To Kill a Mockingbird: Bentham and Locke in Gambat, Pakistan

Abstract

Set in a rural, tribal district of Pakistan in the 1990s, this case examines the tension between utilitarian and libertarian principles faced by public administrators in their everyday work. The settlement of a bloody tribal feud hinged upon returning a young girl who had recently married a man from another tribe to her parents. Ahsan, the area administrator, must decide whether to forcibly return the girl to her tribe for immediate remarriage or to let her go with her husband. His dilemmas differ from those that the senior officials face, and this divergence is at the root of the failure to control the feud administratively. To comply with orders and pursue a career, public officials, in this case, their personal kindness notwithstanding, adopt strategies that have extreme consequences for citizens. Evil is more banal than we think.