Jinnah's Vision: The Road to Government by Competence
Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Father of the Nation, left behind a legacy that continues to illuminate Pakistan's path through the darkest of times. Among his most treasured documents is a brief handwritten reflection on our constitutional future, a testament to his foresight that still speaks directly to our present struggles. In it, he recorded his reservations regarding parliamentary government and described the presidential form as more suited to Pakistan.
Nearly eight decades later, this question has returned to the heart of national discourse. Not as a call for authoritarian rule, but as a search for a democracy capable of delivering competent government. Our chronic shortage of foreign exchange, mounting indebtedness, inadequate exports, poverty, and corruption are not isolated ailments; they are manifestations of a deeper defect. We have failed to create a political order where knowledge, integrity, professional excellence, and measurable results determine who governs.
What Was Jinnah's Vision for Pakistan?
Jinnah's speeches offer an extraordinary guide to what Pakistan should become. Though he never issued a formally numbered manifesto, ten important principles emerge repeatedly from his words. Government must exist for the welfare of the people with women's rights guaranteed. Special attention must be given to the poor. Corruption and dishonesty must be rooted out. Law and order are essential for progress. All citizens must enjoy equality and minorities must be protected. Education, science, and technology must be given the highest national priority. National unity must prevail over provincial and ethnic loyalties. Public servants must observe integrity, justice, and fair play. Opposition and honest criticism must hold governments accountable. Economic arrangements must promote social justice rather than exploitation.
His warning concerning feudal and economic exploitation was particularly powerful. Addressing the All-India Muslim League in Delhi on April 24, 1943, Jinnah warned against landlords and capitalists prospering under what he called a vicious and wicked system, declaring that the exploitation of the masses has gone into their blood. In modern language, his warning could hardly be clearer: a political order captured by entrenched interests can drain the lifeblood of a country by obstructing merit, social mobility, education, and reform.
How Can Pakistan Achieve Government by Competence?
The first requirement today must be government by competence. A genuinely democratic presidential system would allow an elected president to choose ministers from the finest expertise available, rather than being largely confined to members of parliament. Finance should be entrusted to an outstanding economist or financial expert. Health to an eminent health professional. Education to a distinguished educationist. Science and technology to an accomplished scientist or innovator. Agriculture to an authority on modern agricultural systems. Industry to someone with proven knowledge of manufacturing, technology, and international markets.
The same principle should determine the appointment of federal secretaries. Administrative seniority alone cannot qualify someone to direct a highly specialised ministry. Selection must reflect demonstrable achievement: successful institutions created, technological innovations, patents, important publications, major professional accomplishments, export achievements, or equivalent indicators relevant to that particular field.
Ministers and secretaries should work under four-year performance contracts, subjected to independent annual evaluation. Those repeatedly failing to meet agreed export targets should be replaced. Government should not be judged by announcements, foundation stones, and publicity campaigns. It should be judged by outcomes.
What Role Did Education Play in Jinnah's Thinking?
Education occupied a central position in Jinnah's thinking. He wanted future generations equipped with character, responsibility, and the skills required for economic life. Pakistan should therefore constitutionally guarantee at least 6.0% of GDP for education and 4% for science, technology, research, and innovation, with corresponding obligations upon provincial governments. These vital sectors must not remain vulnerable to arbitrary cuts by successive finance ministers.
An even stronger mechanism for reform would be to require ministers, secretaries, and other government employees to be legally bound to send their children to the nearest appropriate government school or college, with serious service penalties for deliberate violation. Once policymakers depend personally upon government schools, laboratories, teachers, libraries, and colleges, the quality of those institutions will rapidly become a national priority.
What Economic Transformation Does Pakistan Need?
Economic policy must undergo an equally profound transformation. Pakistan cannot build prosperity by borrowing to consume while exporting mainly low-value products. National effort must focus on technology-driven, knowledge-based exports in fields such as AI and software, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, electronics, engineering products, modern agriculture, processed minerals, renewable-energy technologies, specialised chemicals, defence technologies, and other knowledge-intensive industries.
Each major ministry should receive a clear export-development mission. Depending upon its potential, a sector should aim to generate an additional $5 billion to $10 billion of annual exports within six years. If 20 major sectors succeeded in adding only $5 billion each, Pakistan could ultimately generate an additional $100 billion annually. Such an achievement would fundamentally alter our foreign-exchange position, technological capabilities, and employment opportunities.
Why Must Power Be Decentralised to the Grassroots?
Reform must not stop in Islamabad. Jinnah repeatedly regarded government as the servant, not the master, of the people. Financial authority must therefore travel downwards. A constitutionally guaranteed and eventually very large proportion, a minimum of 90% of provincial funds intended for local public services, should reach elected districts, municipalities, towns, and union councils through transparent formulas based on population, deprivation, infrastructure, and performance.
Sanitation, drinking water, primary healthcare, local roads, and municipal facilities are best managed close to the communities using them. Education, health, foreign policy, and defence must remain federal subjects, with funding guaranteed by the new constitutional amendment.
Pakistan should also examine creating approximately 40 additional administrative provinces, established strictly on considerations of population, geography, accessibility, economic viability, and administrative efficiency, not ethnicity or language. Smaller units could bring government much closer to citizens and create constructive competition in service delivery.
Is Presidential Democracy Compatible With Jinnah's Ideals?
None of these reforms requires weakening democracy. Parliament must legislate and oversee the executive. The judiciary, Election Commission, media, and constitutional institutions must remain completely independent. Jinnah himself regarded opposition parties as necessary correctives to governments in power. A presidential system consistent with his ideals must therefore be democratic, elected, constitutional, and firmly restrained by independent institutions.
Pakistan does not lack talented scientists, engineers, economists, physicians, entrepreneurs, or professionals. Its tragedy is that its political structures have too often prevented these people from reaching the commanding heights of decision-making.
The choice is not between democracy and competence. Pakistan desperately needs both. We must move from patronage to merit, from feudal domination to equality of opportunity, from centralisation to empowered communities, and from borrowing and low-value production to knowledge, technology, and exports.
The writer is a former federal minister, Unesco science laureate, and founding chairperson of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
