100%(3)100% fanden dieses Dokument nützlich (3 Abstimmungen)
3K Ansichten260 Seiten
This is the PhD thesis of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Assistant Professor at Quaid-eAzam University, Islamabad.
Abstract: 'Hamza Alavi's groundbreaking study of the 'overdeveloped' post-colonial state represented the first major attempt in the Marxist tradition to capture the specificity of the post-colonial historical experience. Alavi's empirical focus was Pakistan, but sadly the majority of the literature dealing with the state in the Pakistani context has tended to engage with Alavi's theoretical formulation in a very descriptive manner. This thesis is an attempt to address this gap within the literature.'
Originaltitel
The Overdeveloping State the Politics of Common Sense in Pakistan, 1971-2007
This is the PhD thesis of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Assistant Professor at Quaid-eAzam University, Islamabad.
Abstract: 'Hamza Alavi's groundbreaking study of the 'overdeveloped' post-colonial state represented the first major attempt in the Marxist tradition to capture the specificity of the post-colonial historical experience. Alavi's empirical focus was Pakistan, but sadly the majority of the literature dealing with the state in the Pakistani context has tended to engage with Alavi's theoretical formulation in a very descriptive manner. This thesis is an attempt to address this gap within the literature.'
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
This is the PhD thesis of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Assistant Professor at Quaid-eAzam University, Islamabad.
Abstract: 'Hamza Alavi's groundbreaking study of the 'overdeveloped' post-colonial state represented the first major attempt in the Marxist tradition to capture the specificity of the post-colonial historical experience. Alavi's empirical focus was Pakistan, but sadly the majority of the literature dealing with the state in the Pakistani context has tended to engage with Alavi's theoretical formulation in a very descriptive manner. This thesis is an attempt to address this gap within the literature.'
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
The politics of common sense in Pakistan, 1971-2007
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar Submitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London for the degree of PhD 1 DECLARATION I declare that the work presented here is solely my own, and that no other individual or group has had any part in the writing of this thesis. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 28 April 2008 2 Abstract Hamza Alavi's groundbreaking study of the 'overdeveloped ' post-colonial state represented the first major attempt in the Marxist tradition to capture the specificity of the post-colonial historical experience. Alavi's empirical focus was Pakistan, but sadly the majority of the literature dealing with the state in the Pakistani context has tended to engage with Alavi's theoretical formulation in a very descriptive manner. This thesis is an attempt to address this gap within the literature. I identify the major shortcomings of Alavi's treatise, namely the static conception of structure that underlies his understanding of the overdeveloped state, as well as the derivative conception of the 'superstructure'. I emphasise the need to think about the unique attributes of the political and cultural spheres of social structure as rigorously as the economic sphere. In attempting to build upon Alavi's basic insights I engage with various literatures, including civil-military relations and anthropological studies of the 'everyday' state. However my primary theoretical inspiration remains the Marxist tradition, and specifically Antonio Gramsci's ideas of hegemony, historical bloc, and common sense. With this Gramscian foundation I construct a thoroughly historicized theory of the post-colonial state that departs from the functionalist view of an 'underdeveloped' society implicit in the 'overdeveloped' state formulation. Starting with a brief overview of the colonial period, I map the dialectical relationship between the accumulation of power and capital whilst also emphasizing the need to understand the logic of practice in the wider society. In the final analysis, I argue that the Alavian military-bureaucratic oligarchy and the three propertied classes remain deeply entrenched within the Pakistani polity but that there have also been qualitative additions to the ruling coalition, namely the intermediate classes and the religio- political movements/clerics. The latter two have become part of the ruling coalition, or 'historical bloc', in the aftermath of the populist period that ended with the deposal of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977. Indeed I contend that the two new members of the historical bloc have been crucial to preventing the reemergence of popular politics in the post-Bhutto period by cultivating personalised patronage ties with the subordinate classes. This is what I have termed the 'politics of common sense', and this legitimation of oligarchic rule 'from below' is the qualitative addition to Alavi's theory. 3 Table of Contents Introduction: Revisiting Alavi's overdeveloped state Setting the Stage Building Blocks Understanding the post-colonial Pakistani state The Colonial Context The rhythm of politics and culture The politics of patronage Completing the hegemonic project Coming full circle Methodology Section 1: The Alavian nexus of power 6 8 12 13 16 21 23 29 31 34 Chapter 2 The Military: Arbiter of power 37 A Colonial Army 39 The National Security State 43 Guardian of the State once more 46 The making of an Empire 49 After Zia 52 Unchartered territory 55 Differentiation within the armed forces 57 Chapter 3 The Bureaucracy: Two sides of the same coin 60 The 'high' bureaucracy 62 The 'low' bureaucracy 70 Chapter 4 The Landed class: Keeping the boat afloat 77 The colonial inheritance 79 The reforms that never were 81 The more things change, the more they stay the same 86 Formal integration 91 Is Pakistan Feudal? 93 The landed class or the political class? 94 Chapter 5: The Indigenous Bourgeoisie: Building new roots 98 From one robber baron to the next 100 The perils of aloofness 103 The new bourgeois and the political sphere 106 The rise of the challenger 110 Reinforcing oligarchic rule 113 4 Chapter 6: The Metropolitan Bourgeoisie: External Crutch 116 Competing logics inherited from colonialism 118 The emerging politics of jihad 122 Frontline state yet again 125 The Pakistani state: post-colonial or neo-colonial? 128 Section 2: Hegemony in practice Chapter 7: Islamic hegemony: The power of sanction 130 Islamic or secular state? 131 Nativisation 134 Islamic or secular society 140 The maulvi and the culture of politics 146 The politics of resistance or the politics of common sense 153 Chapter 8: The Intermediate classes: Deepening of capitalism 160 Typologies and histories 162 The brave new world 165 The protagonists 170 The face of change 191 Chapter 9: The Subordinate classes: Beyond common sense? 193 A note on clientelism 194 The politics of resistance and reaction 196 The legacy 201 An unspectacular politics of resistance 205 A note on ethno-nationalism 222 Agency vs. structure 225 Conclusion: The rumblings of counter-hegemony 228 The structural imperative 231 The military as class? 233 The Alavian nexus of power undermined? 235 A new politics of resistance? 239 Glossary 243 5 Introduction Revisiting Alavi's overdeveloped state While many post-colonial states have experienced prolonged flirtations with oligarchic rule, over the past two decades or so at least nominally democratic political processes have become the norm in many countries. I Not in Pakistan, where the military took direct control of government for the fourth time in October 1999. More than eight years later, in February 2008, elected rule was finally re-estbalished, but only with General (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf continuing to occupy the presidency. Since 1977 when then army chief General Zia ul Haq overthrew the populist government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the 'military-bureaucratic' oligarchy that acquired the reins of power when the country was created in 1947 has reasserted itself as the arbiter in Pakistani politics. This followed the decade 1967-77 during which new political forces had emerged to challenge oligarchic dominance. In its role as arbiter, the oligarchy colludes with a still powerful landed class and industrial bourgeoisie to contain the re-emergence of popular challenges. This conglomeration of forces has, for the most part, enjoyed the blessings of the western metropolitan countries. This thesis attempts to explain the persistence of oligarchic rule in Pakistan despite the fact that substantial objective changes have taken place in the wider society. The starting point will be Harnza Alavi's theory of the 'overdeveloped' post-colonial state which remains the seminal effort to theorise on the Pakistani condition. 