Pakistan Foreign Service: A Service that Was! - Part IV
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

Politicization of a Service that was, intrinsically, designed to be apolitical and above any political fray didn’t happen in isolation, or come alone.

Like adversity striking in tandem with tragedy, it came in a package with Pakistan’s politics crossing its shores to reach alien lands, with all its baggage.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populism—and the equally virulent opposition to it from other parties—soon started spawning foreign chapters of these parties in—of all the places—the Gulf countries. It was ironic for local chapters of Pakistani political parties to sprout in the politics-unfriendly, barren, lands of the Gulf countries, which frowned over participatory governance, or democracy, and where people were given no opportunity to voice their aspirations in the way a democratic polity’s people do with regularity.

Later on, after the overthrow of ZAB and the ascension to power of General Ziaul Haq, his sanctified or tacitly- favored political factions, too, started feeling confident to assert their presence among the Pakistani diaspora in the Gulf countries.

The ‘leaders’ of these ‘local chapters’ of PPP or Muslim League, or Jammat-e-Islami were, mostly, traders or those belonging to semi-skilled category. But they exuded, with elan and exuberance, typical traits of Pakistan’s feudal-infested political culture and tried to throw their weight around. Educated and skilled Pakistani expatriates stayed away from any partaking of Pakistani politics and kept its local ‘luminaries’ at arm’s length.

However, some lateral entrants to PFS, posted to our Missions in the Gulf countries, openly and often unabashedly patronized these—what to me were—’Chaudhris' and accorded them recognition they clearly didn’t deserve. Which posed problems to their apolitical Foreign Service officers of old vintage. Some ‘Chaudhris’ crude in habits and self-absorbed, tried to muscle their way into the sanctum of those officers of a Mission who refused to acknowledge their ‘privileged status.’ I ran into frequent brushes with this lot when I was serving as Counsellor of our Embassy in Kuwait, in the late 1970s.

With the demise of General Ziaul Haq’s era, towards the end of 1980s and the rise of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif as civilian leaders of a democratic Pakistan, overseas chapters of these two political parties—PPP and PML(N)--turned pesky and troublesome to our Missions, especially in the Gulf countries. The rise to power of one or the other leading political parties swayed the heads of some local ‘Chaudhris’ that they had acquired the right to represent Pakistan, and not the Ambassador or the Embassy staff. Easy access to power brokers of these parties, in Pakistan, lent its own weightage to the ‘pretender’s’ claim that they were the real ‘people’ to carry the flag of Pakistan.

One such character, in Kuwait, while I was ambassador there, on the heels of the First Gulf War, of 1991, had the gall to walk into the office of one of my junior officers and hector him to ensure that a copy of every report the officer wrote should be shown to him, too. The young officer, on his first diplomatic assignment overseas, reported this to me. He was visibly shaken by the experience. I directed him to ask the gentleman to see me.

The ‘Chaudhry’, thinking that he’d hit the bull’s eye, swaggered into my office the next day, expecting to be received as an equal. Instead, I summoned the officer concerned to my office and in front of him asked the Chaudhry to repeat what he had asked of the officer. He did, proudly. His arrogance forced me to be blunt with him. I told him that if he ever again accosted any of my staff, it would be his last day in Kuwait. I wouldn’t hesitate to cancel his passport and ask the local government to deport him. That was the last he ever tried to bamboozle my staff.

But the problem didn’t end there or then. It wasn’t supposed to, given the new face of our meandering politics in Pakistan, and especially with its degeneration into a no-holds-barred game of thrones, or a spectacle sport of gladiators jousting for one-upmanship.

Patronage of such rogue elements was readily available from both jaded and novice politicos in Pakistan.

It was a two-way traffic. ‘Chaudhris’ plied to Pakistan bearing expensive presents for their mentor. In return, the mentor would invariably try to lean on a Pakistan Embassy or Consulate to cater to outrageous demands of their party’s local tribune. Lateral entrants obliged such elements, even by going out of the way. But it would often lead to embarrassing situations when a PFS pundit refused to succumb to pressure.

When an Embassy official, or even ambassador, resisted outrageous or untenable demands, a handy recourse for a ‘Chaudhry’ was character-assassination of the officer concerned. Pakistani newspapers and journals were all too obliging to print letters against Embassies, ambassadors and other officers and staff. The first stone cast against them, the burden of proving their innocence was on embassies and ambassadors.

With wholesale corruption, plunder and loot becoming hallmarks of Pakistani politics, Pakistan Foreign Service, too, has absorbed in its matrix these elements and totems of shame. Career diplomats have ceased to be paragons of nobility and virtue that was hallmark of the Service they belonged to in the yore. In retirement, I often hear well-meaning friends bemoaning the decline in the quality of our diplomats. Not that they wish to compliment me or my generation of Pakistani diplomats, they can’t help comparing the present lot of our young diplomats with our generation, and then grouse that good old days seem to have been lost for good.

I don’t contest their worldview of the decline and fall of the standard of our once glorious Service. But, in response, I insist that they don’t overlook the degeneration of all former Superior Services of Pakistan. Successive governments—both military and civilian regimes since the end of the Zia-era—have treated bureaucrats as their personal or domestic servants and expecting them to carry every whimsical demand with total obedience and without any demur. Look how the macabre tale of what’s remembered, in our nation’s history, as the ‘Letter Gate’ fully exposed the cancer of corruption taking hold of our diplomatic representation in even sophisticated world capitals.

The only way to stem the rot, and to revive the lost legacy of what used to be the gold-standard diplomatic service of Pakistan, is to insulate the once coveted Foreign Service from all other civil services of Pakistan. Why? Because by its nature and pristine quality, diplomatic service of a country should be a domain of dedicated and skilled professionals impervious to political shenanigans.

A new template, a new paradigm, of Foreign Service ought to be wrought.

This can only be done by holding a separate Entrance Examination to Foreign Service and selecting successful candidates ONLY on MERIT. It may be first of its kind in Pakistan but is standard practice in most countries of the world.

The existing quota system of recruitment has a great deal to do with the noticeable decline in the quality of officers recruited. Besides other ills, it opens the doors to incompetent candidates to enter the Foreign Service merely on the strength of geography and not merit or caliber.

Similarly, careful attention be paid to the process of nurturing the new recruits. They should be trained in a separate academy or institute, staffed with men of letters and retired ambassadors.

Another innovation—of mid-career training—needs to be injected into the career path of Foreign Service officers. It’s a standard practice, especially in Western countries, to send their diplomatic officers—after a service input of 10 to 12 years—back to a university for at least one, or two, semester of refresher courses in International Relations and Economics, the two pillars of a state in our modern world. Such a refresher stint in a university brings a diplomatic officer at par with prevailing global trends in these, key, fields of inter-state relations.

To cut a long story short, you need two basic ingredients to harness a good and bounteous crop: a fertile land and good seeds. Both these basic requirements are currently too conspicuous by their absence. Only the right blending and mixing of recruitment and training may help in imparting the quality of Service that once was the pride of Pakistan.

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)

K_K_ghori@hotmail.com