Democratic Technocracy and a New Administrative St…

I have lost count of how many times I have written this sentence. Trump announces a possible dialogue with Iran. Iran denies it within hours. Then Pakistan quietly steps in to keep the peace alive. I sit down to write about it again, and I feel a strange mixture of hope and exhaustion. This cycle has repeated itself so many times since this war began that I could write it in my sleep. Let me walk you through what happened this time, because I think you deserve to understand the pattern as clearly as I do. President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social and declared that Washington and Tehran are talking. He said Iran may not admit it, but both nations are working through a problem that has lingered for decades. He accused Iranian leaders of playing a double game. He said the outcome will be one of two things. Either a deal gets made, or Iran faces what he called complete surrender. He also insisted that America will never let Iran get its hands on a nuclear weapon. Then, right on cue, Iran said no. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei stood before reporters and rejected every word of it. He said there are no negotiations happening with the United States. He said the only contact right now involves Oman, and it concerns nothing more than keeping ships moving safely through the Strait of Hormuz. I want you to notice something here. This is not a new argument. I have watched this exact exchange play out again and again. One side claims talks are happening. The other side flatly denies it. And somewhere in the middle, the truth probably sits quietly, waiting for someone honest enough to admit it. This is where Pakistan enters the picture, as it so often does. Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that Pakistan and Qatar are working to arrange a new round of direct talks. Islamabad and Doha are both being considered as possible venues where America and Iran might eventually sit across from each other again. I find this part of the story important, and I do not think it gets enough credit. Pakistan helped broker something called the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which brought about a ceasefire back in June. That agreement asked both sides to stop military action, keep the Strait of Hormuz open for trade, and begin serious talks on Iran’s nuclear program and American sanctions. Iranian parliamentary spokesman Hassan Gashghavi confirmed that mediating countries are now trying to breathe new life into that same agreement. Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister Ishaq Dar spoke by phone with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Monday. They discussed the broader situation in the region and the ongoing diplomatic efforts across the Middle East. Dar also invited Araghchi to visit Pakistan soon. I keep coming back to one question as I write this. How many more times will I have to write this same story? How many more announcements, denials, and quiet rescues will it take before something actually holds? I will be honest with you. I am tired of writing about tension. I am tired of watching one side hint at peace while the other side pulls back. I am tired of hearing familiar names promise a resolution that never quite arrives. But I still hold onto something, and I think you should too. I hope this is the last time I have to write this cycle. I hope the next headline is not about another denial or another delayed meeting. I hope it is about a real, lasting peace, the kind that does not need Pakistan or Qatar or anyone else to keep rescuing it.

When rain descends from the folds of clouds, it assumes the form of divine mercy for the earth—reviving parched soil and spreading smiles across the weary faces of farmers. Yet, when this very rain turns unbridled and the administrative apparatus built to welcome it pulls a heavy shroud of negligence over its eyes, this descent of mercy transforms into a harrowing shape of torment and sudden calamity. Gujrat, a historic and industrial city of Punjab that holds a unique global identity through its civilizational expanse, skilled artisans, and proximity to the Chenab River, presents the terrifying spectacle of a pond and a swamp every monsoon season. Here, urban flooding is no longer merely a climatic accident; rather, it has become a chilling confession of administrative apathy, unscientific planning, and a criminal denial of historical geographical realities. When the hydrological management of cities is evaluated on a global scale, the concepts of “Sponge Cities” are put into practice, but our reality stands in stark opposition. When the state of urban drainage in Gujrat is objectively reviewed through the corridors of history, one’s eyes are opened to the bitter truth that the rulers and elements who dominated this city consciously hollowed out its roots at every level for the gratification of greed. The city’s drainage and sewerage system, in particular, fell prey to the plunder of commission agents belonging to the corruption