2 As I will show presently, while the Pakistani state retains many of the principal features that Alavi described over three decades ago, it is not clear that the theoretical assumptions that underlay the 'overdeveloped' formulation were entirely accurate. In particular the notion of the' overdeveloped' state implies an 'underdeveloped' society - a conception that I will assert is far too functionalist. More specifically I will demonstrate the intimate nature of the state-society relation and thereby shed light on the coercion-consent dialectic that underlies the oligarchic system of power. By I For example, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, to name but a few. Having said this, I take the position that even when elected governments have been in place in Pakistan, the oligarchic structure of power has remained largely intact. 2 Alavi's formulation, while focusing largely on Pakistan claimed general applicability across the post- colonial world. 6 instrumentalising the deeply rooted cultural logic of personalized reciprocity, the state and dominant social classes have created a patronage-based political order in which the vast majority of working Pakistanis have been coopted. At the same time the state is willing and able to exercise brute coercive force - often in the name of Islam - if and when working people articulate a politics of confrontation. The thesis will outline the evolution of politics in Pakistan in the post -1971 era through a selective historical sociology of key classes/groups.3 The periodisation reflects the belief that a substantive change took place in Pakistani politics in the period 1967-77. Thus a broad distinction will be made between the pre-Bhutto and post-Bhutto periods. In the first section of the thesis, the Alavian nexus of power is discussed, namely the military, bureaucracy, landlords, industrialists, and foreign capital. This section uses available secondary material and employs some new primary material through the use of interviews to highlight certain aspects of the Alavian nexus of power that are absent in the original formulation. The second section constitutes the substantive theoretical and empirical addition, and focuses on the subordinate classes, intermediate classes 4 and religio-political forces. I will show that an understanding of the politics of these classes/groups 'from below' is essential if one wishes to comprehend fully the nature of domination that prevails within the country. This section relies on ethnographic material gathered during fieldwork at selected research sites across the country, the details of which I will outline in the methodology sub-section below. In the final analysis, the thesis is expected to be a contribution to a revised theory of the post-colonial state on the basis of a thoroughly historicized analysis of Pakistan's political economy, a method that remains true to the Marxist tradition. Importantly the defining objective of the thesis is to improve upon the major shortcoming of most Marxist theorisations of politics in the post-colonial world by conceptualising the cultural and political spheres as rigorously as - although not separate from - the economic sphere. 3 Defining whether certain institutional forces such as the army can be meaningfuIly described as a class is a question addressed in the concluding chapter. 4 Following Harriss-White (2003). 7 Setting the stage My point of departure is Alavi's theory. I feel it is important to start with an explanation of why I have chosen to engage in depth with the 'overdeveloped' state formulation. In short, Alavi's conceptualisation appears to be remarkably resilient almost 40 years since it was formulated, and, at the very least, no other theory of the Pakistani state has emerged to compete meaningfully with the 'overdeveloped' formulation. Alavi's basic contention that the post-colonial state is little more than a coercive apparatus and that this apparatus is directly inherited from the colonial state is compelling because the 'military-bureaucratic oligarchy' that was essentially a British creation is still the country's dominant political force. Furthermore, on the face of it, the oligarchy continues to remain 'autonomous' of the dominant propertied classes, namely the landed class, the indigenous bourgeoisie, and the metropolitan bourgeoisie, mediating between their interests while funneling a major proportion of surplus to itself under the guise of 'development', as Alavi (1972) suggests. Few scholars of Pakistan would disagree that the coercive role of the state and its ability to maintain a consensus with the dominant classes would appear to be the two defining features of Pakistan's political economy well into the 21 st century. Alavi proceeds to outline the relative power and influence of each of the propertied classes, pointing out that the metropolitan bourgeoisie remains the most powerful of the three, despite having relinquished direct control of the state. Indeed, the United States has exercised an overarching influence in Pakistani politics since the early 1950s, and, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 6, is the oligarchy's patron-in-chief. Meanwhile the indigenous bourgeoisie is the weakest of all three classes having been stunted by the Raj, and the landedclass remains the main intermediary between the subordinate classes and the state as the major component of mainstream political parties. While Alavi's theory is substantively different from the orthodox Marxist conception of the state, it employs the orthodox Marxist method of viewing the state as an 8 element of the superstructure that is derivative of the prevailing mode of production. 5 However, crucially Alavi asserts that 'the "superstructure" in the colony is ... "over- developed" in relation to the "structure" in the colony, for its basis lies in the metropolitan structure itself, from which it is later separated at the time of independence' (Alavi, 1972: 62). For Alavi then the post-colonial state's 'overdevelopedness' implies (coercive) power far in excess of the 'underdeveloped' post-colonial society, including the dominant classes. While Alavi has improved upon the original 'overdeveloped' formulation in more empirical accounts that recognise how dominant social classes have changed over time while documenting emergent social forces, these empiricial insights have not been employed to revise the theoretical formulation (Alavi, 1990). In particular the focus remains on a narrative 'from above' and therefore the functionalist essence of the theory intact. There have been numerous reformulations of Alavi's theory from within the Marxist tradition itself. Among the more well-known contemporaries of Alavi, Shivji (1976), Mamdani (1976), Saul (1974) and Leys (1976) all emphasized at some level or the other the competition between so called bureaucratic and petty bourgeoisies for control over the state, thereby suggesting that these constituted the dominant classes in most post-colonial social formations. The state in this conception remains a primarily coercive apparatus with little concern for legitimation of its authority. These scholars' retain Alavi's narrow theoretical emphasis on 'dominant' class and institutional interests. 6 On the whole the dependencia approach - of which Alavi's thesis is a variant- suffered a dramatic decline in popularity in the 1980s. It was argued that this theoretical method was far too determinist and did not adequately account for the considerably different historical trajectories of colonialism and widely varying post- 5 In the specific context of British rule in India, Alavi develops the idea of a distinct colonial mode of production. In particular, he employs a five-point typology and shows that while the mode of production in India is capitalist, it differs from the classical capitalist mode of production in at least two important respects, both related to the fact that the system of production developed by the colonial state sees surplus accumulated and reinvested to benefit the metropolitan society (Alavi, 1980). 6 All of these theorists do correctly point out that the dominant social groups in the post-colonial era are products of the colonial encounter, and that they remain heavily dependent upon the metropole. 9 colonial contexts. Statist theories that emerged around this time insisted upon the need to understand the state as a phenomenon unto itself rather than a corollary of social forces (cf Evans et aI., 1985). As such a comprehensive Marxist theory of the state remains an elusive goal, although Lenin and Gramsci among others have made important contributions to the analysis of political institutions. 7 The famous exchange between Ralph Mi1iband and Nicolas Pou1antzas in the 1970s implied a recognition that substantive efforts to theorise on politics and political institutions separate from more traditional mode of production analyses was essential for the Marxist tradition to continue being relevant. 8 Gramsci, Mao and others had of course insisted much earlier that there was an urgent need to consider matters of consciousness and political action in their own right rather than assuming in rather teleological fashion that material development would necessarily lead to corresponding forms of politics. 