Law and order being faced by pakistani nation today
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The law and order problem is correctly defined in the call for papers as the persistence of ungoverned areas, the continuation of militant and criminal violence throughout the country, and low levels of government accountability. The historically expanded role of the military and the groping of the judiciary for a role somewhere between acquiescence and excessive activism are both symptoms and causes. Indeed, this is the core of Pakistan’s problems: there are many, many problems, they are both causes and consequences, they are interrelated, and there are obvious solutions to each, but Pakistan lacks the capacity to systematically undertake internal reforms.
I think that the reasons for failure vary from issue (or factor) to issue. For example, the existence of “ungoverned” areas did not mean that they were ungovernable. India had such areas in its northeast including a separatist movement supported by other countries and with a sturdy base abroad, but it has slowly and systematically used the strategy memorably described to me as “first we hit them over the head with a hammer, then we teach them how to play the piano.” Pakistan, as we were recently reminded, has never tried this; emulating the British they deemed the Tribal areas and frontier provinces too difficult to manage. In a recent opinion piecethe American columnist, David Ignatius, writes that Pakistan has missed the opportunity of the century by not working with the large NATO and American forces across the border in Afghanistan; together they could have launched a project that would have begun to establish the writ of the Pakistani state; instead, a mixture of paranoia and the temptation to use the tribals in a proxy war against both India’s presence in Afghanistan and American and ISAF forces proved to be too great.[1] No one will shed any tears when the backlash sweeps over Pakistan, and there is already talk of the importance of “containing” this new Pakistan, no longer a friend but still a danger to itself and its neighbors.[2]
No one solution fits all problems, there are fifteen to twenty variables (depending on who and how one is counting), and we still have no good idea which are fixable and which are permanently going to cripple Pakistan. Nor do I have a good idea which must come first and which can be deferred: I think both questions should be at the core of thinking about Pakistan’s future. In short, there is a methodological hiatus in contemporary studies of Pakistan, epitomized in the ambitious title of this conference (why not 2030, 2050, or next year?). To put it succinctly: if you don’t know where you are going any variable will take you there.
Turning to the law and order sector, there have been numerous—and usually good—studies of what needs to be done.[3] The police have to be depoliticized, they have to be well-funded, they need modern equipment, and they need to be reprofessionalized. They are not hopeless—some policing is done very well in Pakistan, and the leadership of most police services is competent, and some are more than that. There also has to be an effective judiciary, independent and concerned about the administration of justice, so police can deal with professional matters, not worry about becoming either agents of the politicians or de facto law courts on the streets and in the interrogation rooms.