New engine, old rails

Between Ghalib and Iqbal, we picked Iqbal as our national poet. Iqbal belongs to us more, but in many ways our national situation reflects habits of the great poet from Delhi.

Obsessed with his social status to the level of paranoia, Ghalib lived a life of borrowed luxury that pushed him from one crisis to another. Financial management was below his positions and one of his least worries. Iqbal, on the other hand, worked hard all his life, managed his limited finances very well, supported his extended family and while dying made sure that his children did not slide into poverty.

However, this does not mean that we haven’t taken anything from our founding fathers, many of whom happened to be lawyers. We have turned ourselves into the most law-obsessed nation on earth. Our politics and journalism revolve around ‘wakalat’ and ‘adaalat’ – lawyers and courts. Law is the philosopher’s stone that can solve all of our problems. Our courts are the most revolutionary spaces on our land.

An alien from Mars may mistake us for the most law-abiding nation on earth. Look closely and you will find that law and legal institutions are a means of perpetuating conflicts to tire out and defeat the weaker enemy. Keeping in view Marxist views, the law is used as tool to guard interests and continue domination. Legal professionals, often the least law-abiding citizens of the country themselves, work merely as agents of conflict, not interested in justice or conflict resolution. Any peaceful solution is invariably found away from the judicial system. ‘Written laws’, Anarchasis said in 6th century BC, ‘are like spider’s webs; while they will catch the weak and the poor, they will be torn to pieces by the rich and the powerful.’

There is another, bigger, political problem associated with the law and legal professionals. Legal professionals are trained to look backwards. It is the job of legal institutions to find problems in the past, identify a culprit and punish him/her to create a deterrent against future crimes.

The way in is, very often, not the way out. The solutions for the problems cannot be found in the forensics of the past, because the future is the realm of possibilities, while the past is a chapter closed. The domination of legal professionals in a country can be bad news for the economy. One reason for China’s success is the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is mostly manned by the engineers, a profession that trains you to look into the future and explore new possibilities.

Our pathological interest in legal battles may have to do something with the rural nature of our society. In a rural-agriculture economy, income is intermittent and unreliable while the means of income are extremely secure. Leisurely time is available to pursue the courts to get some necessary amount of adrenaline rush, teach lessons to the weak and get even with adversaries. Legal battles can be as exciting, and a lot more expensive, than dog fights and bull races. And, of course, a lawyer is always lurking to spot an opportunity to brighten the path to the district courts.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was born to give us justice and rule of law. It came to power with lots of legal solutions. During the first six months in power, it tried to do just that. Its legal Sherlock Holmes-like Shahzad Akbar went looking for gold buried by our corrupt in foreign lands. They told us that once this gold was found, we could drink more wine than Ghalib ever did – and without worrying about the consequences. Our lawyer information minister was acting like a true lawyer speaking to his rural clients, promising to teach exemplary lessons to their adversaries. The jungle was in tumult and the tumult was created by the lion king himself.

The bravado had no effect on tax dodgers. During its six months, the government collected Rs170 billion less in taxes than what was on target, despite revising the targets downward during the first mini-budget. Those who steal electricity were not impressed. The circular debt too went up. Foreign investors weren’t amused; FDI went down by 19 percent. Current expenditures went up despite selling off buffaloes, turning the Prime Minister’s House into a university and governor houses into public parks. Development spending at the centre and in Punjab went down by Rs350 billion. State Bank reserves went down and they are still down even after receiving $3 billion from Saudi Arabia. And exports increased only by 2.2 percent, despite the government depreciating the rupee substantially.

The finance bill is an admission that, beyond the legal domain, there is a land called the economy. Before Shahzad Akbar brings billions of dollars back, we have to pay $21 million in damages to Broadsheet LLC as ordered by the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), thanks to our accountability wizards. Before we get our $200 billion back, we may have to pay further damages in ongoing international arbitration cases, all in damages, thanks to our super capable legal eagles and accountability champions.

The huge concessions that many super rich have won in the finance bill are linked to the legal system in an interesting way. Pakistan’s top crony sectors – fertilizer, CNG and textiles – have been allowed to keep Rs200 billion of taxes (gas infrastructure development cess) duly paid by consumers and collected by these sectors. They can keep this huge amount of public taxes if they can kindly pass on half of the taxes to the government. This concession has been made because Rs400 billion of government taxes are stuck thanks to our legal system.

The FBR has decided to use Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) to recover at least a part of the Rs1,276-billion worth of taxes stuck because of the court cases. Powerful business interests, both national and international, have defeated the Pakistani state, harming it to the tune of tens of billions of dollars with the help of law and legal professionals. And of course, the middle class that brought the PTI revolution can now buy their Corollas and Citys without bothering to register as taxpayers.

All of the steps were important because we were faced with a situation where Pakistan failed to find a new path and it was not running on the old way either. Now it is at least back on its old rails. As Sheikh Rashid has belatedly found out, shifting our Railways to a different, international gauge can be too expensive.

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan