73 years of dependence

On 14^th August, we jubilantly celebrated 73 years of our independence. Liberty and freedom are basic aspirations of societies and that is why nations take pride in their independence, rejoicing the moment when they were given a home to exercise their choices freely.

Interestingly however, all 190+ countries claim to be independent. Does that mean that citizens of Syria, North Korea and Yemen are as independent as the ones from Canada, Australia and Norway? If not, then what do freedom and independence truly mean?

I have recently been reading The Narrow Corridor by Acemoglu and Robinson. The authors have argued that freedom is about people being able to make free choices about their lives and having the means to carry them out. Threats to life and property can influence one’s actions and therefore restrain one’s liberty and freedom through violence or intimidation.

By this definition, how independent are we in Pakistan?

Can we securely hold property? I remember selling our inherited family house in Lahore many years ago. The relevant officials wanted me to grease their palms. I resisted and tried pulling a few strings. I was told that my property file had been misplaced and there was no record available for our property. Ultimately, I was coerced into giving money. It’s nothing unusual and in fact a part of our everyday lives.

Can we rely on courts to uphold our rights? Probably not, especially not if we are in a hurry! In 2018, the Supreme Court resolved a land dispute case, originally filed in 1918, taking a good 100 years. That may be an exception, but World Bank’s Doing Business indicators reveal that on average it takes about three years and about 20% of the claim value to resolve a commercial dispute, only in the court of first instance. Appeals can then drag on for years.

Even our entrepreneurs and businessmen cannot run their businesses freely without extortion. I remember the owner of a popular fast food joint telling me that he had to spend all his day dealing with umpteen government agencies, all in the business of rent-seeking. Citizens and businesses, it turns out, aren’t really independent.

But what about our government?

Let’s look at economic policymaking. Since 1958, Pakistan has availed 22 IMF programmes — one programme every three years. Pakistan’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 93%. More often than not, we are chasing targets set by the lenders rather than pursuing our own economic goals.

Let’s look at our budget. Last year, the federal government collected a net revenue of Rs3.1 trillion. By the time the government paid the mark-up on its debt and disposed of its salary and pension liabilities, it was already short of Rs500 billion. What space was the government then left with to make independent economic decisions? Poor economic decision-making over the decades has left us with little economic freedom.

No wonder that the Economic Freedom Index, created by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal, assigned Pakistan a rank of 135 amongst 180 countries in 2020, with a score much lower than the regional average. Within the index, Pakistan did extremely poorly on government integrity, property rights, judicial effectiveness, fiscal health and labour and financial freedom.

If individuals and businesses are not free to own and control their labour, capital and goods without excessive intervention by state institutions, if our economic policymaking is dictated by lenders, and if we cannot keep our citizens safe from corruption, coercion and intimidation, then what exactly are we celebrating?

Jinnah got us a home 73 years ago. But ever since, we have done nothing but give up our liberty bit by bit, through bad decisions and poor choices. While we celebrate our independence, it is also time for introspection on how independent we truly are.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2020.

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