Is honesty enough?

For most of its history Pakistan has been ruled by relatively honest leaders who were not associated with corruption.

Against the backdrop of allegations of corruption against many leading Pakistani politicians, Imran Khan’s emergence on the political front has generated significant excitement among people who are fed up with corrupt politicians. At last, there is a leader who will do something for Pakistan rather than just fill his own pockets, his supporters claim. There is little doubt that Imran has a clean financial past, even though both sports and philanthropy provide ample opportunities for financial impropriety.

However, it may be worthwhile to delve a bit more deeply into whether Imran would be Pakistan’s first clean leader if his party registers a win in the general elections. In addition, we also need to ponder on the questions of whether a leader’s personal honesty guarantees that he will not harm the country, and whether the most serious problems that Pakistan has faced since 1947 stem from political corruption or not. A quick glance through the annals of Pakistan’s political history reveals that the answer to all these questions is a big no.

Surprising though it may seem in view of popular beliefs to the contrary, for most of its history Pakistan has been ruled by relatively honest leaders who were not associated with major corruption the way leaders of today are. Even more surprising is the fact that most of Pakistan’s biggest problems have occurred under financially untainted leaders, rather than under corrupt ones.

The founding fathers, Ghulam Mohammed, Iskander Mirza, Yahya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf, were all leaders largely untainted by accusations of serious corruption. The sum total of their rule accounts for almost 40 out of Pakistan’s 65 years as an independent nation. However, the founding fathers apart, these leaders still managed to inflict major harm upon the country through their misguided social, economic and political policies. The credit for undermining democracy during the 1950s and sowing the seeds of discontent among the Bengalis goes to Ghulam Mohammed and Iskander Mirza. The responsibility for the 1971 tragedy lies largely with Yahya and Bhutto. The blame for deliberately encouraging violent sectarian groups goes to Zia, while the blame for allowing terrorist groups to flourish in the country after 9/11 goes to Musharraf. The blame for stoking unrest in Balochistan lies with both Bhutto and Musharraf.

In contrast, the leaders most often accused of financial improprieties, i.e., Benazir Bhutto/Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, and to a lesser extent Ayub Khan, have merely ruled for a total of 25 years. Even here, the real damage caused by Ayub stemmed not from his financial improprieties but from his elitist and dictatorial economic and political policies, which stoked unrest among the Bengalis and the Baloch and increased economic inequality within the country. Thus, while corruption by politicians has clearly caused untold harm to Pakistan, the impact of the bad policies of the financially untainted leaders has caused as much, and perhaps, even more damage. As such, while personal honesty is a highly desirable quality in a leader, it is clearly not a guarantee that the leader will not harm the country.

This, of course, does not mean that one should automatically reject an emerging honest politician just because of the bad experiences with other financially untainted leaders in the past. However, it does mean that one should look closely at the proposed policies, pronouncements and worldviews of emerging politicians, rather than focusing on their personal integrity alone. It is here that one starts getting concerned with many of Imran’s pronouncements. His failure to condemn the Taliban unequivocally, his shifting positions on the role of religion in politics, his desire to tackle Pakistan’s educational mess with the help of obscurantist maulvis (as narrated by Pervez Hoodbhoy in his article “Education: The PTI’s false promises won’t help” published in The Express Tribune on February 8) and the shallowness of his policy positions makes one wonder, whether despite his honesty, he would be like the others on the long list of financially untainted leaders who still managed to inflict harm on Pakistan.

Nontheless, this does not mean that one should prefer Zardari or Sharif over Imran, for both of them have perception issues and baggage. It just means that like the other two, Imran is another Pakistani politician who fails to measure up to the task at hand.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2012.