Articles' Diary

  Faultlines in Pakistan's political culture Pakistan's political system has never, not even momentarily, seen a smooth evolution. Pakistan has had ongoing political crises since its inception on the world map, which was then followed by economic, judicial, and constitutional problems. The political culture of Pakistan has certain fault lines that lead to political crises, and unless these fault lines are acknowledged, discussed, and rectified, the political system cannot be altered. Major fault lines in Pakistani political culture include the lack of ideological politics in the country, the lack of internal democracy in the so-called political parties, the legacy of dynasties, the lack of national political parties and a divided house, the practice of revenge politics, polarized politics with populist political leaders and the practice of US vs. THEM, the blame game with propaganda politics, the civil-military divide, the strong establishment and weak judiciary, controlled m...

  "It is getting harder to run a constitution than to frame one" Woodrow Wilson The statement "It is easier to frame a constitution than to run it" is taken from the famous classic essay of Woodrow Wilson, the 28 th president of the United States of America, titled "The Study of Administration," published in 1887. By this statement, he meant that the task of administrators, the implementation of the constitution, is much harder than the formulation of the constitution. He wanted to separate public administration from the influence of politicians, which he termed the "politics-administration dichotomy'. To put it simply, he said politicians have to frame a policy and have nothing to do with its implementation, while administrators have the duty to implement such a policy and have nothing to do with its formulation. However, this article discusses and elaborates on this statement in another sense, and that is the literal interpretation of the sta...

    Fault Lines in the Administrative Culture of Pakistan Pakistan inherited its administrative culture from colonial India during its independence. Such a culture has been followed in the country since 1947, and little change has been made till today. The administrative culture that has been derived by Pakistan from British India has certain key fault lines, including undue political interference, bureaucratic red tape, a spoiled system of recruitment under the guise of merit, a lack of autonomy and capacity, and a lack of accountability and transparency. These fault lines result in compromising the rule of law, systematic bureaucratic corruption, injustice or delayed justice, and violations of individual liberty. The need of the moment is to reform the administrative culture by taking certain measures, including de-politicizing the bureaucracy, strengthening accountability mechanisms, and ensuring a merit system of recruitment. Administrative culture can be defined, in...

   " Education gives living knowledge which is better than the      dead letter of the law " Plato   Plato, the renowned ancient Greek philosopher and disciple of the great Socrates, famously stated of his educational program, "Education gives living knowledge, which is better than the dead letter of the law." According to him, education and ongoing education is a live knowledge, whereas dead laws are those that are created once and then followed for centuries in the same wording and style in a rapidly changing world. This philosophy was articulated in his book The Republic. A state, according to Plato, must be ruled by a philosopher monarch who has completed at least fifty years of schooling. For Plato, fifty years of education is still insufficient, and hence the monarch should never stop learning new things. Thereafter, no rule binds the philosopher king once he reaches this degree of education. He must behave in accordance with live knowle...

  Status of Women's inheritance rights in Pakistan A woman is the glory of someone else's house," a woman is always very patient," a woman needs no money," or "a lady chooses her brothers over possessions." Males often employ these amulets to ward off women from inheriting their property. Everything has been described in detail by Allah Almighty, but two topics—marriage and inheritance (miras)—are particularly well-explained by Almighty Allah in the Holy Quran since Allah is aware that these are the topics that people are most likely to fight over. In the Holy Quran, Allah almighty says: For men, there is a share in what their parents and close relatives leave, and for women, there is a share in what their parents and close relatives leave—whether it is little or much. These are obligatory shares. "Quran 4:7 Allah says there is a share for both men and women in what their parents leave, and such shares are obligatory. But why do men read only t...

  Pakistan's political crises: a way forward Political crises in Pakistan started with the death of its founding father, Quid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, followed by the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan, the then-prime minister of Pakistan. The history didn’t change but was followed by Ayob Khan's first martial law and then the transfer of martial law to another military chief, General Yahya Khan. Resultantly, a full-fledged civil war started in the country, which led to the partition of Pakistan into two parts: Bangladesh and Pakistan. The leadership still learned nothing from its history, and a military chief, Zia ul Haq, imposed another marshal law. The then-prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was arrested and then sentenced to death. History had been still following itself, and one time more emergency was imposed in the country by another army chief, General Musharaf, and the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was arrested. It was still not enough, and another incident h...