The Leadership Challenge in South Asia : A Perspective from Pakistan

The concept and word of Leadership have come to be seen synonymously and mainly, with political leadership. Which is certainly the most important tier because politics has an over-arching, pervasive impact on virtually all segments of a society and nation . Yet leadership in other spheres also plays a critical role , regardless of the quality and impact of political leadership.

In this reflection in the context of South Asia, let us begin at the top rung. Though the region is a distinct geographical entity and, despite vast divergences, has an indigenous historical symmetry, in 2024 all nation-states are still recovering and emerging from the long-term effects of European colonization. Be they the absurdities of the first-past-the-post electoral system inherited from Westminster — in which parties and candidates that receive only a small percentage of the total registered voters become successful representatives of the total electorate till the next polls — or the anomalies of the bloated bureaucratic systems that distort governance , almost every South Asian state continues to search for alternatives which could more fairly mirror the realities and needs particular to itself.

Fortunately , in recent years, and in 2024 in particular , both political leadership and the people in different countries of the area have shown the will to shape new pathways in political change. With the people taking the lead , and leading the leaders! On 8th February this year, the voters of Pakistan created an unprecedented milestone in global electoral history. The conventional general election anywhere, parties and candidates search for voters and encourage them to turn-out and cast ballots in their favor.

But in Pakistan, after the Supreme Court shockingly upheld the biased verdict of the Election Commission depriving the imprisoned Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf ( PTI ) from using its famous electoral symbol of the cricket bat due to alleged or real failures to hold timely internal party polls (while condoning major similar failures by other parties which were allowed to use their respective well-known symbols), and depriving PTI the right to contest as a party, it was the voter who not only turned up, but also went searching for the independent candidate in her/his constituency who was a known member of PTI but who had been allotted a different election symbol : e.g. in one constituency , a table, in the constituency next door, a tractor, and so on. Thus, hundreds of candidates who were actually PTI candidates had dozens of different symbols — whereas all the other parties had the unfair advantage of their single well-known symbols , e.g., an arrow, a tiger , etc.

Yet, so determined, so mature was the average Pakistani voter-supporter of PTI — each voter a political leader in her/his own right ! And women-voters for PTI were specially active — that independent candidates with entirely different election symbols secured more votes — 17 million plus — than the other two leading parties using their historic symbols, eg. 13 million plus ( PML-N, of Nawaz Sharif and 8 million plus of the Bhutto-Zardari-led PPP). So shocked by the outcome were the forces pitted against PTI — the Election Commission , PML-N , PPP , the military , sections of the Judiciary –that , despite rigging the final vote-counting tallies , the more fair-minded majority of the Supreme Court insists that PTI be allotted its share of reserved seats as per its voted-for right — while all other elements, as of the date of writing on 30th September 2024 , are inventing all kinds of devious tactics to avoid implementing the verdict in favor of the PTI rendered by both the electorate and the majority of the Supreme Court.

Here then is authentic political leadership in South Asia : transcending painful deprivations and in justices — citizens rally to support true democracy of the people , by the people , for the people — yet they are still thwarted by those forces that actually see do not respect the people. In India , in the April-June polls, voters also demonstrated refreshing maturity in punishing the extremism of the Hindutva-driven BJP by substantively reducing its seats in the Lok Sabha . Earlier, and once more in 2024, the Indian voter has proven that s/he has the will to strengthen non-dynastic as well as non-extremist -prone parties by voting into office in New Delhi and in east Punjab the Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi party in place of the Congress and BJP. In West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee has shown the ability to overcome long-entrenched domination by the Communists and by the main Congress, as also curb the more recent intrusions of BJP.

In Sri Lanka in September, voters catapulted into the top office a President from a party which secured only about 4 per cent of the vote in the previous polls, and now has left long-established names far behind. Other contributors to this collection of essays are better placed to analyze this remarkable change. In the Maldives, voters backed the assertiveness of national sovereignty in the face of hegemonic domination. Perhaps the most powerful manifestation of popular will for radical political change occurred with the youth-led Monsoon Revolution in Bangladesh in August. Though the change came through sheer, sustained street power instead of by ballot — which , in any case, for the previous polls had become highly partisan and non-inclusive — the phenomenon also signified how tumultuous internal change can have substantive geo-political dimensions as in BD’s relations with India , and with Pakistan, China , USA and other countries.

Thus, notwithstanding the danger of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” always lurking in the shadows of promise to injure and disarm positive change, the realm of political leadership in South Asia in 2024 has become more people-centric, and more people-led than in recent times . Even harking back decades to the emergence as independent nation-states free of European , mainly British colonial control , the different countries of the region produced political leadership of extraordinary character who were role-models for the whole world . Indeed, they inspired other countries still under colonial occupation , specially in Africa , to confront and overcome foreign suzerainty.