mafia. It is an immensely agonizing chapter of history that two decades ago, when a renowned international Japanese company completed a detailed survey of Gujrat, officially announced its complete reconstruction on modern lines, and promised a world-class drainage system, the hungry brokers sitting in the echelons of power burnt this magnificent project in the fire of personal lust. The people of Gujrat can never forget the actors who sacrificed the Japanese company’s dream at the altar of kickbacks. Later, when times changed and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi assumed the helm of this region as Chief Minister, he released heavy, voluminous funds amounting to billions of rupees to radically improve and modernize Gujrat’s decrepit and worn-out drainage system. Yet the tragedy was that these billions of rupees in Gujrat’s history remained restricted to a few specific and powerful pockets, and to openly divide these funds, the entire system was mortgaged to a fostered contractor mafia. With an exceptionally substandard, superficial, and unprofessional approach, this mafia played a game of window-dressing that instead of fixing Gujrat’s sewerage system, ruined it permanently and turned the entire city into an artificial swamp. Today, the agony of drainage dancing through the city’s streets and roads offers no hope of deliverance from this terrifying urban flood unless a severe accountability of these true, deceitful culprits is carried out. The political leadership that followed also made efforts suited to their respective statures for the betterment of the city; and although their own technical errors consistently hampered this improvement, every resident of Gujrat continues to carry the heavy burden of those primary sinners who devastated Gujrat’s history, civilization, and urbanity. Last year, when urban flooding once again descended upon the city as a mortal torment, uproar echoed everywhere, the wheel of life halted, and the situation reached a point where the Chief Minister of Punjab had to personally make an emergency visit to Gujrat to rescue the district administration from this storm of incompetence. During this visit, a heavy downpour of announcements and promises took place, accompanied by the release of special funds worth billions for complete and sustainable improvement next year. Despite the sincere efforts and financial provisions of Honorable Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the district administration—entrenched in a colonial mindset—spent all its energies throughout the year on personal image-building and photo sessions rather than the timely completion of this vital sewerage project. As ill luck would have it, as soon as the monsoon season arrived once again this year, the colorful balloon of good governance and claims deflated entirely, exposing the bitter reality that this malaise of flawed planning persists and rainwater continues to rain down as a torment upon citizens’ lives. And when this rainwater has already devastated citizens’ lives, wounding their homes and businesses, only then do the traditional efforts of WASA and district institutions begin to bear fruit, with water finally receding from the streets after prolonged suffering. Success drums are then beaten over this very temporary performance, adding salt to the injuries of the citizens. A profound study of Gujrat’s urban geography reveals that its foundations and topography are deeply embedded in its centuries-old historical backdrop. Built during the Mughal era, the Akbari Fort serves as the greatest metaphor for the region’s military, political, and administrative history. Viewed from a geographical and topographical standpoint, the Akbari Fort is situated on a relatively high mound or plateau, and the city’s older structural layout spreads outward from this height in gradual slopes in all directions. Principally and naturally, this elevation of the fort and the surrounding natural slopes should have stood as an exceptional geographical blessing for a drainage system—provided the natural pathways of water flow had been preserved and left unmolested by grotesque tampering. The tragedy, however, is that over time, unbridled urban expansion and a flood of encroachments mutilated this natural sloping system so ruthlessly that today, that very height and slope have turned into a bane for the city. Unchecked commercialization and illegal constructions in and around the Akbari Fort and its adjoining low-lying areas have blocked all traditional water routes in such a manner that water finds no outlet. The consequence is that when rainwater flows down from the elevated parts of the fort, instead of finding an open path or paved drain ahead, it encounters dead alleys, narrow sewage pipelines, and an endless siege of encroachments. Consequently, this water accumulates in lower regions to form a permanent lake, leaving city residents weeping over their helplessness. Gujrat’s tragedy is not merely the accumulation of rainwater; it is a reflection of that collective apathy and corruption which wakes up with the arrival

