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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The bureaucracy, particularly the higher civil service,
has
been a continuing source of stability and leadership and a
counterweight to political upheaval and government
instability.
This cadre originated in the prepartition Indian Civil
Service,
whose members were well educated, well trained, and
dedicated to
a tradition of efficiency and responsibility. In time, the
British recruited indigenous people, who were among
India's best
and brightest, into the Indian Civil Service ranks.
At partition, out of more than 1,100 Indian Civil
Service
officers, scarcely 100 were Muslims, and eighty-three of
them
opted to go to Pakistan. Because none of them held a
senior rank
equivalent to that of a secretary (and administrators were
urgently needed to staff senior posts in the new state),
this
initial group was augmented by quick promotions in the
Civil
Service of Pakistan (CSP) through ad hoc appointments from
other
services and through retention, for a time, of some
British
officers. The CSP prided itself on being the backbone of
the
nation, the "steel frame" as it was sometimes called, and
played
a key role in Pakistan's survival in the difficult years
following independence. Although Jinnah commended its
contribution, he also warned CSP cadres to stay out of
politics
and to discharge their duties as public servants. After
Jinnah's
death, however, in the subsequent absence of strong
political
leadership, members of the CSP assumed an extraordinary
role in
the country's policy-making process. When the CSP was
disbanded
in 1973 and the various services were amalgamated into one
administrative system, the expertise of its former members
was
much valued, and they continued to hold critical positions
in the
country's administrative apparatus through subsequent
transitions
in government. It is not surprising, then, that a later
president
of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan (1988-93) was once a member
of the
CSP.
Data as of April 1994
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