Book launch: Mumtaz Saeed lives on with new book on democracy

The author of ‘Permanent Revolution’ died in the year 2009

KARACHI: ‘You live beyond your life through your book.’ This phrase could not have been more apt than at the Arts Council on Wednesday evening when the late writer, Syed Mumtaz Saeed, was warmly applauded for his book ‘Permanent Revolution — Managing for Deliverable Democracy’.

Saeed, a management expert, was most recognised for his book, ‘Managerial Challenge in the Third World’, which was published in the United States in 1986. He died in the year 2009 and, five years later, his book on democracy is making waves.

The book sheds light on what Pakistan can achieve from democracy and what citizens of developed countries seem to get. It also delves into the scientific and management theory of politics. Better management is what Saeed has termed ‘deliverable democracy’ in his book.



Institute of Business Administration dean Dr Ishrat Hussain recalled how Saeed took whatever criticism that came his way positively, and then drafted the book accordingly.  He explained how the book gives solutions to the failing democracy of Pakistan. “The first and foremost recommendation in this book is to devolve powers from provinces to the local administration,” he said. Only a strong civil service can provide its people with the basic amenities of life, he quoted from the book.

Emphasising on electoral reforms, Ishrat maintained that it should begin with the census. “Delimitation of constituencies, electoral voting machines, devolution of the chief minister’s powers and an independent election commission is the need of our time,” he said.

Ishrat also discouraged one-man-show in political parties. “Who on the earth is going to speak up against the leader, when their political fate is in the hand of that one person,” he pointed out. “Political parties should also devolve powers to take decisions to the grass-root levels.”

Ishrat agreed with Saeed’s claims that access to justice is only limited to one who can pay hefty amounts to the lawyers. He demanded an alternative judiciary that can potentially solve 80 per cent of the pending cases. Ishrat also spoke about the right to information act. According to him, the government of India can no longer hold any document except those pertaining to defence and security. “This act will bring greater transparency,” he said.

Also at the launch was former federal minister for housing, Syed Safwanullah, who chose to speak in Urdu as he felt the crux of the book was about people and democracy. “From Khyber to Sindh, Urdu is the common medium of language, not English,” he said.

When a leader realises that he has done something wrong or that others are thinking better than him, it means the seeds of democracy have been sown, he said, adding that this was the main reason why this book was written.

When researcher Haris Gazdar took to the stage, he posed some questions that he would have asked Saeed had he been alive. There is a concept of management science and politics in this book but it lacks the concept of conflict. “Why did he not cover this aspect?”

Gazdar also wanted to know the reason behind the blockage of political reforms in this country and why is it that dictatorship always found a constituency in the intellectual elite of the society?

After deliberating on Saeed’s personality, Federal Board of Revenue’s former chairperson Shamim Ahmad highlighted two flaws in the book. “John F Kennedy became the president of the United States in 1961 but the book says he became the president in the year 1960,” he pointed out. “In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Antony spoke earlier than Brutus but, in this book, Saeed wrote that Brutus spoke first.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2015.