staff, while quality private treatment is increasingly unaffordable. A single serious illness can consume a family’s lifetime savings. A state cannot credibly call itself welfare-oriented when education and healthcare are privileges to be purchased rather than rights to be guaranteed.
The police, bureaucracy and economy follow the same logic. Citizens often need a recommendation, a bribe or repeated visits merely to obtain something to which they are legally entitled. Local governments are denied continuity, authority and adequate resources, even though water, sanitation, transport and neighbourhood development are best addressed locally. Power remains concentrated because decentralising responsibility would also mean decentralising money and influence. Meanwhile, salaried workers and ordinary consumers carry a disproportionate tax burden, while powerful sectors benefit from exemptions and weak enforcement. Every government announces reform, but reform usually means higher utility bills, more expensive fuel and additional taxes for the public. Sacrifice is demanded from the many; protection is reserved for the few.
Alongside this political and administrative decline lies an equally troubling intellectual and social deterioration. The spectacle created in the name of religion deserves serious attention. Religion, which should cultivate knowledge, justice, compassion and human dignity, is too often converted into theatre, commerce, political leverage and a weapon of group identity. Those who ask questions or challenge unreliable claims risk being branded hostile to faith, while invented traditions and reckless assertions are accepted without scrutiny. Social media rewards those who exploit religious sensitivities to generate outrage and deepen division. Sponsoring ignorance in the name of faith is not a service to religion; it is an assault on its moral and intellectual spirit.
None of these problems will be solved by creating a few new administrative units, reshuffling ministries or waiting for another messiah, another self-proclaimed “wonder boy.” Pakistan has already experienced experiments conducted under grand labels: “Islamic rule,” “enlightened moderation,” revolutionary change, and the promise that “change is not coming; change has already arrived.” Each time, the public was offered a new slogan, a new personality and fresh assurances. Yet the distribution of power, the method of decision-making and the structure of governance remained largely untouched. Until institutions answer to the law rather than personalities, rulers accept accountability instead of defending privilege, and politics becomes an instrument of public service rather than a struggle for power, every few years will bring another slogan, another experiment and another “wonder boy”, while the ordinary Pakistani remains unheard, unrepresented and unchanged.
—The writer is Barrister, based in Canada.