9 The approach adopted here draws on the Gramscian tradition. In particular Gramsci' s concepts of historical bloc and hegemony are widely employed in what follows to further problematise Alavi's insights. Gramsci was more concerned than most in the materialist tradition with understanding the terrain of social life in which class struggle actually played out. In other words his focus was on the political and cultural spheres and the manner in which objective class interests are subjectively articulated. Thus any system of power becomes hegemonic when ruling classes exercise 'moral leadership' . Hegemony cannot be taken for granted, instead it has to actively cultivated and for Gramsci relying simply on coercive power to maintain social order is an indicator of weakness rather than strength. 7 See for example Lenin (1943) and Gramsci (1971). 8 See Miliband (1977) and Poulantzas (1980). 'The Miliband-Poulantzas debate left many Marxists with the uncomfortable reality of a still unresolved dichotomy at the core of Marxist political theory, and for many it brought an end to the idea that there is something called the Marxist theory of the state' (Barrow, 2002: 43). 9 There is of course a long-standing tradition in Marxism - best represented by Marx himself - to combine more generalized theorizing on structures with descriptive historical accounts that capture specific conjunctures (Kaviraj, 1989). 10 As such the primary addition that this thesis makes to the Alavian formulation is in attempting to explain how a hegemonic political order has been crafted in the period since the Zia military regime. Thus I discuss not only the machinations of the Alavian nexus of power 'from above' but also the manner in which consent is generated 'from below'. In this reformulation the coercive power of the state - which Alavi specified clearly - remains important but is insufficient in explaining the persistence of the system of domination. Relatedly, the social formation cannot be considered 'underdeveloped' and fundamentally disjointed from the 'overdeveloped' state. The generation of consent for the prevailing oligarchic system is only possible through an intimate state-society relation. Thus my use of the term 'overdeveloping' is metaphorically distinct from Alavi's use of 'overdeveloped' in that my emphasis is on the oligarchy's attempts to coopt social forces by expanding its patronage network which suggests anything but a functionalist relationship between state and society. As I will conclude, in this view the state is overdeveloping, or in other words extending patronage to more and more social forces over time. As such, the state is continually changing. 10 In part this reformulation of Alavi's hypothesis illustrates the folly of thinking about the state only in terms of 'interests', a lesson that Marxists were forced to learn anyway by the rise of 'statists' .11 Having said this, statists often endow the state with far too much autonomy from society. More recently there has been a 'cultural tum' in theorising about the state which reflects the relative marginalisation of culture in both the 'state-centered' and 'society-centered' approaches (cf Steinmetz, 1999; Sharma & Gupta, 2006). There is also something to be gained from the literature that postulates a dialectical relationship between the formal and legalistic Weberian state and the state that is subject to societal demands and pressures, the latter neither maintaining the promise of impartiality nor the aura of unchallengeable dominance. To date this dialectic has IO I will show in the concluding chapter that, for all of the oligarchy's success in coopting potential challenges, it will ultimately unable to accommodate all demands for inclusion from both dominant ~ r o u p s and those who want to graduate into the realm of power. 1 Accordingly, Marxist scholarship has had to reformulate some of its central and limiting assumptions although in the post-colonial context progress has been slow. 11 been best captured by conceptualisations that distinguish between the state in practice and the state as an idea (cf Abrams, 1988). Migdal & Schlichte (2005) stress the importance of understanding the 'dynamics' of states which means considering both the image and practice of the state in understanding how and why it acts the way that it does. Building blocks Pakistan-specific theories of the state have been few and far between. As such Alavi's work remains the only thorough meaningful investigation of the Pakistani state from a Marxist political economy perspective. There have been only limited attempts to consider the constitution and actions of the state in nuanced terms, building upon the insights offered by the alternative literatures mentioned briefly above while still incorporating the basic thrust of Alavi's schema (and other seminal neo-Marxists). Aijaz Ahmad (1985) suggests that the dominance of the military in Pakistan - what he calls the governing 'caste' - is explained by numerous factors including imperialist support, the need to suppress popular resistance (often expressed in nationalist idiom), and the mandate to maintain the territorial sovereignty of the state vis a vis India, and cannot simply be explained by suggesting inevitable continuities from the colonial to the post-colonial. However, he tends to try and situate his entire analysis of the political realm in a broad and overly-static understanding of peripheral capitalism in Pakistan, namely that it is characterised by a weakness of the 'polar' classes - the bourgeoisie and proletariat - and a corresponding expanded role of the 'intermediate' classes. 12 While these observations are not incorrect, there is little attempt made to consider the political sphere in Pakistan as constituting its own dynamic - rather it is understood largely as derivative of a particular mode of production. Eq bal Ahmad's (1980) more insightful - albeit general - formulation attributes much more importance to the political institutions that comprise the state, and the fact that the 'state bourgeoisie' in the post-colonial world continues to predominate only insofar as it benefits from the expansion of state power and functions. In other words, political power is a pre-condition for the enhancement of material interests. Crucially, 12 In this case intermediate classes are educated professionals in the employment of the state that are separated from the process of production. 12 it is argued that the state cannot be considered 'overdeveloped' vis a vis society as it relies on dominant social forces, and is in fact incapable of maintaining order without them. As such therefore colonial and post-colonial society is hardly 'underdeveloped' given that the state rules primarily through intermediary groups to which it distributes patronage. Bayart (1993) concurs with the idea that the de facto ruling class in post-colonial societies is comprised of the personnel left in charge of the state apparatus by the departing colonial ruler, although his analysis is limited to the African context. He makes the salient observation that the dichotomy of civil and political society is not a useful one in the post-colonial context, suggesting that a strict separation of 'state' from 'society' is overly simplistic. Further he posits that the banal practice that liberals term 'corruption' needs to be understood as a widespread social phenomenon that is neither a cultural condition nor a negation of modemity.13 Bayart's exposition also disputes the concept of the overdeveloped state and he prefers use of the Gramscian idea of historical bloc to explain post-colonial conjunctures. Another proponent of the Gramscian ideas of hegemony and historical bloc is Ayubi (1995). He offers a comprehensive analysis that relies on a three-pronged understanding of societal structure, namely modes of production, persuasion and coercion, to explain the centralized nature of the Arab state and the nature of its relationship to the larger social formation. This method seems to capture what Alavi claims to do but never quite manages to achieve in his formulations. 14 Understanding the post-colonial Pakistani state It would appear reasonable to adopt a similar approach to Ayubi's to outline the formation of the Pakistani state and its subsequent evolution. More generally, there is a need to move beyond the static understanding of structure that underlies the seminal neo-Marxist theorizations of the post-colonial state, recognizing the great difference 13 Moreover this form of social exchange takes place amongst the rich and powerful as well as the subordinate classes. On 'corruption' in post-colonial Africa see also Blundo (2006). 14 Alavi also makes nuanced descriptions of the ideological foundations of the Pakistani state and the political intrigue that carries on within it, but never successfully incorporates these rich analyses into his theory of the state (cf Alavi, 1987). 