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Pakistan
The Civil Service
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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