(This column was received in the office of Pakistan Link one day before the army take over. Although overtaken by the events, the Link is carrying it as it portrays the shape of thing at the end of Nawaz regime.)

The current sorry state of Pakistan's economy is undeniably the result of the thoroughly self-serving, corrupt and unimaginative policies pursued for more than a decade by the governments of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Even earlier, for twelve long years, Gen. Zia concentrated on the war in Afghanistan unconcerned with its economic and social costs to the country. Islamic resurgence was the objective presented by him and his mentors in the US to the Afghan freedom fighters and their cohorts in Pakistan and other Islamic countries. It is not surprising therefore that a specter of reaction is haunting now Afghanistan with its murky shadow on Pakistan.

The Soviet Union lost the war but Pakistan too came out of it badly mauled by Klashnikov culture, heroin and all its attendant evils particularly crime and easy money, a farewell to books and an informal, parallel economy pushing back the formal. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent end of the cold war and the beginning of a new world order, called for an immediate reappraisal of the country's economy and its adjustment to the changed environ. But, corruption and cronyism substituted meticulous planning and vigorous implementation.

Both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif ignored the dictates of the new world order which laid emphasis on non-traditional factors like the reach of democracy in the society, religious freedom and tolerance, human rights, market-based economic infrastructure, volume of trade and above all human development.

While Pakistan had remained, throughout the cold war, the most allied ally of the US, India had developed close relations with the Soviet Union culminating in the Soviet-Indian Friendship Treaty of 1971 which pledged "mutual support against US and China". The collapse of the Soviet Union therefore placed taller demands of adjustment on India. It goes to the credit of Indian leadership that it lost no time in changing tracks. Discarding its centrally planned and controlled socialist economy, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh opened up the country's economic boundaries. India has not looked back since. In 1997 India's trade with the US came to about $11 billion -twice the amount of what it was only five years earlier. The US Commerce Dept. now encourages US companies to invest in the second largest market in the world. US companies account for almost half of all foreign investment in India.

While India has changed tracks and is flowing with the current, Pakistan is either resisting change, pulling backwards or practicing adhocism of a directionless society of yesterday with little concern for tomorrow. The lawlessness and the aura of crime not only repelled potential investors, it made the existing foreign investment to wind up and go to some other land. For instance, Gillettee has already shut down its establishment in Pakistan, and the Bank of America is pulling out. Who cares? Did any body think twice before freezing the foreign exchange accounts, which has badly scared off potential investors both foreign and domestic

Benazir expended efforts on feathering her own nest, Nawaz Sharif pursued the same objective indirectly by entering into deals for building a motorway, an airport, or squeezing banks of funds for yellow taxis. Meanwhile, thousands of schools had to shut down for want of funds and thousands of others became ghost schools whose allocations were eaten up by lower level political and other functionaries.

Education was his top priority, claimed repeatedly Nawaz Sharif, but the priority never found an expression in practical terms. Both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif have turned a vast segment of society into illiterate young men/women good for not even semi-skilled jobs. For want of regular schools, their parents sent them to religious schools and seminaries. Many of these so-called "madaris" have been producing reactionary mullahs with outlandish ideas about society instilled in them by their obscurantist teachers. Their heads are turned so backward that it is their conviction that the ideal of modern society is to go back to the period (32 years) of the first four caliphs, that too more in form than in spirit. In response to religious extremism, Pakistan's current confused leadership has elected to walk backwards and to blame outsiders for the fall out of their own antics. Religious leaders are the most vocal among the opposition.

Nations are made or marred by their institutions. Nawaz Sheriff's lust for power has led him to domesticate the parliament and emasculate the judiciary, the Presidency, the bureaucracy, and the press. He has sacked two army two army chiefs and is currently engaged in a battle of wits with the third.

While India's reform program is internally driven, Pakistan's is imposed from outside; it is being steered by the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions normally render advice but in the case of Pakistan they have had to resort to arm twisting as the recalcitrant leaders are pulling backwards. Neither the unproductive expenditure, including the big chunk on defense, is being reduced, nor are additional revenues being generated by enhancing tax collection. Pakistan is today a society of tax dodgers. The inspiration for this has come, in no small measure, from the top. Bulk of the taxes –almost all indirect- are paid by the poor. Only some of the rich pay direct taxes; the richest pay almost no tax. For fiscal 1998, Nawaz Sharif is reported by the opposition to have paid a meager sum of Rs.770 as income tax. He has not denied this. The gap between revenue and expenditure has been widening. The back of the poor is already bent to the breaking point.

The economy cannot for long survive on the IMF and World Bank doles. To come out of this tailspin, the leadership will have to give up its proclivity for oligarchy, the dictatorship of a family and its kitchen cabinet, and let policies be decided by the democratic norm of open debate and discussion. It has to come clean with the people and give up the game of hide and seek. The forums are there but there is hardly any discussion there on major policy issues. It is a democratically elected government with a "heavy mandate" but only in form; it is a perverted dictatorship in practice.