Zainab Nazir
WE are at the mercy of ‘sifarish’. Something so deleterious yet so widespread. It forces one to rattle his sanity and ask, ‘why are we injecting this poison in our society as if our lives depend on it?’ We can hide behind different psychological and cultural explanations of this social injustice and mockery of the merit system. How long will we continue to fool ourselves? We have started to resemble dumb-bells.
The consanguinity between structural problems of an administrative system and a sifarish based culture is a synergetic one. Sifarish is one aspect of malign dishonesty that has corrupted our system, and it goes back a long way. There is hardly any field or institution left out in Pakistan which is free from the sifarish by self-seeking people.
The culture of sifarish is discriminatory and unscrupulous in a democracy and is everywhere by definition iniquitous. It has hampered the process of progress and development in Pakistan. Whenever the evil of sifarish is discussed, the administrative system rightly or wrongly, becomes the focus of attention; not necessarily due to its rampancy but because of the common belief that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
It is surprising that people who consider themselves righteous and above any monetary temptations think that there is nothing inapt about exercising sifarish for appointments, admissions, transfers, postings and jobs. It has undoubtedly become a part of our psyche. The cancer of sifarish has become an accepted social norm. This culture has been living deep in our roots and routing in the veins of all levels of private and public institutions.
The more social connections people have, the more attention and respect they receive for a sifarish. By promoting sifarish over calibre and putting square pegs in round holes, we have promoted mediocrity and ineptitude and this is the main reason for our moral and intellectual decline. Today, our youth has accepted the fact that no matter how qualified they are, they cannot get a job without sifarish.
The poor and sick have accepted the fact that they cannot get a satisfactory treatment without sifarish. The children of the middle-class people have digested the fact that they cannot get admission in the top institutions without sifarish. Unfortunately, sifarish is omnipresent in our police department as well. This state of affairs is very alarming and does not offer anything good for the stability of our nation.
It is quite visible that the people in authority are flagrantly indulging in favouritism, nepotism and promoting the culture of sifarish, least caring about merit. Despite speaking the same language about merit as the only yardstick to measure the excellence of candidates for state service, the system of sifarish goes on in our government and society. Fortunately, in Pakistan, CSS is still one of those few paths which provides equal opportunities to all, allows people to compete on merit and climb the ladder of social cachet. But, the aspiring youth is sometimes afraid to take the exam because there is no guarantee that they will not be politically and socially victimized even after acing the exam on merit. In today’s world, honesty has become a rare attribute and integrity is almost de trop.
Sifarish or nepotism is a parasite which feeds on the family system. In order to eliminate this culture of stealing food from others, we would have to put an end to the family unit. This would be impossible for any country especially Pakistan which prides on its strong family ties and values. The benefits of a family system clearly outweigh the disadvantages no matter how hard a pill it sometimes becomes to swallow. By default, anyone in a power position would look for ways to accommodate his or her family member or friend. As we grow and experience life, without realising our mindset and ideology gets taken over by biases and favouritism. We become inclined towards the people related to us.
We can not defeat human nature, we can not defy nepotism or sifarish which has become an innate part of us, and no matter how hard we try to introduce a system of merit, there will always be that guy who would appear with a whiff of smoke and take the position you thought you deserved so greatly.
—The writer is an English Literature and Linguistics graduate based in Islamabad.