13 across regions of the social formation and the tremendous change that has taken place in the post-colonial period largely on account of the deepening of capitalism. The insights offered by Alavi and his contemporaries are necessary in explicating the state's class content and its orientation, but do not sufficiently capture the complexity of the political sphere more generally and the actual dynamics of the state's operation more specifically. A more useful theoretical formulation may benefit from the insight offered by Chandra (1999) that the colonial state introduces systemic changes in the colonized society in a manner that calls into question the orthodox dichotomy of structure and superstructure in which the state is traditionally conceived of as part of the latter. ls The Pakistani experience - like many other post -colonial variants - necessitates a rejection of the claim that the state - and the political sphere more generally - is a reflection of the prevailing mode of production. Class formation and the overall evolution of social structure in much of the post-colonial world is subject to a much different dialectical dynamic than that in the west, the specific historical experience of which remains the point of departure for modern social theory.16 The project of state formation in Pakistan was one that sought to establish rule not of a particular dominant class, or even of the state as an (relatively) autonomous actor as Alavi may have suggested, but rather a coalition of dominant forces - or what I will call a historical bloc. The military-bureaucratic state oligarchy assumed primacy within this historical bloc as a result of the specific conjuncture in which state formation took place. 17 15 See also Bardhan (1998) for a discussion of the post-colonial Indian state. 16 See for example Kaviraj (2005b) for a discussion on the imperative of reconstructing social theory in non-western contexts. 17 'Structures and superstructures form an "historical bloc" ..... [there is a] necessary reciprocity between structure and superstructure, a reciprocity which is nothing other than the real dialectical process' (Gramsci, 1971: 366). Gramsci' s use of the term referred to that particular equilibrium, or constellation of forces which is established at a particular historical conjuncture. This thesis takes this notion fUlther and argues that the social forces that were dominant in 1947 maintained power subsequently. Thus the ternl historical bloc as used throughout the thesis refers to the coalition of dominant forces. 14 Further the process of state formation has been an ongoing one in that the historical bloc that existed at partition has been qualitatively altered after 1977, the period with which this thesis is primarily concerned. In other words, the structure of power has changed although the state remains fundamentally undemocratic and the dominant forces that constituted the historical bloc in 1947 continue to be powerful. The induction of new social forces into an expanded historical bloc however, only partially explains the resilience of the oligarchic dispensation. The post-Bhutto conjuncture has been hegemonic insofar as the subordinate classes have participated in the designated political sphere from below as a matter of 'common sense' .18 In other words, working people directly contribute to the reproduction of power relations on the one hand by ascribing to the existing patronage-based rules of the game and on the other hand by choosing not to engage in a politics of opposition, confrontation, or what I have called here 'resistance'. This formulation is premised upon a dialectical logic whereby economic, cultural and political spheres are considered as a holistic unity, suggesting that there is an urgent need to understand politics and culture in greater complexity than has been done in Marxist analyses of Pakistan to date. As I have already stated, in my understanding the state is not overdeveloped, but rather overdeveloping, which means to say that the coercive power of the state- which remained Alavi's exclusive focus - has been matched by its ability to engage various social forces, and most importantly absorb the counter-hegemonic impulses of the subordinate classes while incorporating new contenders for power within its fold. In other words, hegemony is a function of both coercion and consent - this concepualisation differs from that of Alavi who emphasizes the coercive specificity of the state and accords the state 'relative autonomy' from dominant social forces whilst completely ignoring the extent and nature of subordinate class legitimation of the prevailing political sphere. 18 'Broadly speaking, "common sense" means the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society' (Gramsci, 1971: 325-8). As for Gramsci, although in a very different sense, in my understanding religion is a crucial element of common sense. 15 Over time, the military has become the predominant partner within the state oligarchy - and the historical bloc more generally - and it is the growing imbalance of power within the bloc in favour of the military which is most likely to undermine the hegemonic project of the state, propertied classes and new contenders that have emerged from the Bhutto period onwards. Ultimately however the emergence of a counter-hegemony that can reorder the prevailing configuration of power depends on the subordinate classes being able to regenerate a 'politics of resistance' to displace the 'politics of common sense' .19 In attempting to outline the nature of the hegemonic project in the post-Bhutto period, it is necessary not only to consider the evolution of the political sphere in the pre- Bhutto period but indeed to understand the state-society dialectic inherited from colonial times. Alavi rightly pointed out that the colonial legacy of administrative dominance had a great bearing on the state structure and political dynamics in the aftermath of partition and this is where the analysis must begin. The colonial context Kaviraj (2005a: 263) points out that in pre-British India, the state was an 'alien' entity that did not command a presence beyond a symbolic or grand aura and in fact 'was traditionally seen as a necessarily limited and distinctly unpleasant part of the basic furniture of society'. Hence it can be asserted that the political sphere of most 'village communities' was effectively autonomous of the state itself. In this respect alone, the colonial impact utterly changed the conception and practice of politics. 2o In numerous senses the 'new' colonial- and by extension post colonial- political sphere was subject to a host of novel and diverse dynamics which considerably enhanced its complexity. In the pre-British period, politics was largely 'self- contained' in that relationships of power were largely confined within the 19 As will be detailed in the narrative to follow, the 'politics of common sense' represents an attempt by the historical bloc in the post-Bhutto period to eliminate the 'politics of resistance' that had emerged as a genuine threat to oligarchic rule in the preceding period. 20 This is not to downplay the centrality of the heavily oppressive rents extracted by the pre-British state from the peasantry, or to suggest that the village was a model of complete economic autarky- both myths have been debunked extensively (cf Habib, 1995). 16 'community' and only to a limited extent, between communities?l The role of the state in social life in general was dramatically enhanced under British rule. For example, disputes over land or other forms of social property - including women - were frequently mediated by the state, whether in the form of the police, courts or the administrative apparatus more generally. Even in cases where 'traditional' dispute resolution mechanisms such as local panchayats represented the primary means of resolving conflicts, it was often the case that the state in one or more of its forms was also invoked. 22 The advent of British rule was thus a watershed in the practice of politics in the subcontinent, but not just because of the more obvious interventions in social life by the colonial state. Other factors must also be invoked in order to explain the dramatically increased complexity and scope of the political sphere. Arguably the most important constitutive element of the colonial political sphere was the logic of capital. As a direct corollary to the Indian social formation's exposure to and insertion into a burgeoning imperial economy evolved a multitude of power relationships that extended far beyond the realm of politics that had existed until that point. That having been said, Washbrook (1990) warns against representing this change as a break that corresponded directly to the onset of British rule, which was in any case spread out over a century. Indeed, Indian society in the pre-British period was undergoing many changes related to its increasing exposure to regional and world trade, as well as internal social upheavals. An example of an 'internal' change in the Punjab for example, was the great social upheaval associated with the re- establishment of economic and political power by dominant agricultural castes during Sikh rule (Ali, 2003: 31). 