In a world driven by technology, only change is permanent. Change we must, but how? Transition from one system to another is perhaps the biggest challenge that we have not been able to cope with. Half-baked solutions with underage players cannot deliver. Reminds me of Einstein’s famous quote: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Steve Jobs, one of the greatest technologists of the 21st century, went even further by saying: “Either lead or get out of the way.” A few years back I was doing some research on universities and their impact on setting the course of nations. Syed Ahmed Khan’s Aligarh Muslim University stood out. It produced the Change Managers who not only led the freedom movement but also had the capacity to sustain it. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan (IRP) desperately needs such individuals who can understand and then manage the needful. In the year 1875 he founded the MAO College (Mohammadian Anglo Oriental College) which later grew into a university in the year 1920. He passed away in 1898 but the institution grew. Later on, Allama Iqbal led the movement, and finally it was Muhammad Ali Jinnah who succeeded in carving a new homeland in August 1947 for the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to lay the foundations of the new state, but he did leave clear guidelines for the inherited establishment to follow (Armed Forces, Bureaucracy). After taking over in October 1999, Pervez Musharraf created a think tank called the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB). Headed by Lt. Gen. Tanvir Naqvi, it was located in the Chief Executive (CE) secretariat. The task was to design and execute political and administrative reforms in the country. I was invited to give my input. Naqvi Sb was very confident about delivering meaningful change. His main focus was on devolution of power. As a student of management, I asked him a simple question: “Who will implement his plan?” Bureaucracy, of course, was his quick reply. He did not have an answer to my second concern: “Why will they implement a plan which reduces their power?” He then decided to get rid of me by saying if I wanted to discuss implementation details, I should go to the third floor to the CE’s office. Finally, he stepped down and was replaced by a young novice who lacked the experience and clout to deliver meaningful change. Then there was another initiative called the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), led by a pediatrician from a small town in Oregon. The worthy Dr assured the CE that he would manage funds from abroad while the local expenses were to be provided by the Government of Pakistan (GOP). Various centers were established across the country and staff recruited. While GOP provided the internal resources, the external help never came despite fundraising efforts abroad. The CE was convinced that the two sectors were well covered, but they were not. Finally, NCHD became a liability and was shut down and the staff laid off. During my term as Chairman, Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), I lobbied for technocrats to head technical ministries, which was not well received by the powers that be. Commercialization and application of research is the biggest challenge faced by the R&D sector of the country. When I was denied an extension after the completion of my term, I paid a farewell visit to the Secretary MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology). It was a friendly meeting; the Secretary appreciated my work but complained that I did not follow his guidelines. While leaving, he pointed at the board where the names of his predecessors were written. I still remember his words: “Only our names make it here.” He did not like my spontaneous response: “Time will tell,” and it did. My lobbying prevailed; a retired Chairman of PAEC (Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission) replaced him. Though he had no commercial background, I decided to guide and support him. He recommended major investments in creating public sector entities like HMC III, run by PAEC, for meeting their equipment needs. At best, only pilot plants were viable for transfer of technology from laboratory to industry. He was unable to get the funds. As such, his term ended with no major breakthrough, and business as usual continued. Pakistan has a federal structure of governance. Federating units are diverse with differing needs. I am in favor of devolution, but the task on hand is not simple. The forces of status quo are too entrenched. Change Managers are needed at all levels. Complexities have to be understood and managed. There has to be consensus on the road map. Islamabad has an archive of failed plans. The same mistakes should not be repeated again. The first challenge is to find qualified individuals with solid re-engineering experience to lead the crusade. Einstein and Jobs were two brilliant brains of their times; we must value their outlook to move forward and avoid chaos and confusion. Oversimplification of the task at hand must be avoided.

