Bhutto & bureaucracy

Bhutto & bureaucracy

·         It is often averred that the bureaucratic apparatus is a neutral instrument which can be bent to any kind of policy. But this neutrality is mythical. The bureaucracy itself is a powerful vested interest, concerned more with its own good than with the good of the public. Address to the nation on August 20, 1973

·          (In) a democratic state where government is popularly elected, with its main aim the improvement of the condition of the common man, the question of exploitation by the state does not arise.

·          No institution in the country has so lowered the quality of our national life as to what is called Naukarshahi. It has done so by imposing a caste system on our society. It has created a class of Brahmins or mandarins, unrivalled in its snobbery and arrogance, insulated from life of the people and incapable of identifying itself with them.

Quote found in W. Eric Gustafson, "Economic Reforms under the Bhutto, Regime," Journal of Asian and African Studies 8 (July/October 1973), p.256.

·          It was Khurshid Hassan Meer committee who tried to change the colonial legacy. Bhutto appointed an in-house government body which was chaired by K.H. Meer, Establishment Minister without Portfolio. This body reviewed the past work of administrative reform commissions and committees along with other materials. It then issued its own report entitled Administrative Reforms Committee Report, 1973.

·          The complicated service structure was modified. Bhutto stressed the need of incorporating specialists into principal decision-making positions - "scientists, engineers, doctors, economists, statisticians." A "people's government cannot condone a system which elevates the generalist above the scientist, the technician, the professional expert, the artist, or the teacher."

·         Bhutto stressed the need of incorporating specialists into principal decision-making positions - "scientists, engineers, doctors, economists, statisticians." A "people's government cannot condone a system which elevates the generalist above the scientist, the technician, the professional expert, the artist, or the teacher."

·          He was not successful, but possibly he did succeed in "bending the steel frame." See S.J. Burki, Pakistan Under Bhutto, 1971-77 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980), p. 100, and Nasir Islam, "Colonial Legacy, Administrative Reform and Politics: Pakistan 1947-1987," Public Administration and Development 9 (1989): 271-85.

·         When Zia came in July 5, 1977  the innovative reforms advanced by the Meer Committee were abandoned.