Roots of collapse
OUR rulers rarely admit their misrule — denial and hype being their default modes. When they do speak the truth, a sceptical nation rightly suspects hidden scripts. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is right about the system’s collapse but wrong about its causes and cures. This mix of inconvenient truths and convenient untruths may be due to tussles in a hybrid set-up, with the more powerful element aiming to further tame the political side.
Let’s first review the scale of the collapse. Our under-five child mortality rate is the worst regionally. About 25 million children are out of school, the second-highest figure globally. We are among the three most insecure states and near the bottom of legal justice and gender equity scales. We endure high poverty; poor growth in GDP, jobs, tax and exports; and high prices that still bite despite lower inflation. Too often, one step forward in a few areas is offset by a standstill or two steps backwards in others.
Collapse may pick up the pace past a critical point, as in failed states. Futures studies warn us about new threats that may accentuate our current mess and push us beyond it even before we reach our centenary. These include the ecological (climate change), demographic (a population of more than 350m) and social (extremism and illiteracy) dimensions. They also include economic (default and hyperinflation), security (two growing insurgencies) and external (a doomsday war with India) factors. For a befitting centenary, we must act quickly as a serious malaise takes time to reverse. But can we apply reverse gear before we reach the brink?
Expert analysis sharply diverges from Naqvi’s rhetoric on causes and cures. Our front-line delivery arms — local bodies and bureaucracy — are broken. But broken delivery below reflects broken incentives above. Why do our rulers shun the public good? Some blame democracy and tout East Asian autocracies. However, those are outliers, not the autocratic norm: most postwar autocracies have failed. We need not even look abroad as we have just had 79 years of autocracy in varied garb, which has done us no good. In fact, we haven’t had even a day of basic democracy. When rulers know that they have to answer to elements other than those who voted for them, they ignore the public good.
Collapse may pick up pace past a critical point.
This root cause easily reveals the cure: regular, fair elections and fully empowered set-ups. Our wise masses know this instinctively. They always reject able managers from unelected set-ups offering a narrow menu of projects and services. Instead, they prefer leaders who resist autocracy, even if they lack proven delivery records. This is based on the desire of the masses for broader good governance — rights, freedoms, rapid economic progress, projects and services that only true democracy can provide — and the knowledge that sustained democracy will let them fire those who don’t deliver. But that long, uninterrupted era of basic democracy that could deliver such fruits has not been allowed by those apprehensive of democracy’s long-term potential.
Now compare this with the odd cures this set-up suggests. The proven need for democracy and civilian sway is taboo. Instead, hybridity is touted as the right model, though it has been the most common face of our past failed autocracies. The set-up wants to create 12 to 15 new provinces instantly, though there is no strong global theory or evidence to link that with good governance. The 15 most misruled states on the Fragile States Index have an average of 20 provinces
for an average population of just 50m. Hasty creations often lead to more misrule at a higher cost. Those states that created units over time, primarily on an ethnic/linguistic basis to end neglect, like India, did well. But the state rarely broaches the cure backed by global evidence — strong local bodies.
State and societal institutions that help improve governance are seen as a threat, while the judiciary, parliament, autonomous entities, opposition, media and civil society have been weakened.
There’s also little attempt to commission evidence-based, expert-led policy papers on critical matters, as wellgoverned states do; instead, contro-
versial rhetoric is amplified through the media. We are thus being pushed closer to the brink.
The key problem is not the ongoing misrule but that the very basis of democracy and good governance — sorely needed to avoid a collapse — is being undermined. The basic cause of all the system’s ills lies in its hybrid nature and a controversial mandate.
The writer holds a PhD in political economy
from the University of California, Berkeley,
and has 25 years of grassroots to senior-level
experience across 50 countries.
murtazaniaz@yahoo.com
X: @NiazMurtaza2
Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2026
