Diary of a bureaucrat: Lessons for those who want to revisit Old narrative in Pakistan

Diary of a bureaucrat

 Lessons for those who want to revisit Old narrative in Pakistan

Munier lives in Lhore yet he served in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), NWFP(now KPK), Baluchistan, Sindh. He learned their languages and culture too. Moving in the corridors of Power give the book a fresh look of the past. Either you agrees with Munier or not but his narrative will help you to understand what our policy makers had in mind and to whom they were following. Who was calling the shorts in 1971, 1979 and post Geneva Accord. How military dictators used weapon of decentralization for over centralization smartly. Sarwat Ali tries to understand it from the eyes of civil bureaucracy so it may help to resolve riddles of Civil military conflict too. Let us read what Sarwat said about Punjabi speaking Syed regarding his book.

Diary of a bureaucrat

For further readings and extracts you may click at

A Civil Servant’s Personal History of Pakistan. A New Book

Syed Munir Husain occupied some of the most important posts during his tenure as a civil servant. Despite all the disillusionments, he considered himself lucky that he was able to serve the full length of his service rather than being dismissed like many of his senior colleagues who weren’t even given an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges levelled against them.

Those senior civil servants included some from the ICS days (Indian Civil Service) and many in the following two successive purges, one launched by Yahya Khan and the other by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB). In line with the accounts of most civil servants, the removal of the constitutional guarantees made them subservient to whosoever was in power. They could be removed and sent home without following the formal procedures mandatory under the service rules, thus not even meeting the minimum demands of justice.

Over 35 odd years of his career, in times which were rather turbulent and unpredictable, he saw the CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) cut down to size by the actions of the political governments and its gradual deterioration. Among the many posts that he held, some were in the most crucial periods of the nation’s history — Secretary Information, West Pakistan during the 1965 war, Administrator and Chief Commissioner to oversee the merger of Swat Chitral, Dir States during Yahya Khan’s Martial Law, Managing Director of Pakistan Television during the 1971 war, Chief Secretary Balochistan when ZAB dismissed the elected governments initiating reforms at the top.

The grievances were accumulating within East Pakistan: the language issue, the lack of greater links between the people of two wings because of Indian landmass, the poorer economic conditions of the eastern wing compared to the western, lack of representation in the higher civil administration, the 1965 war which made the Bengalis feel abandoned, and the one-man-one-vote expectation that if they won the election they would form the government, and finally the role of India.

The army never expected one party to win with such majority. So for the endgame in East Pakistan, he lays no blame on the bureaucracy; rather all the responsibility is stocked at the door of the armed forces and its leader who was also the president of the country. He alleges that the top brass took all the decisions without involving the bureaucracy in the decision-making process. Thus he hasn’t dwelt on the share of the blame of the executing agencies in every such decision that may have been made elsewhere but was executed by the government departments through its civil servants.

Reading the account of Munir Husain, one is taken aback by the thrust of the narrative that does not allow for the responsibility to be shared or fixed in the holding of a post. It reads like the accounts of many others who have forwarded the argument that they were not the source of power or authority but were only obeying orders. It is strange that people in the highest of positions do not question where the orders are coming from, who is issuing them and who is really in control. It is only the execution of orders that seems to be their concern.

For example, as Managing Director of PTV in 1971 right through, he does not admit or explain the misreporting and disinformation on the progress of war. Not until the surrender, those viewing PTV were confident that the armed forces were winning or at least holding out in the war in the eastern wing.

He is all praise for those employees who worked till the very end carrying out orders so to say but does not focus on those who were in-charge of this disinformation and whether they were held responsible or was any action taken against them. It all remains unexplained. From the point of view of West Pakistanis, in retrospect, the role of some of the personnel working in the Dacca Station was valiant because they defied all the odds and dangers to continue towing the official line.

Roedad Khan who, at that time, was secretary information and by virtue of his office the chairman of Pakistan Television Corporation all the time feigns that he did not know what was shaping up, being rudely woken up to some turn of events that were contrary to the official narrative. The sudden news of surrender shocked people more than if they had been informed gradually of the reality on ground. It was contrary to the norms of reporting, on truthfulness, on what was happening rather than putting a spin on it.

Similarly, Munir Husain is very critical of the sudden change made in the local government system and its relationship with the district administration. He is of the view that the district government should rest with the government officials rather than the elected nazims because it meant greater impartiality. And if there had to be a transition, it should have been gradual with the elected persons being eased into the system rather than being landed with the huge responsibility for which they were not prepared.

The blame lay with President Musharraf whose intention was not to streamline the administrative machinery but to consolidate his own hold on power. Instead of carrying out the reforms that he had announced to their logical end, he went about creating his own constituency and a power base.

Munir Husain strongly advocates that the civil servants should form an effective trade union body to fight for their rights, especially the constitutional safeguards that could make them act independently rather than cower down to the whims of whosoever was in power.

For an execution of an independent policy, it is essential for the civil services to fight for their own space. He has seen the erosion of integrity and lowering of commitment among the civil servants in the country. This steady decline in the quality of public administration could in the end be a big obstacle in building a modern civilised state structure.

 (The book is available at Readings Lahore)

Surviving the Wreck (Memoirs)
Author: Syed Munir Husain
Publisher: ILQA Publications Lahore, 2015
Pages: 286
Price: Rs995/