There is a moment in every negotiation when the mask slips and the real hierarchy of loyalties reveals itself. It happened again recently, in the quiet grammar of a policy condition. If a deal with Iran is good for America, if it stops a war, secures a region, spares American blood and treasure, then it should be pursued on its own terms. It should not need to be laundered through a second question, but what does Israel get out of it? The moment that second question enters the room, the first one has already been answered, and not in America’s favour. This is not a rhetorical trick. It is a structural tell. A foreign policy genuinely organised around American interests does not require the ratification of an ally before it proceeds. It calculates costs, weighs risks, and acts. The insertion of an Israeli veto, soft, implicit, but unmistakable, into decisions that are framed as being about American security is not an alliance functioning normally. It is a client relationship wearing the costume of a partnership, and increasingly, the costume does not fit. I do not say this as someone hostile to alliances. Alliances are the ordinary furniture of statecraft, and no serious analyst begrudges Washington its relationships. What I begrudge, what any honest observer of the last two decades of American foreign policy must eventually begrudge, is the peculiar one-directionality of this particular relationship, in which American strategic autonomy is perpetually available for negotiation, but Israeli strategic autonomy is not. Successive administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, have discovered that the fastest way to kill a sound policy is to let it wander anywhere near Jerusalem’s objections. The Biden administration played this game with a kind of practiced fluency, dressing subservience in the language of “shared values” and “unbreakable bonds.” That the current administration appears to be playing the identical game, merely with a different set of talking points, should trouble anyone who once believed that a change in party might also mean a change in posture. The deeper dishonesty, though, sits beneath the day-to-day theatre of negotiation. It is the elephant that everyone in the room has agreed, by unspoken consensus, not to see. Iran is treated as the singular proliferation emergency of the Middle East, the country whose enrichment levels must be monitored down to the percentage point, whose every centrifuge is a matter of international alarm, whose nuclear ambitions justify sanctions regimes, covert sabotage, and the standing threat of military strikes. And yet a few hundred kilometers away sits a state that has possessed nuclear weapons for more than half a century, has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has never submitted to an inspection regime of any kind, and whose arsenal is discussed in Western capitals only in the passive voice, if it is discussed at all. Israel’s bomb is an open secret that everyone has agreed to keep. This is not a minor inconsistency. It is the load-bearing hypocrisy of the entire non-proliferation architecture in West Asia. You cannot credibly claim to be pursuing a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free Middle East while exempting, by unspoken convention, the one state in the region that actually has the weapons in question. Every argument marshalled against Iran’s nuclear programme, that a nuclear-armed state destabilizes its neighbors, that it invites arms races, that it holds regional security hostage to the judgment of a single government, applies with at least equal force to Israel, and applies to a country that has, unlike Iran, already used overwhelming force against multiple neighbors within living memory. The asymmetry is not a technical oversight. It is a choice, made and remade by every administration that has declined to place Israel’s arsenal on the table. What this reveals, I think, is that the “Iran obsession,” as it might fairly be called, was never really about proliferation at all. If it were, the conversation would begin with disarmament architecture applied evenhandedly across the region, inspections offered and demanded in both directions, and a serious reckoning with the double standard that has calcified into policy over fifty years. Instead, the Iran file functions as a proxy for a different question entirely, whose security calculus gets to define American Middle East policy. And on that question, the answer has been remarkably consistent regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. None of this is a case for indulging Tehran’s own record, which carries its own list of grievances worth prosecuting honestly, its human rights abuses, its regional proxies, its own history of destabilizing behavior. Clear-eyed criticism of Iran is entirely compatible with clear-eyed criticism of the double standard applied to Israel; the two are not in tension, and pretending otherwise is its own kind of evasion. But a foreign policy that claims the mantle of principle while practicing this degree of selective vision is not principled. It is theatre, and increasingly unconvincing theatre, performed for a