21 Just as it is important to steer clear of unchanging and reified notions of bounded village economies, similarly it is vital to avoid a parallel cultural or political construction of pre-British community. Sarkar (2000: 246-8) has noted that revisionist colonial historiography such as Subaltern Studies has romanticised notions of 'community'. In actual fact, before and even during British rule, there existed highly variegated forms of social organisation across different regions of the subcontinent. 22 In many cases the state's presence would have a direct impact on the operation of 'informal' mechanisms thereby enhancing the bargaining power of one or both parties to the dispute. See Chaudhary (1999: 77-81) for a discussion on this dynamic of 'formal' and 'informal' mechanisms of justice in post-colonial Punjab. 17 Notwithstanding Wash brook's important observation, the insertion of India into the capitalist world system is primarily associated with the British Raj. In other words, the logic of capital came to playa central role in conditioning the dynamics of power after the establishment of British rule. The magnitude of the changes that began with the direct subordination of the Indian agrarian economy to the metropole was immense and unleashed a series of multiplier effects that linked the Indian social formation to economic and political changes outside India. Within the Indian social formation it is possible - and necessary - to acknowledge what could be empirically observed as clear outcomes of the insertion of the subcontinent into the imperial economy. For instance, the roles of existing actors were altered immensely; Irfan Habib (1995: 334) discusses how the increasing importance of usury in the Indian agrarian economy led to the dramatically enhanced political and economic power of the bania (moneylender). The landlord who was transformed into landowner by fiat is another example of a 'new' social category?3 In relation to this last example can be reiterated the importance of the state in the 'new' dispensation. The landholder was transformed into landowner by the state, and not through a long-run process of organic economic change. 24 In other words the state was directly responsible for many of the processes of class formation in a manner that one does not find in the prototypical non-colonial state. The colonial state of course did not develop, as the European state did, in consonance with organic changes in society at large, and therefore had many impulses that were alien to the Indian social formation (cf Saberwal, 1986). For the most part the state acted in harmony with the larger imperial economy of which it was a part. Having said this, there remained throughout the colonial encounter a dialectical contradiction between 'order' and 'change', a feature too of 23 It is important not to be carried away about the power that was vested in landed magnates by the British; after all many experienced a marked decrease in their coercive powers at the local level even as they were formally endowed with property rights. 24 Indeed it can be argued that in the modern west the move away from 'feudal' to 'capitalist' forms of property was a process that took many hundreds of years and was not a function of state fiat. Marx of course insisted that capitalists 'employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.' 18 the post-colonial political order. At one level the British may have wanted to make the logic of capital dominant in the Indian social formation, but the need for the colonial state to maintain stable rule overrode this principle. So on the one hand, the state directly facilitated the consolidation of a landed class endowed with formal property rights in Punjab and Sindh and instituted a legal framework through which land could be treated as private property in the classical, liberal guise. Yet the same state actively helped this new class in circumventing the adverse effects of insertion into the capitalist world economy through legislation such as the Punjab Alienation of Land Act 1901 and Sindh Encumbered Estates Act 1878, primarily because it feared for its own stability if its most prized allies were disenfranchised (cf Gilmartin, 1988; Ansari, 1992; Nelson, 2008).25 The fact that the state had to ensure the political compliance of willing intermediaries, meant, as Ali (2001) suggests, that in many cases the British were impeding the same processes of social change that facilitated the consolidation of capitalism in Britain. Even so, while the colonial state's role in the economy was far more extensive than that of the state in the mother country, it was neither able to impose its will unilaterally nor was its own evolution - inasmuch as the Raj was a state in formation - independent of social forces within Indian society.26 Alavi's contention that the state inherited in 1947 was 'overdeveloped' vis a vis the social formation ignores the mutually formative influence of each on the other. Hence the state represented another critical node of the 'new' political sphere alongside the logic of capital. Importantly, these two constitutive elements could be contradictory to each other at any particular conjuncture. In general, the state's power to promote or impede any particular social process was much more tangible than the 'invisible hand' of capital, although it is often difficult to separate the operation of either. In any case, the evolving configuration of social power was the product - at the very least - of a unique combination of economic impulses deriving from the larger 25 It was in fact in response to the real threat of disenfranchisement of landed allies of the Raj by more market-oriented producers that these two pieces of legislation were enacted. 26 This understanding of the Raj in India as a state in formation is based on the fact that the British established political control over different parts of the subcontinent over a century and proceeded to institutionalize very different forms of authority in different regions based on the logic of the social formation they encountered. 19 dynamics of a burgeoning capitalist world system and also the deliberate political engineering of the colonial state. However, despite the state's expanded reach and ability to greatly influence the evolution of social forms, and even with the 'forcible integration of the segmentary productive regimes of rural India into an integrated economy', the intemallogic of practice of Indian society continued to persist and impact the evolution of social forms more generally and the political sphere in particular (Kaviraj, 1994: 53). As suggested above, the local unit of analysis in India - whether called the village, community, or whatever else - featured a distinct politics and culture, conditioned by and conditioning the operation of the wider economic and political spheres, that did not simply vanish following the establishment of British rule. The most obvious and fiercely debated feature of the politico-cultural matrix of pre-British India was the caste system, but neither is this matrix reducible only to the caste system nor was caste an undifferentiated objective system across all of India. 27 In particular the social order in the Muslim-majority areas of India was quite distinct from Hindu-majority areas, although variants of caste-ism did, and continue to, exist (cf Ahmad, 1973).28 This analytical separation of three separate determinants of social power as it evolved beginning with the colonial period, i.e. India being inserted into the capitalist world economy; the substantially enhanced penetration of the state into social life; and the pre-existing politico-cultural constitution of the social unit should not lend the impression that there is a simple determinism in any particular direction or that these are separate 'structures' as it were. Instead the evolving social forms in British India and in the post-colonial dispensation are necessarily subject to the structural constraints imposed by all three of these elements operating as an holistic and dialectical unity. Wacquant (1985) has coined the term 'organic causality' to capture this holism. 29 27 There are also extensive debates over the extent to which the British reified caste and introduced the of political exchange on the basis of caste identity (cf Dirks, 2001; Cohn, 1996). 8 As will be discussed in subsequent chapters, the importance of 'izzat' or what is loosely translated as 'honour' is a major element of what Bourdieu would call symbolic capital. 29 See also the conception of E.P. Thomson (Ajay, 1998). 