At the end of the Civil War (1865) in the USA a horde of people descended on the Southern States. They were distinguished by their clothing, accent and the ubiquitous, carryall, travelling bag made of cheap carpet material. This new class of businessmen bought cheap land from the liberated slaves and other landowners and sold it at a much higher price. They carried all their transactions, deeds, bank notes, clothes, and other articles in the same bag. Since they had no roots in the south, they just took their cut, became wealthy and went back. The economy of the South further deteriorated.
Following on a weak monsoon year in 1865, there was a famine in Orissa, India. The staple diet was rice. The Revenue officials made erroneous estimates of rice grain, and its price, and as a result nearly one third of the population, more than a million people died. It was the age of Adam Smith, T. R. Malthus and Charles Darwin. Each in his field advocated to let nature take its own course. Earlier during 1845 to 1849, in the great Irish potato famine, the British government had already decided that no relief was the best relief. More than a million people died. In India most of the population depended on agriculture for survival. In 1866 the Lt. Governor of Bengal was Mr. Cecil Beadon, a civil servant, who had been Home Secretary to the Govt. of India during the War of Independence (1857). On a short visit to Orissa he declared, “Such visitations of providence as these no government can do much either to prevent or alleviate.” A belated attempt was made to import rice, but ironically it was hindered by a heavy monsoon and an apathetic bureaucracy. Later on, a commission of inquiry on the famine reported against him. While Indian were dying in droves, India exported over 200 million pounds of rice to Britain. This was not the last famine in India.
More than a hundred and fifty years later we are facing the same issues. The earlier colonialism was based on theories of mercantilism, and economic domination. Pakistan is now facing a partnership of capitalism and political adventurism; seeking quick and easy returns. The revenue officials are still mismanaging the estimates of quantity and price of grain. Also add the mismanagement of the sugar industry to this lot and we have a rotten mix. The carpetbaggers are preying on the economy. The garb has changed. Now the modern version looks like slick businessmen and bankers carrying brief cases and talking economics, finance and money. If we are looking for reasons of the sugar crisis, follow the money trail to this breed. Answerable to no one, the carpet baggers will vanish, and again we will be left holding the begging bowl.
Dr Ishrat Hussain may have his heart in the right place, but he is looking for answers in the wrong place. Governance improves not by bringing to dock government officials and other minions, but it improves by identifying problems and issues, and either coming up with a new solution or plugging in the gaps. Take for example the sugar crisis. Which of the government laws, structures and institutions were responsible to ensure that the government is not taken for a ride by the sugar mafia? One of several, the Sugar Factories Control Act of 1950 provides authority to the Cane Commissioner, and his staff to inspect the factories and their records. The first line of superintendence is Revenue Officials. They are the starting points for any enquiry into erroneous estimates of production of sugar. It is not fathomable that how the estimate of the government could be so way off, that the governments allowed the export of sugar and caused the price hike. Apparently, the cane commissioners are dependent on the figures given by the mill owners, never having inspected the records themselves. If the Revenue officials are too busy to monitor sugar mills, such a burden could be shifted to another set of officials. The Act of 1950 allows the Cane Commissioner to give one year of imprisonment or a maximum fine of Rs 50,000. This amount would be just peanuts for the sugar mafia dons. Still it would be an interesting study to find how many sugar mills have been fined, and to what amount.
This was the failure that Mr. Ishrat should have addressed. It required a simple departmental enquiry to find out the reasons, and then revitalizing procedures to avoid such a hullabaloo in future. Instead of empathizing with the alienation of the Bureaucracy, Dr Ishrat took up the hatchet. All such efforts are counterproductive and the government of the day should start comprehending this. The political leaders and establishment may say they are on the same page, but officialdom, except for a few politico-bureaucrats, is not even a footnote on that page. The government should create some sort of synergy and avoid giving the opposition opportunities of exploiting the government in a succession of crises