Dr. Ikramul Haq & Engineer Arshad H Abbasi
After seventy-eight years of independence, one truth remains uncomfortably clear: Pakistan is not run by its ministers, secretaries, or high-ranking bureaucrats—it is run by its clerks. Beneath the polished surface of hierarchy, where titles like “Federal Secretary” and “Joint Secretary” command respect, lies the real engine of governance: the unassuming, often invisible clerk who holds the state together through his pen, paper, and procedural power.
In the dusty, overstuffed files of government offices, where every case of national importance is reduced to a sequence of notes, initials, and signatures, it is the clerk’s voice that dominates. One of us (AHA) spent days studying these files in the National Archives of Pakistan, examining note sheets that trace the journey of decisions on matters ranging from foreign policy to economic reforms. What emerged was astonishing yet unsurprising: over 70% of the substantive analytical input—the actual thinking and writing that guides decisions—comes from clerks. The remaining hierarchy, from section officers to secretaries, contributes a mere 30%, often in the form of perfunctory phrases like “Seen,” “Noted,” or “As proposed.”
This discovery is not anecdotal—it is symptomatic of a deeper truth about how the Pakistani state operates. The clerk, ostensibly at the lowest rung of the bureaucratic ladder, is in reality the axis around which the entire machinery turns. Every file, every “Paper Under Consideration,” begins and ends with him. He drafts the initial note, frames the argument, and often determines what will or will not reach the secretary’s table. When the higher bureaucracy speaks, it is usually echoing what the clerk has already written.
The note sheet—long considered the most sacred document in Pakistan’s bureaucratic culture—is not just a record of administrative procedure. It is the stage on which the real power play unfolds. Scholars of governance often cite the note sheet as an evaluative tool to measure the intellectual quality of administrative work. If that metric is to be believed, the clerks, not the officers, are the intellectual backbone of the state. They are the authors of logic in a system obsessed with hierarchy but starved of thought.
Why does the clerk command such invisible authority? The answer lies in the peculiar ecosystem of Pakistan’s bureaucracy, inherited wholesale from the British Raj. The British built a system designed for control, not creativity—a machinery that prized compliance over innovation. After independence, Pakistan retained this structure but hollowed out its spirit. Secretaries became figureheads of power, while clerks became its practitioners.
The clerk is not just a typist or file-handler. He is the interpreter of rules, the guardian of precedent, and the master of bureaucratic language. His institutional memory stretches across decades, far outlasting the rotating cast of ministers and officers who come and go with political tides.
In every ministry, it is the clerk who knows the “real story” of each file—where it began, how it evolved, and what decisions were quietly buried under the mountain of PUCs (“Papers Under Consideration”). The bureaucracy’s upper echelons have become ceremonial. They approve what has already been written for them, their signatures mere formalities that validate the thinking done several levels below. When a secretary writes, “Action may be taken as per rules/policy” or “Please ensure compliance of codal formalities,” he is not deciding; he is confirming what the clerk has already decided. The illusion of authority remains intact, but the agency belongs to the clerk.
In truth, the Pakistani state runs on clerical continuity. Governments change, policies shift, and priorities are reshuffled, but the clerks remain the same. They are the custodians of both the memory and the inertia of the system. Their handwriting may be humble, but their influence is absolute. It is they who determine whether a policy file moves forward or gathers dust. It is they who decide whether a summary is “put up for further necessary action” or “kept pending till further instructions.” Every act of delay or movement originates from the clerk’s desk.
What makes this reality both fascinating and troubling is that it reveals a form of power that thrives in anonymity. The clerk does not need public recognition; his authority is embedded in the process. It is the power of the gatekeeper—the one who opens and closes the path of decision. A minister may make speeches, a secretary may sign orders, but if the clerk decides not to process a file, the system stands still. This is not to romanticize the clerk’s role. The same power that keeps the machinery running also sustains its paralysis. The clerk’s mastery of procedural language as spoken by secretory, by using phrases like “Put up with full facts and figures,” “Seek comments from the concerned section,” or “Await detailed report before submission”—ensures that nothing ever truly concludes. He has perfected the art of bureaucratic time travel: keeping every file simultaneously alive and suspended.
Yet, even this inertia has logic. The clerk operates within a system that punishes initiative and rewards conformity. In an environment where every decision carries risk, caution becomes wisdom. The clerk has simply learned the rules of survival better than anyone else. He has learned to navigate the unspoken truth of Pakistani governance: that ambiguity is protection, and delay is power.
The persistence of clerical dominance explains why every attempt at administrative reform has failed. Computers replaced typewriters, but the language of avoidance—the real architecture of bureaucracy—remains unchanged. Even on digital dashboards, one still reads the same phrases: “May kindly be examined”, “Put up after vetting”, “For approval of competent authority”. The tools have evolved, but the mentality has not.
It is tempting to dismiss this as a bureaucratic habit, but the truth runs deeper—it is structural. The clerk’s dominance endures because the system is built on it. Every officer depends on him to interpret rules, recall precedents, and navigate the maze of procedure. Without that guidance, even secretaries would be lost in the labyrinth of regulations. The clerk may appear subordinate, but he is indispensable. The real crisis is not that clerks run the country, but that without them, it would stop running altogether.
Pakistan’s bureaucracy is, perversely, a democracy of dependency. The most junior official controls the flow of work, while the most senior relies on him for execution. This inversion of power explains both the resilience and dysfunction of the state. Files move slowly, not from ignorance, but because too many know exactly how not to decide.
After decades of watching this machinery, one conclusion stands: the clerk is Pakistan’s unacknowledged ruler. His pen moves ministries; his silence freezes them. His phrases build the walls of caution that no reform has ever breached. “The clerks are running the country” is not a metaphor—it is a fact. They write the notes, draft the orders, shape the files, and dictate the pace. The rest merely sign and pretend to command.
Seventy-eight years after independence, Pakistan remains colonized—not by outsiders, but by its own clerical empire. As long as hierarchy is mistaken for competence and paperwork for governance, the clerks will keep running the country—quietly, expertly, and indefinitely.
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Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.
Engineer Arshad H. Abbasi, water and climate change expert, is co-founder of Energy Excellence Centres at NUST and UET Peshawar.