In Pursuit of an Ethical State

The book “In Pursuit of an Ethical State” is written by Dr Syed Kaleem Imam, a former Federal Secretary and an Inspector General of Police. It is a compelling and insightful exploration of the current status of Pakistan while reflecting on the reasons that have brought the country to its present standing; it also explores the ways and means to get out of this morass. Though the writer chose to sub-caption the book as “Reflections of a Police Chief”, the scope of content goes far beyond the investigative story-telling by a typical Police Chief’s memoirs. It’s more of a narrative of a statesman about a plan of action to rescue a slow performing state.
The content is comprehensively multidisciplinary, reflecting on almost all the significant issues confronting today’s Pakistan. The book spotlights internal as well as external challenges. While summarily surfing through the external environment impacting the country, the text thoroughly reflects on the internal security issues, offering tenable solutions for major difficulties. The diversity of subjects makes it a wholesome treatise on Pakistan’s national security in general and internal security in particular.
The author’s writing style is splendid, unambiguous, assertive, and professional. He addresses complex and delicate topics like political chaos, dwindling economy, delayed justice, selective policing, corruption, resurgent terrorism, ethnic strife, blasphemy, and the like, with comfort and pragmatism. He traces back the origin of each issue, investigates the causes, reflects on factors sustaining these problems, and recommends a doable strategy to eradicate the issue, and if that is not possible, then prescribes a tenable roadmap for mitigating its negative impact(s).
Dr Imam holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations, and an LLM in Human Rights from SOAS University, London. His policing career fetched him extensive national and international exposure in diverse spheres of law and order, peacekeeping, governance and policy-making for the national counter-terrorism campaigns. His in-country assignments include Inspector General of Police in Sindh, Punjab, and Islamabad. His assignment as the Federal Secretary Narcotics Division gave him an in-depth understanding of the substance and nuance of trafficking.
On a global canvas, Dr Imam was Pakistan’s first Police Commissioner for the United Nations African Union mission in Darfur. His services have been duly acknowledged at national and international levels. The book is an integrated, rational, and objective masterpiece by a seasoned and professional officer, very ably usable for identifying the country’s fault lines, strategizing and recommending solutions.
The book envisions an “Ethical State” as a rather utopian discourse where safe and just futures guide the polity and the political leadership. His concept of an Ethical State is not theocratic but a progressive democratic model state — capable of fusing all challenges squarely and emerging gloriously from crisis after crisis. He sharpens Pakistan’s existing portrait on canvas and ventures repaints it to undo the distortions, which have crept in vis-a-vis the founding fathers’ collective vision. He strives to maintain an intricate balance by keeping the issues contemporary yet classical, ordinary yet grand against slipping into an apocalyptic mindset.
Dr Imam wishes the change to take place by reforming the mindset, through evolutionary corrective measures. He is of the view that all the issues facing today’s Pakistan are well known to all and sundry, and so are their solutions. What we lack is the collective will — both societal and political. He chips in personal wisdom and experiences. He reasons why during his Pakistan only what he has seen happening elsewhere in the world — even-handed policing, speedy dispensation of justice, and fair play in the day-to-day business of the state. He despises extra-judicial actions by police patronage of trafficking, ethno-sectarian hatred, elite capture and rampant corruption economy etc.
At the macro level, Dr Imam accurately pinpoints terrorism, a weak economy, political instability, and communal fissure as areas of immediate concern. He takes a deeper dive into each of these domains to identify pertinent causative factors like how our flourishing informal economy is constricting functional space for the formal economy. He then prescribes tenable preventive and corrective measures to arrest and reverse the abyss.
Given Dr Kaleem’s policing background, the subject of substantive Police reforms is very close to his heart. He refers to contemporary national and international best practices to evolve a Pakistan specific policing model. He recommends adoption of well tried out ‘Community Policing’ and ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’ models. He expects that these measures are likely to bring phenomenal change in the public perceptions and peoples’ attitude towards law-abiding.
The author’s concept for transforming Pakistan into an ‘ethical state’ stands for itself because of the pragmatism imbibed in the style and tempo of his recommended construct. The very idea of text book ‘Ethical State’ is a rough ride, as a typical contemporary state generally takes the trajectory of realism to survive and thrive, and the ethical aspect of statecraft takes a back seat.
Being mindful of the pitfalls of a text-book ethical state of the medieval era, Dr Kaleem proposes the concept of a somewhat diluted “Ethical State”, the one closer to the contemporary notion of a ‘welfare state’ in which the government focuses on achieving a high standard of human development through people-centric policies alongside the creation of effective social security mechanisms. To achieve the objective of an ethical state, he emphasises the provision of a conducive enabling environment for all through fair play. He also urges shedding away the status quo mindset and embracing an approach of innovative thinking and proactive performance.
In a fascinating historiographer-biographer tempo and tone, the author takes his readers on a 74-year guided whirlpool tour of the State of Pakistan’s functional lifecycle. He recounts the glimpses of enthusiasm of the era immediately after the independence when everyone wanted to move forward in search of excellence for themselves and the State of Pakistan. He is at pains to point out that this spell was short-lived, and soon a downslide began. The book explicitly lays bare what Pakistan is, what it is not, and how it tail-spinned into its current abysmal state.
During his voyage of despair and hope, the writer remains optimistic. As an ardent pathfinder for Pakistan’s bright future, he projects it as a strong self-sustaining state enjoying respect amongst a comity of nations and serving its people. Above all, the author presents tenable solutions for mitigating the impact of major challenges. While acknowledging the magnitude of the crisis, the country has just been through, the writer sees light at the end of the tunnel. His hope is grounded in his profound confidence in the nation’s unbound resilience, especially reflected in the popular sentiment to overcome prevalent challenges like terrorist attacks, a weak economy, and political uncertainty. Despite the daunting circumstances, the author does not leave his reader in a lurch, and points toward the silver lining over the horizon.
In general, the book outlines a contour regarding the future format of the state, society and the government of Pakistan based on justice, fair play and tolerance. This pursuit is certainly in line with the collective vision of the nation’s founding fathers. At a time when national cohesion is not at its optimum level, the book fills in the motivational void to strengthen the feeler regarding the necessity of ‘unity’ amongst the people. The book emphatically lays down a comprehensive plan of action to re-rail the nation’s journey back to the track wished-for by those who struggled for the creation of a new country so that people of Pakistan could ordain their lives in consonance with contemporary practices of a typical modern, democratic, prosperous and forward looking polity. The book is recommended as a national security primer for all mid-career officers of the armed forces and civil services.