Dr Ishrat's book launched

"Governing the Ungovernable: Institutional Reforms for Democratic Governance," authored by Dr Ishrat Hussain was launched at the ninth Karachi Literature Festival at a local hotel on Saturday. The book highlights economic and political problems of the country and recommends solutions to reform the key serving institutions. The author urged the three top political parties including PPP, PML-N and PTI to implement the recommendations, which he said, will benefit them eventually.
A panel of three including two from India, political figure, Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Dr Y. Venugopal Reddy and book author, Dr Ishrat Hussain, who is also the former Governor of State Bank of Pakistan. President UBL, Sima Kamil moderated the discussion on book. Debating the book, economic-cum-political experts believed the political system, which should be strengthened, to empower the ungovernable class of the society. They also gave an example of India's 'Panchayati Raj' that conceived by former premier, late Rajiv Gandhi that helped elect the ignored segment to govern itself.
All experts were unanimous on decentralization of power to grassroots level of the society, which will not only strengthen political but also economic system of any country. Dr Ishrat on his book said that Pakistan went through a different phases with different challenges including its existentialism from 1947 until 1990. He said that war of 1965 and 1971 with India had hurt the country's process of economic growth. However, he stressed on former premier, late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's policy of nationalization that enshrined education, banking and industrial sector that pulled down the flight of economic rise. The Afghan war of 1979, he said, brought Islamic fundamentalism, gun-culture and drugs to Pakistan. After 1990 until 2015, he pointed out; Pakistan has been laggard, as India and Bangladesh were the spurred economies.
Comparing the present day economic situation of Pakistan other countries, Dr Ishrat also gave example of Bangladesh's textile export of $36 billion, which much higher than that of country's total $21 billion. He said that Pakistan's economy is faced with several challenges amid tension with the US and India, terrorism and Islamic extremism.
He said that the country's more economic growth occurred in military rules with 'generosities' from abroad. He also accepted the perception that Pakistan is a garrison state, saying that the higher spending on security and less on sectors like education and other civil services. He said that the book offers recommendations to reform the country's political and economic structures mainly Election Commission, Auditor General of Pakistan etc.
The recommendations applied on State Bank of Pakistan and Institute of Business Administration, which yielded results. He assured that the reforms will not hurt any political parties' interest, rather will pay back to the political system. He urged the leading political parties to see these recommendations above partisan in their implementation process.
Mani Shankar said that India introduced a three-tier Panchayati Raj to decentralize the power to the areas fell ignored in the mainstream political system. He said that Panchayati Raj has evolved 250,000 institutions of self-governance in India. The system helped elect elected 3.2 million representatives of which 1.4 million were women that shows more in the grassroots governance in India than entire world's representations.
Some 86,000 women run their institutions. He said that the system now ensures more benefits to the lower caste people. The system also helped decentralization of power with empowering the ungovernable segment. He also gave an example of development through such a system in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra etc. He however called the Uttar Pradesh worst developed state. He said that people are 'entirely' capable to govern themselves.
Dr Y. V. Reddy appreciated Dr Ishtar Hussain for his book and sought support from him to write one on India on same lines. He said that book has two different aspects: The first is very light talks about infrastructure issues with a back-up by research and analysis. The second one deals with the key problems of mis-governance. He said that the author is critical about present state of the country but hopeful about its future.
About the book, he said that it should be discussed on the streets of Pakistan. He also requested that the book should be translated into Urdu, Punjabi and other languages to help common men read it. He said that there is no absolute system in any country of the world without mis-governance. He also said that the other intuitions should be strengthened without weakening the army.
He also explained the India's political and economic development through reforms. He said that the political issues are always more complicated than those of economy. "Political management is more difficult," Dr Y. V. Reddy said, adding that until 1990, there was debate on left, right, communisms and socialism. However, now, people talk about economic development models in India, as which state is growing. He said that there is more important to strengthen the political system.
On the sidelines, the seventh UBL Literary Awards ceremony was held to give awards to books in different categories include: English Nonfiction: 'Pathways' by Javed Jabbar; English Children Literature 'Our Room' by Fahmida Riaz; Urdu Poetry: ' Yeh Mah-o-Saal Yeh Umrain' by Farrukh Yar and 'Kulyaat Rehman Faraz' by Professor Wasim Abbas; Translation in Urdu: 'Nobel InamYafta Adeebaon Ki Muntakhib Kahaniyan' by Najamuddin Ahmed; Urdu Children Literature: 'Hai Mera Kan Katta' by Altaf Fatima; Urdu Nonfiction: "Urdu may Tariqi Pasand Thareek Ka Tanqidi Mutaala' by Dr Ambareen Haseeb Amber and Urdu Fiction: 'Bhujaraten Nigarkhany ki; by Sami Ahuja.