domestic audience that is growing visibly tired of the script. The unpopularity of this arrangement is no longer a fringe sentiment. It shows up in polling, in generational splits within America’s own political coalitions, in the rising discomfort even among constituencies that have historically been the most reliable defenders of the relationship. People are noticing the pattern: that policies justified as serving American interests keep bending, at the last moment, toward a different set of interests altogether. They are asking, reasonably, who is actually driving the car. There is also a historical dimension to this that deserves more attention than it usually receives. The pattern of conditioning American policy on Israeli comfort did not begin with Iran, and it will not end there. It runs through decades of vetoed resolutions at the United Nations, through arms transfers that continued uninterrupted even amid documented humanitarian catastrophe, through the quiet understanding that certain questions simply are not to be raised in polite Washington company. Each individual instance can be explained away with its own set of justifications, security concerns, historical debts, domestic political realities. But taken together, across administrations

Our discussion of Bulleh Shah in Part IV concluded with a question: Who are we when power can no longer name us? Bulleh Shah dismantled the identities imposed upon the human person by lineage, orthodoxy and social hierarchy. Waris Shah takes the inquiry into the institutions governing everyday life. He shows what happens when two human beings attempt to live according to the freedom Bulleh imagined. Heer is celebrated as Punjab’s greatest love story. To describe it merely as a romance, however, is to conceal its intellectual achievement. Earlier poets narrated the sufferings of Heer and Ranjha; Waris Shah’s classic poetic work Heeer (1766) placed an entire social order on trial. Shafqat Tanvir Mirza rightly observed that Waris treated the story through the “politics, economy and cultural values” lived by the people of his period. His poem contains a devastating criticism of poor governance, institutional corruption, religious exploitation, arrogance of the wealthy and misery of those without power. Love provides the narrative, but power determines its outcome. Waris Shah wrote against the background of eighteenth-century political disintegration. Invasions, weakening imperial authority, struggles among local forces and economic insecurity had destabilised Punjab. Waris Shah was not attached to a royal court capable of insulating him from ordinary suffering. His Heer therefore became more than a reconstruction of an old legend. It preserved Punjab’s speech, customs and collective memory while exposing the institutions through which privilege protected itself. Heer is central to this achievement because she is not a passive beloved. She recognises Ranjha, brings him into her father’s household as a herdsman, arranges opportunities to meet him and openly asserts her choice when the relationship is discovered. She possesses intelligence, desire and moral agency. Her freedom is tolerated only while it remains invisible and does not threaten the authority of the family. The moment Heer chooses her own future, affection turns into surveillance. Her body becomes the bearer of family honour, and marriage becomes the means through which that honour is restored. Heer does not ask permission to feel. She declares a commitment already formed through conscience and love. Her language is especially significant. She does not present Ranjha as an object she wishes to acquire. She has offered her own life and accepted responsibility for that choice. In a society where marriage joins families, properties and status groups, such self-determination is revolutionary. The dispute is not simply between one prospective husband and another. Ranjha represents Heer’s autonomous choice; the Kheras represent the settlement arranged for her by others. Her family treats marriage as a transaction carrying consequences for lineage, reputation and power. Heer insists upon treating it as a union requiring the will of the persons whose lives it determines. میں تاں منگ رنجھیٹے دی ہو چکی اساں منگ درگاہ تھیں لیا رانجھا Main tāṅ mang Ranjheṭe dī ho chukkī Asāṅ mang dargāh thīṅ liyā Rānjhā I have already been pledged to Ranjha; from the divine court itself I received him. اساں جان رانجھیٹے دے پیش کیتی لکھ کھیڑیاں نوں چا گھولدی ہے Asāṅ jān Ranjheṭe de pesh kītī Lakkh Kheṛiāṅ nūṅ chā gholdī hai I have laid my life before Ranjha; I would sacrifice a hundred thousand Kheras for him. This is the political economy hidden within the romance. Property is not limited to land, cattle and wealth. Patriarchal authority extends the idea of ownership to women. A daughter may be cherished as long as she accepts the future selected for her. Once she claims ownership of her own will, love within the family becomes conditional. Research on Heer similarly identifies the family, property, mosque, qazi, feudal hierarchy and ruling elite as interconnected institutions shaped by economic interest. Kaido is the most visible agent of