Beyond selective criticism |
ASHU Mann, a PhD candidate in Defence and Strategic Studies at Amity University, Noida, recently authored a story titled “A Country Held Together by Corruption and Debt: Pakistan’s Governance Crisis Laid Bare.” The piece depicts Pakistan as a state defined almost exclusively by corruption and mismanagement, while implicitly projecting India as a model of institutional and moral strength. Such framing may serve political narratives, but it oversimplifies a complex regional reality and pre-sents a selective account of South Asia’s governance challenges.
Pakistan’s governance shortcomings are neither hidden nor denied. They are openly debated by its scholars, media, courts and policymakers. The IMF report cited in Mann’s article identifies weak-nesses in taxation, state-owned enterprises, procurement and legal enforcement. However, the re-port is a technical diagnostic intended to guide reform, not a moral indictment of a nation. Treating it as definitive proof of national failure........