20 Perhaps it is most apt to return to Alavi (1982: 178) here: In conceptualising economic, or political (etc) 'instances' or 'sub-systems' in society, they are all too often thought of as empirically separate entities or, in a structuralist conception, each a separate 'structure' having determinate relationships with the other 'structures', namely 'economic, 'political', and 'ideological '. This can be quite misleading. The economic 'instance', for example, cannot be thought of without its basis in particular forms of property and the latter in turn entails particular structures of power and ideologies that sustain them. There is therefore a simultaneous determination of the whole societal structure and none of the component instances, that we identify analytically, actually exist prior to, or independently of the others. The rhythm of politics and culture Based on this sketch of the colonial transformation, it should be clear that mapping the trajectory of the post-colonial Pakistani state - and of politics in the social formation more generally - requires an appreciation of the dialectical relationship between accumulation of capital and accumulation of power, while recognising that these processes of accumulation are embedded in cultural practices as outlined above. As such this thesis attempts to move beyond the static structuralist view towards a more dynamic understanding of social structure that draws insights from post-colonial studies, anthropological writings on the everyday state and the literature on civil- military relations, while rejecting the tendency in these literatures to abstract from the political and economic structures in which power is rooted. In his analysis of the post-colonial dispensation Alavi simply states that the state's primary role is to abide by the dictates of peripheral capitalism. In actual fact the state continues to participate in the actual shaping of an evolving social order while its fundamental concern is to reproduce the existing configuration of political power in which it is dominant. Insofar as this requires the state to pay heed to the imperatives of the international economic order, it does, but this does not mean that within the Pakistani social formation capitalist culture, politics or even relations of production necessarily reign supreme. 30 30 More specifically what is being warned against here is labeling social forms in Pakistan on the basis of western benchmarks. 21 Indeed, the empirical problem faced by Marxists studying the post-colonial world has been that the social organisation of production does not resemble capitalism in the core countries. The most meaningful response to this quandary has been the notion of articulation of modes of production, which allows for the existence of different modes of production contemporaneously?l Other variations on this idea have included a 'conservation-dissolution' relation and a 'blocked' transition (cfBrewer, 1990: 225- 229). However, this 'solution' does not account for the historical possibility of political and cultural forms that evolve alongside and in dialectical relation to articulated modes, and instead attempts to explain the existence of these variegated forms as a function of the articulation of modes of production. The unique cultural and political forms persisting in the post-colonial world have been described variously as 'hybrid', 'ambivalent' and 'multiplicitous'. For the most part such formulations have been propagated by post-structuralists whose conceptualisations are notoriously devoid of reference to the politico-economic context within which such forms are emerging, or in other words, from the increasing subjection of post-colonial societies to the vagaries of capitalist imperialism (San Juan Jr, 2002: 229-32). Such notions then effectively amount to a crass cultural essentialism that neither captures the complexity of the forms superficially described nor situates the 'politics of resistance' that are associated with such forms in a more comprehensive understanding of the accumulation of power and capital, instead fetishizing this 'resistance' and stressing the need to celebrate 'difference'. Be that as it may, Marxist praxis must encounter the cultural and political forms that exist in the post-colonial world. As Benita Parry (2002: 147) points out: Because the alterations to "base" and the innovations in "superstructure" were uneven and unfinished in colonial worlds, the modes of cognition and structures of feeling inscribed by those conscious of inhabiting multiple locations and temporalities do not duplicate the turbulent European articulations of modernity. 31 The convention has been to consider such a state of affairs as transitional, but this represents yet another example of teleological analysis whereby non-western societies are presumed to follow the same trajectory of historical development as the modem west. 22 The suggestion is that it is neither useful to assume the existence of cultural and political forms in the post-colonial world that mimic those in the modem capitalist societies of the West, nor simplistically represent the former as a vestige of 'tradition' as is the practice in static binary representations of modem and traditional. Instead the unique cultural and political attributes of the colonial social formation need to be acknowledged, and further it needs to be considered how, alongside capital, these attributes have shaped the evolution of the political sphere in the post-colonial period?2 The politics of patronage It is of course critical to adequately consider the continuities and discontinuities between colonial rule and the post-colonial dispensation in much the same way as the transition to British rule has been analysed above. In this regard, a number of critical issues demand attention. In the first instance, as Thomas (1984) suggests is the case in any newly independent country, the Pakistani state did articulate a certain degree of anti-imperialism and at least rhetorically claimed economic sovereignty within the suffocating constraints of the capitalist world economy. However, as Ayesha lalal (1990) has famously pointed out, in the unique conjuncture of partition, the new state's sovereignty came to be viewed as dependent on its ability to develop adequate defence capacity to guard against India swallowing it up even before it advanced past its teething phase. As such therefore, the Pakistani state not only retained its predecessor state's overbearing influence in charting the direction of the economy and the social formation at large, but was endowed with a popular mandate - protection of the subcontinent's Muslims from Hindu domination, or in other words the two-nation theory - to do exactly this. 33 The question of Islam in the politics of Pakistan will be 32 Importantly, there is little evidence to suggest that most 'traditional' politico-cultural forms are stationary. On the contrary, there is a substantive dynamism associated with them, as much as there is with their supposed antithesis, including most importantly, capital. For example, Alavi (1999: 73) discusses the shift from 'structured' to 'unstructured' kinship as being coeval with increased urbanisation, suggesting that both the logic of capital and non-economic personal exchange relationships - both dynamic and responsive to other social forces - need to be invoked to explain evolving social forms. 33 Of course the newly formed Indian state also retained the unitary structure of the colonial state but on the basis of very different ideological foundations, best encapsulated in the idea of developmentalism. See Jalal's (1995) comparison of India and Pakistan's different yet similar political economies. 23 discussed presently, however, it is essential to bear in mind that the inordinate focus on defence had serious implications for the manner in which Pakistan was subjected to the rigours of a ruthless global economy and was also a direct contributing factor to the establishment of the historical bloc. In the immediate post-independence period, it was the state that guided the process of capital accumulation, effectively creating an industrialist class which, as a class without political power, relied entirely on state favours to prosper (cf Alavi, 1983a). Meanwhile the landed class that enjoyed considerable social power and dominated all political parties continued to be the major intermediary through which the state maintained social control. Even as the landed class started to suffer the effects of modernisation, its access to the state and ability to manipulate the delivery of public services meant that it retained considerable political power. Throughout the period before Ayub Khan's rise to power, the state relied on the ability of landed notables to engage the popular classes in a politics of patronage that was built upon the cultural logic of the social formation (even if this logic differed considerably across different regions) and the overwhelming influence of the state in social life. Yet the contradictions that arose as capital penetrated farther and deeper into society were bound to give rise to a politics that employed the language of class and ethno-nationalism, the latter due to the ethnic imbalance in the composition of the state. Indeed, the rapid changes of the 60s and 70s brought about a new confrontational politics - or what I have called the politics of resistance - which led to the downfall of the Ayubian regime and the rise of populism under Bhutto (cf Zaidi, 2005a; Sayeed, 1980). As I will detail in Section 2 of the thesis, the politics of resistance was spearheaded by industrial labour, students as well as intermediate classes associated with the rapidly changing agrarian economy. Industrial labour in particular was armed with the ideology of socialism, an idiom popular