While the leaders of the Great Rebellion in Sri Lanka in the early 19th century and the doyens of the Independence movement in the first half of the 20th century are numerous and well-known, as a Pakistani writing in the context of the essay’s title , one is particularly proud of the quite unique character and political impact of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of the country. He did not speak fluently in Urdu , or Bengali , the popular spoken languages in the areas that became parts of West and East Pakistan in 1947. His English was chaste, as was his attire in stylish Saville Row suits, until 1937 when he switched to traditional locally worn clothes. He overcame formidable resistance to the creation of Pakistan from 3 principal adversaries : the colonial British , the Hindu-dominated Congress Party, and , like bitter icing on the cake, several fellow Muslim forces, mostly religious parties which fervently opposed the formation of a new homeland for the Muslims ( but which, after Independence, have become the ideological custodians of the State!).

The eminent American historian Stanley Wolpert commences his biography of Jinnah with the following words , which say it all : “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history . Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”

For the past 77 years , the people of Pakistan have struggled to produce leadership with the qualities exemplified by Mr.Jinnah. He lived only for 13 months after the birth of the new nation-state and was thus unable to shape conditions and institutions that would foster new leadership in the political sphere, and in other sectors, with the attributes he possessed. That challenge was, and is connected with the structural dimensions of the political economy, the control of resources, the civil-military balance, or imbalance, the scope available for leadership to peacefully express views and visions without persecution and suppression by elements that wield force and might. At certain points, qualitative leadership has emerged but has not been enduring because of a mix of factors : comprising both failures by civil elements, and by military intrusions into the political and other spheres of national life, as also covert interventions by mainly Western states with geo-political interests in the region.

But, as in other countries of South Asia where, in the non-political sphere, leadership of vision, grit and endurance has emerged to shape bold new initiatives in the social, commercial, technical fields, so too in Pakistan in the past seven and a half decades such progress is visible . Note : it is ironic that , because such non-partisan leadership is often in the category known by the label of “NGOs” and “civil society” that is largely dependent on overseas funding support, such leadership has faced persecution on mostly false charges of promoting “foreign agendas”.

Sometimes, such beneficial change-making leadership has been state-linked, and yet non-partisan. In the 1950s and 1960s, as Pakistan strove to survive as the most uniquely-constructed nation-state in world history, e.g. with 2 wings separated by about 1000 miles of hostile territory, and commencing with little or no industrial, banking, logistics infrastructure, visionary technocrats and bureaucrats led efforts and helped establish state-sponsored factories for cement, fertilizer, paper, chemicals, jute, etc. which were soon handed over to the private sector, initiated speedy construction of physical networks in road, rail, air, maritime transportation, helped boost agricultural production to avail of demand created by the Korean War, etc.

For the peaceful, manifold uses of nuclear power, such techno-bureaucrat leaders pioneered the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) which recruited and trained thousands of technicians, engineers, scientists whose pioneering work made possible today in 2024 benefits for millions in the fields of medicine, agriculture, higher education, research : quite apart from proficiency in the production of nuclear weapons developed only after India invaded East Pakistan on 21st November 1971 to break-up the original Pakistan and then regrettably introduced into South Asia the menace of atomic weapons in 1974.

In the social development sector, Pakistan benefits enormously from the huge contributions of social philanthropy led by individuals but also collectively enabled by the incredible generosity of the people who are rated by independent surveys to be among the most “caring and giving” in the world.

Another facet of non-partisan leadership emanating from Pakistan to benefit the world at large, is the visionary, insightful formulation of the Human Development Index by the eminent Pakistani economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq working as Adviser to UNDP in New York in 1991. This writer was privileged to know Dr. Haq as an esteemed senior family friend and also as a fellow Senator . But even allowing for a personal bias, on purely objective grounds, the visionary concept of scientifically measuring the development of peoples by levels of literacy, education, health, access to basic services, et al rather than “Gross National Product” was a revolutionary intellectual leadership contribution which has become a credible worldwide standard to assess the genuine progress of nations.

To conclude: whether in politics , or in the social, economic, development sectors , whether they converge as in the instance of Nobel Prize winner Dr Mohammad Younus in Bangladesh becoming Chief Adviser of the interim Government , or whether as in the case of Imran Khan whose popularity endures even from inside prison , the challenge in South Asia for the decades ahead remains how to produce and sustain leadership that transforms poverty into just and abiding empowerment.

About the Author