this system, though he should not be dismissed as a solitary villain. He represents social surveillance: the resentful custodian of conformity who observes, reports and converts private happiness into public scandal. Power does not survive through rulers alone. It recruits relatives, neighbours and self-appointed guardians of morality who internalise its prohibitions and enforce them upon others. Kaido’s triumph begins when Heer and Ranjha’s love is no longer treated as a human relationship but as an offence against collective honour. The family then requires an institution capable of turning its demand into a lawful and religious command. The qazi enters at precisely this point. Waris Shah does not attack faith. He exposes the appropriation of faith by those serving property and patriarchy. The qazi is called because parental pressure has failed to secure Heer’s consent. Religious vocabulary is employed to present submission as virtue and resistance as sin. Heer answers him from within the moral tradition he claims to represent. She insists that genuine faith cannot be separated from truth, and that her union with Ranjha possesses a reality no ceremonial decree can erase. The surviving text presents an extended confrontation in which the qazi invokes authority while Heer asserts conscience and consent. Unable to persuade her, institutional power reveals its coercive core. The qazi threatens punishment and demands that she accept the Khera marriage. قاضی بنھ نکاح تے گھت ڈولی نال کھیڑیاں دے دِتی تور میاں Qāzī bannh nikāh te ghat ḍolī Nāl Kheṛiāṅ de dittī tor miyāṅ The qazi bound the marriage and placed her in the palanquin; she was sent away with the Kheras. ہیر کھیڑیاں نال نہ تُرے مولے پیا پِنڈ دے وچ ہے شور میاں Hīr Kheṛiāṅ nāl na ture, maulā piyā Piṇḍ de vich hai shor miyāṅ Heer would not willingly go with the Kheras; an uproar filled the village. کھیڑے گھن کے ہیر نوں رواں ہوئے جویں مال نوں لے وَگے چور میاں Kheṛe ghin ke Hīr nūṅ ravāṅ hoe Jiveṅ māl nūṅ lai vagge chor miyāṅ The Kheras took Heer and moved away, like thieves driving stolen cattle. The comparison is Waris Shah’s own and is among the most revealing images in the poem. The final line strips the ceremony of its respectable appearance. There has been a qazi, a marriage procession, jewellery, property and public

Pakistan’s banking sector is experiencing a fast pace digital transformation, which includes inception of new digital banks as well as digitalization of the banking services, like Raast, Roshan Digital Accounts etc. Nevertheless, this digitalization sometimes causes technology mistakes / errors in the banking systems as well. One such issue, though to a little extent, is the matter of mistakenly credited amounts to the customers’ accounts, due to system glitches. And unluckily, it is rare that the customers, who are beneficiaries of such mistaken credits, ever bother to intimate the banks about it or return the mistakenly credited amounts. The recovery of such amounts is though legally possible, however, since it is civil cause action, falling within the jurisdiction of civil courts, therefore, it becomes cumbersome for the banks to recover such amounts, easily and speedily. Needless to mention that the subject recovery does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Banking Courts and hence, speedy trial / summary procedure trial is not available for this kind of recovery. In addition, it is also difficult in these cases to have the support of the law enforcement agencies, due to some legal framework’s problems. Luckily, a learned Judge of the Lahore High Court Lahore has recently passed a remarkable judgement on the subject matter, which will support the banks, in such matters. The judgement is regarding a case, where a bank’s system mistakenly credited a significant amount to one of its customers, who utilized a major portion of the amount . The bank pursued the customer and he gave a cheque for the amount involved. The cheque was later bounced, due to insufficient funds in the account and the bank then lodged FIR against him under Section 489-F. He was arrested and his bail was refused by the lower Court, against which he approached the High Court. The High Court observed that the amount received by customer was not meant to be utilized by him, but it was to be retained and preserved by him for return back to the bank. The Honourable Court further observed that the customer was supposed and required to inform the sender/bank regarding the error and make arrangements for its return to the owner/bank. Furthermore, the Honourable Court observed that as soon as the customer became in a position to exercise his control over the property, the property stood entrusted to him impliedly, but he instead of returning the same to its owner/bank, withdrew significant amount and embezzled the same, as such offence punishable under Section 406 of PPC was fully attracted against him. This case will become a precedent that if a bank customer receives mistakenly credited amount in his account and utilizes it, then it will be an offence of Breach of Trust, under Section 406 of Pakistan Penal Code. The Judgement is reported as PLJ 2025 Cr. C 797 LHC.