across the third world at the time. While the the politics of resistance generated some real material gains for industrial workers, the peasantry and other segments of the subordinate classes, more important was the permanent change in the conception and practice of politics that took place. In other 24 words, subordinate classes could be the subject of a politics of change and were not bound by fate to powerful patrons acting in the name of 'tradition' . Yet in the post-Bhutto period it has been noted that patronage politics has reemerged throughout the entire social formation - subordinate and superordinate groups alike are involved in personal exchange relationships that do not abide by the logic of impersonal market exchange, even if they are conditioned by market forces. It is the purpose of this thesis to understand this displacement of the politics of resistance by what I have called the politics of common sense. Notwithstanding the exceptional period of the politics of resistance, since 1947 and more so in the post-Bhutto period, the state has been a site of struggle for economic and political resources, particularly at lower levels where state functionaries are closely linked to society at large (cf Clapham, 1985: 41).34 Meanwhile in the upper echelons of the state, there has also been a furious struggle for power, a proper analysis of which requires appreciation of the uniquely privileged situation of Urdu- speaking migrants and their role in state formation. These migrants had been at the forefront of the Muslim nationalist movement and were also experienced in the administration of the state having been loyal servants to the British Raj (cf Ansari, 2005). And it was this group alongwith Punjabi counterparts that eventually came to be the primary wielders of power in the new state - the infamous military- bureaucratic oligarchy - with the explicit consent of propertied classes in the western wing of the country. At higher levels of the state, a commitment to the principles of Weberian rationality remains, especially insofar as the maintenance of the coercive apparatus of the state is essential to the reproduction of power relations. However the most prominent feature of the oligarchic order - like that in many post-colonial societies - is the access of dominant groups to state resources that greatly increases their power to act as dispensers of patronage across the social formation. 35 34 This is not to suggest that 'corruption' was absent during colonial rule - native low-level state functionaries during the colonial period were just as prone to using their positions for self- aggrandisement or to bestow favours upon their kin as after political independence. However, the p'ihenomenon has become much over time: .. .. See Bayart (1993) for an eXposItIOn of sImIlar processes III post-colomal AfrIca. 25 As will be discussed in coming chapters, the survival of the Alavian nexus of power has depended on the incorporation of emergent social forces within an expanded historical bloc - thus the assertion that the project of state formation is as yet an ongoing one, that the state is overdeveloping. Yet this order relies just as much on the participation of subordinate classes within the designated political sphere. Hence this is a hegemonic project insofar as the subordinate classes accede to the de facto principles of the designated political sphere as a matter of 'common sense'. When the subordinate classes - or for that matter dissidents from within the historical bloc - articulate a politics of revolt, or even resistance, the coercive apparatus of the state always stands at full attention ready to restore order. 36 A Gramscian reading of the participation of the subordinate classes in the designated political sphere requires an appreciation of the notion of active and passive cultural affinities, and the fact that at any historical conjuncture, either may prevail (cf Arnold, 1984). Naturally the state's constant resort to coercion and the presence of propertied classes intent on constantly reinforcing their dominance within society at large ensures that the passive aspect typically predominates, particularly as this aspect is familiar and seems to reinforce pre-existing ascriptive ties. 37 At the same time, the state and its dominant class partners must constantly pre-empt the emergence of an active culture within the subordinate classes that might be the basis of a revolutionary counter-hegemony. In historical terms, the historical bloc was faced with exactly such a challenge in the 1967-77 period on account of the substantive social changes that came about as a result of the deepening impact of capital. To counter this wave of politicisation, the state reconstituted a political sphere that 'systematically inhibit[ed] the articulation of class as a source of overt political conflict' (Clapham, 1985: 58). While I argue that the subordinate classes necessarily 36 As will be shown subsequently, the use of violence by the state - or even the threat of it - remains crucial to the powers that be. Nonetheless, the state's resort to unbridled use of force is always a good indicator that hegemony is unraveling. 37 Some of the literature on civil-military relations suggests alternative explanations for the inability/unwillingness of society at large to challenge authoritarianism. Linz (1973) for example suggests that authoritarian rule gives rise to a 'apolitical politicism', or in other words a political environment in which the mass of people are apathetic to the point of virtual indifference. While this observation holds some credence, it needs to be infused with insight into the specific structural and historical context. 26 perceive politics of this kind to be common sense, this does not mean that class is not operative. Flynn (1974) asserts that the very fact that coercion remains crucial to the reproduction of power renders non-conflictual patron-client models inconsistent with observed realities. In more recent times there has been an effort to distinguish 'traditional' patron-client relations from 'modem' forms (Gunes-Ayata, 1994) or separate 'political patronage' from 'patron-client relations' altogether (Medard, 1982). All such analyses are cognizant of the class dimensions of the patronage bond. While on the surface there appears to be a continuity of patron-client relations in the sense that social exchange revolves around a deeply-rooted cultural logic, in actual fact there has been a profound transformation in the basis of patron-client relations, mainly because of the deepening of capitalism. 38 It is true that relationships of power in Pakistan - like those in many parts of the post- colonial world - are heavily personalised in that there exists a personal relationship between the individual, group, or in my analysis, class; and the weaker individual, group or class over which the former is exercising power. Historically the debate within the academy has centred around the extent of mutual reciprocity that characterizes this relationship with a limited focus on its exploitative nature (cf Scott, 1985).39 Gilsenan (1977: 179-80) points out that even though the most distinctive feature of Lebanese politics is the personalisation of power, and 'that form the point of view of the composition of the elite and ruling families there appears on the surface to be no radical break in the overall form of political domination.... the economic basis for that structure has in fact changed profoundly' (italics in the original). He proceeds to argue that an understanding of personal relations is of course important but should not be confused with the objective class organisation of society at large. What I wish to highlight in this thesis is how the subordinate classes have acceded to a form of patronage politics that has been deliberately institutionalised by the state in the post-Bhutto period. In other words even though fundamental changes have taken 38 For a detailed discussion of the class nature of patron-client relationships in the South Asian context, see Khan (1998; 2000). 