The Essence of Civil Service
With the dawn of agriculture, the social units grew bigger than small tribal clans, and the division of labor among the people of such groups also grew more pronounced. Society became more complex, and a need was felt for administrators who could manage all the different sections of a population to ensure the smooth governance of a state. Initially, this task required no great acumen, but as kingdoms grew failures of administration could be deadly resulting in supply shortages or severe mismanagement of the state treasury. Hence a need was felt for capable persons who could handle the various aspects of governance in a suitable manner. But on this last quality, no great progress could be made in most parts of the world till roughly a little over 200 years ago.
In Muslim lands, after a brief meritocratic system, the policy of patronage reigned supreme. The same system, interspersed with some feudal elements, was followed in the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, the kingdoms of Africa, and even in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus on its shores. Naturally, this system, with the passage of time, ate the administration from the inside and we see an endless series of collapsed dynasties and states due to maladministration and misgovernance in those lands.
However, in China, about 2000 years ago, a very different system arose to combat the evils of decentralization, inefficiency, and corruption in governance inherent in all the other systems of administration discussed above. This was the system of selection and appointment of government officials or bureaucrats by means of a meritocratic examination, where all, rich or poor, had a chance to serve the nation. The question here was, what should the criteria be for such a selection? What qualities should be inherent in an appointee that would enable him (not yet her) to govern with a fair degree of efficiency and adequacy? The answer the Chinese found was in the teachings of the sages and history, which thereafter became the standard syllabus for all who wished to sit in an attempt to clear the Imperial examinations. That system brought about feelings of solidarity and the beginnings of rudimentary nationalism among the Chinese people and allowed their civilization to flourish unbroken from that point on till the present day, despite the change of dynasties and occasional fragmentation of the country. The famous Chinese proverb, "What is divided for long shall unite; what is united for long shall divide" regarding their country attests to this feeling of identification with their land and history that is unparalleled in the world before the modern era. It is also significant that the core Chinese provinces of today with the most population and a Han ethnicity remain the same as they were 2000 years ago.
In fact, the system was so good, that the British East India Company, in their interaction with the Chinese delightfully copied it into their own mercantile administration. With the assumption of increasing political power by that company, it introduced the system to its civil administrators in India, and from there the system spread to Europe and America in the mid-1800s, replacing the prevalent system of patronage and commission-purchasing that was found to be grossly inefficient by contrast. Here too, in implementing and adapting the system to the European way of governance, the emphasis was laid on the mastery of classics and history as the chief criteria for selection. This system has lasted, for the most part, till recent times, and has had such a powerful influence that besides sustaining the political domination of the West on the world, it now defines the very meaning of sound governance and administrative best practices across the globe.
But why pick these two subjects, the classics, and history, for the selection of civil servants? What benefit did they entail in the administration of a country, and what was their relevance with the latter? It comes down to the correlation between the very nature of the subjects involved and the duties of an administrator. Ask around (or just Google) the reason why someone would pursue a degree in one of these subjects when the current job market clearly does not require such graduates to take junior positions in an increasingly IT-dominated world. The consistent reason you would find is that it helps a person grow intellectually and have a better grasp on things. They, therefore, create excellent generalists out of people. So, while such majors might not be of much help in grabbing those entry-level jobs, they are a part and parcel of almost every mid-career and senior management course in almost every bureaucracy in the world.
The reason for this long tirade is fairly simple. It is to make clear what the rationale for the civil services has been, and by that same measure, what type of individuals should constitute it. It should be the people who have a sound grasp of the two subjects mentioned above, whatever their academic background otherwise might be. And sadly, Pakistan has all but abandoned this principle.
Pakistan inherited from the British in 1947 a part of one of the finest bureaucratic machines on the globe, the Indian Civil Service, the first civil service introduced to the European model of governance after importing it from the Chinese and adapting it to suit modern times. It became the Central Superior Services or the Civil Service of Pakistan of today. This bureaucracy acted as a "steel frame" and helped Pakistan weather some of the most turbulent periods of its history. It also presided over periods of incredible economic growth. It was the job of politicians to keep it from corruption by providing it an enabling atmosphere through the legislature. Yet, due to sheer politicization and meddling, it grew inefficient, as do all systems where meritocracy is subsumed by a system of patronage and favoritism. The consistent rant against corruption in bureaucracy has, therefore, more to do with undermining its meritocratic nature than with the inefficiency of its personnel.
Pakistan also inherited an insecure position upon Independence from British Rule due to weak governmental infrastructure and a hostile neighborhood, especially India. Thus all her energies were consumed for the sake of the survival of the state, to the detriment of political, economic, and social reforms. She pursued, in other words, a policy where Geo-Strategic interests reigned supreme above all other interests. So while it certainly secured the state (in large part) from external threats and ended up creating one of the most formidable defense establishments in the region, it naturally led to political, economic, and social weakness in later times, with devastating consequences as we see today. The solution that the country's intelligentsia came up with was a shift from Geo-Strategy to Geo-Economics, as elucidated in the National Security Policy 2022-2026, but in actuality implemented much earlier. While on a larger scale, this is a much-needed change of attitude, its treatment of the question of Civil Service Reforms leaves much to be desired and may prove quite counterproductive.As a part of the reforms, the focus of aspirants to the Civil Services of Pakistan was henceforth to be on the Economy, not History or the Classics and Literature. They were to show a mastery of the former subject to be considered for appointment, and the syllabus and examination requirements were adjusted accordingly in 2016. It is now no longer sufficient to have a grasp on the human side of things, as the traditional subjects teach us. Success in these examinations requires aspirants to be economists in true letter and spirit. It was hoped that such inductees would have a sharper understanding of Pakistan's economic woes and better steer the country out of such crises in the future when they attain important posts in the bureaucracy. But just as moving to the West to reach a nearby destination in the East is fallacious, so is this approach.
While the world has certainly changed the way induction into any service is done, including the Civil Services, with an increasing trend towards specialization, this absolute replacement of the focus from Humanities to Economics would prove to be a sordid blunder. Instead of complementing Humanities with a service specialization, as the world is doing, the whole mantle has been shifted to Economists in Pakistan. All this would achieve is a cohort of bureaucrats with a keen grasp of the economic conditions of their country at the time of their induction into the Civil Service of Pakistan, but which would have no bearing in the different circumstances with which they will have to deal with when they assume senior positions in the government. And, being no generalists by design, they will perform, on the whole, poorly, lacking that peculiar touch that History and the Classics provide in the field of governance.Governance involves making and implementing policies keeping in mind what people can be capable of and their aspirations and attitudes. History teaches us the former, while the Classics teach us the latter. Economics teaches us neither, just as Information Technology, Medicine, or Industry can't teach us these things. The latter can certainly complement governance, but can never supplant it. History and Classics are governance, and can never be separated from it.
NAVIGATION