The idea of Neo-Colonial Elitism and Superiority is still present in current policies of Pakistan. The superiority of the Institutions is still a part of Pakistani Policies. The institutions during the colonial rule were not designed in a way to serve people rather they were meant to exploit them, the same is with our institutions. The Military, Police, Bureaucracy, and Judiciary at the time being used to maintain and impose imperial order, our institutions are doing the same. The people who were included in the civil services at that time were educated in a way to become “Coconut Class”, which is white from inside but brown from outside. We can relate this “Coconut Class” with our civil servants and Landlords, they are the same. They explicit Elitism and Superiority, for example their children speak English, they go to private schools, they have luxurious health facilities while the majority of the population does not even receive 1% of their elitism and luxuries. This is a division which has come from the idea of Colonial Superiority from the British Colonial Rule which is still an inclusive part of all the policies being made here in Pakistan, and these are the main cause behind our developmental policies reaping little benefit or no benefit at all.
With the colonization of the subcontinent, the Britishers also did colonize our minds as well. It was never a possibility that after the departure of the British their customs would also fade away. During their Colonization, they did not influence the Indians socially, economically, and politically, they also influenced our culture, minds, and customs to a great extent. For evidence, we can see that here in Pakistan the Western traditions, symbols, and cultures are valued more than our own native values, symbols, and traditions. Our minds are more shifted towards them, the West has really great influence on our minds. This causes less space for our own thoughts and ideas to process, which leads to hindrance in development as a whole. We cannot think for ourselves, we are being manipulated, and we fight among each other. The institutions are also doing the same, due to the influence of West we are not able to formulate policies that are relevant to our customs, people, values, and tradition. The influence in our minds lead us towards adopting Western Models and Frameworks of Development instead of struggling to make foe ourselves. All these elements are becoming a barrier to development and root cause for the failure of Developmental Policies being formulated.
The failure of Developmental Policies can be linked with replicating the Western Models of Development as well. Our institutions and Public Personals just replicate the Western Framework and Policies here in Pakistan, which fail badly. There are a lot of elements that they should considered instead of just replicating these models. The particular characteristics of societies and the sociocultural factors of any societies play a greater role in policy formulation, which these Western Models neglect. Pakistan has totally different economic structures, political institutions, history, and sociocultural tradition so it is a huge drawback to try to implement Western Models of Development here and hope to benefit from those. The challenges being faced by Pakistan and other developing countries differ dramatically from the challenges of the West. The people are different, their values are different, and the geography is different. The credit and product markets, labour, and the land of Pakistan mostly do not obey the standard assumptions of the so called formalised economic ideals of the neo-classical theories of the west. The neo-liberal economic orders success in the West does not mean it can be as much successful in Pakistan.
In order to replicate the Western Models of Development, Pakistan will fail if it starts privatization here. Privatization is not always beneficial just like it is in the west, there are other numerous factors as well which decide whether it can be beneficial or not. Pakistan did try it in the past but failed badly. In 1988, Pakistan started the process of Privatization being influenced by its success in the Western States, but you know what happened. It increased the burden on the government and also caused unemployment. The Privatization here led to a decline in the economic, social, and political indicators of the country. As evidence, let’s talk about the fiscal deficit and debt stock. These were the main target of Privatization in Pakistan, but Privatization increased the economic costs associated with these. What an Irony! That’s not all, the IMF Institution prescribes a recipe for Pakistan to improve its economy and most of the weightage is given to Privatization. They believe that it is the only option for Pakistan to survive irrespective of the past experience of Pakistan with it.
Most prominently, the Western and Eurocentric Models and Ideals have shattered our self-confidence. Our total reliance on the Western and European Models and Framework of development prone us towards more weakness and failing developmental policies. We have forgot our ideals and values, as a result of this we totally underestimate our own Researchers and Experts suggestions regarding Development and Social wellbeing. We blindly follow the teaching of Western Development experts instead of relying on our own experts. We do not know about Mahbub Ul Haq and Akhtar Hameed Khan, who are two prominent Pakistanis who have given the idea of Human Development and Community Driven Development; however, we know everything about the Western World Scholars and Models. This is the reason that our minds are also being colonized. All we need is to gain back the self-confidence we have lost searching for freedom and liberty. Utilizing our own personals and resources can guarantee improvement in every sector including development as well. We can make the policies we need in these times for ourselves, not the colonizers or the Europeans.