39 At the very least, this line of reasoning emphasizes the non-coercive nature of exchange, even if the exchange is acknowledged to be based on inequality 27 place in the structure of society such that 'traditional' patron-client relationships now stand eroded, it must be understood why personalised relationships which resemble the classic patron-client model continue to persist. At some level the best way to understand this 'change without change' is in recognising that conventionally exchange relationships in the market are often understood as 'calculable, noncommittal and single-shot' exchanges focused exclusively on securing economic benefits (Gellner, 1977: 5-6) whereas what I have observed across the Pakistani social formation is that even market exchange resembles a political relationship in which considerations are often more long-term and are heavily personalised. Nonetheless, 'politics becomes a kind of business, ... is reduced to economics and recovers the depersonalised character inherent in the market' (Medard, 1982: 181). In other words, starting with the Zia period the state has cultivated a complex relationship with the wider social formation, reinforcing a politics that partially reflects personal exchange relationships that persist from the pre-colonial period and also evolving class relations that are a function of insertion into the capitalist world economy. In doing so it has reinforced the historical pattern whereby - as Medard (1982: 181) suggests is the case in the post-colonial African context - 'it is political resources which give access to economic resources'. Importantly, the subordinate classes have acceded to the politics of common sense not under the guise of 'false consciousness' but knowing that it is a cynical 'exchange of organizational muscle for material benefits and is readily renegotiated if clients (or indeed entire factions) are offered better terms by other patrons or higher- level factions' (Khan, 2000: 580). In thinking about common sense politics in this way I seek to show that working people are at one and the same time forced to accept the logic of the prevailing political sphere yet can always rebel against it. In institutionalising the politics of common sense, the historical bloc has not in fact reinforced a capitalist ethic and order in the western sense but in fact has buttresed a cultural form that is quite unlike the sociological individuation that pervades societies in the western world. This is not to suggest that there is not a relentless process of 28 individuation underway across the Pakistani social formation, as will be illustrated in Section 2 of the thesis, but only to reiterate that historically evolved cultural practice must be considered when attempting to explain the reproduction of the prevailing configuration of power. 40 Yet the fact of the ever increasing penetration of the capitalist mode is undeniable, and reflects the growing complexity of politics as dominant and subordinate classes alike - along with functionaries of the state - participate in cycles of accumulation. 41 In this regard, it is important to consider Breman's (1996) assertion that the conventional dichotomy of formal and informal sectors of the economy tends to oversimplify the manner in which accumulation takes place as it neatly separates the economic and political spheres inhabited by the dominant and popular classes, when in fact there can be no such separation in practice. Completing the hegemonic project In this formulation, the role of Islam in the reproduction of social life is critical, as it is in most Muslim societies. Islam was a major ideational factor in the creation of Pakistan, even if the emergence of Muslims as a separate political category under the Raj reflected the certain Muslims' material interests. As has been pointed out by Gaborieau (2003: 46-7): Islam is the raison d' etre of Pakistan: any Pakistani citizen, however liberal and secular in his outlook, is attached to his religious identity. And any political move or ideology which would not have the sanction of Islam, however formulated, would not gain acceptance. Islam, therefore, is a necessary ingredient of political legitimacy. 40 lalal and Bose (2000: 177) suggest that in Pakistan there exists 'one of the more improbable combinations of personalised elements of rule with impersonalised ones.' While stressing the formative role of the state in class formation, Weiss (1991: 22) makes the parallel point that there remains a tension within society at large between the imperatives of capitalism that demand resources and surplus to be directed towards the objectives of reproduction and 'local solidarities of necessity' which are directed towards explicitly non-economic ends. 41 I should note that, just as in the colonial period, the impact of capital has had contradictory effects in different conjunctures. As will be discussed in detail in Section 2 of the thesis, during the 1960s and 1970s, the Green Revolution precipitated a new politics of class, whereas following the Gulf Migrations actually helped the historical bloc contain the politics of class and in fact precipitated the politics of common sense. 29 More generally, it has been posited by numerous scholars that religion and politics are inseparable in Islam. However, Ayubi (1991) makes the important point that the original sources (Quran, Sunnah) did not clarify the relationship between Islam and the state and therefore the so-called juridical theory of the Islamic state has been a product of political expediency rather than divine guidance. Eickelman and Piscatori (1988) further suggest that the presupposition of the union of religion and politics in Islam is misleading as it presumes that only Muslims are motivated politically by religious feeling while not attributing enough importance to political structures and the fact that material interests playa significant role in the shaping of politics in Muslim societies. Ultimately, the debate over whether Pakistan was meant to be a secular or theocratic state and the question of Islam more generally will always occupy a central position within public discourse given that the country was formed expressly as a state for the subcontinent's Muslims. At the time of Pakistan's creation, Islam inevitably became the state ideology - in spite of all the ambiguities associated with its role in the new state - thus ensuring a permanent political role for the ulama and underlining the need for a powerful and unitary state 42 to protect the homeland that Muslims had created from the imminent threat posed by the Hindu India that it had seceded from. As an accompaniment to the increasingly complex configuration of politics within the new state, Islam has always been instrumentalised by the state and its dominant class partners to assert coercive control when threatened. Given how it has been employed by the historical bloc to reproduce class relations there can be little doubt of its centrality to the hegemonic project. The role of Islam as state ideology has become more prominent following the dismemberment of the country. Bhutto, for example, used the slogan 'Islamic socialism' to gamer popular support, while making a concerted effort to establish ties with the Muslim world to the west given that Pakistan's place in the pecking order in South Asia had been jeopardised by the events of 1971. The Zia era is remembered as the era of 'Islamisation' and as will be argued in subsequent chapters, it has been under the guise of Islam that the politics of common sense - replete with the coercive 42 Of course in theory Pakistan is a federal state but in practice it remains very centralised, committed to the suppression of difference. 30 power of the state - has been foisted on the social formation. It also follows that the newest members of the historical bloc stoutly pledge allegiance to the state ideology. Coming full circle Alavi's original formulation remains full of insight so long as it is problematised further. My contention is that, at the conjuncture of partition the unique construct of Islamic nationhood and its attendant political machinations brought together a historical bloc comprising state functionaries, propertied classes of the western wing, and of course, the forces of capitalist imperialism 43 As J alaI (1990; 1995) points out, the state oligarchy's predominance - while no doubt partly a function of its historical position within the colonial social formation - was also a reflection of the concerns amongst the West Pakistani propertied classes that even a nominally democratic dispensation might result in power shifting to the eastern wing. 44 There has been not insignificant conflict between - indeed within - the state oligarchy and its dominant class partners over time, reflected primarily in the struggle over establishment of a nominally functional democratic process. The literature on civil- military relations tends to view the persistence of undemocratic rule in the third world as a function of, among other factors, weaknesses of political parties and the superiority of the military as a cohesive and modern institution. However, this literature is generally silent on the reproduction of structural matrices of power in which the straightforward civil-military dichotomy becomes an analytical oversimplification. Heeger (1977) provides the most valuable insight by pointing out that the Pakistani case proves that even when not in power directly, the military'S predominance in fundamental resource-allocation and decision-making affairs remains largely intact. 45 43 It is important to assert that the nature of this historical bloc was by no means set in stone, but that it was a direct product of the specific conjuncture. For example, urban commercial groups in the Pakistan areas at the time of partition were almost exclusively Hindu. Resultantly, 'any benefits to society from an emerging 'bourgeois' ethos were emaciated by [their] emigration to Indian territory at Partition in 1947' (Ali, 2003: 34). 44 As J alaI and many other historians have pointed out, the demographic majority of the eastern wing represented a threat to the West Pakistani propertied classes and Punjabi and Urdu-speaking state oligarchy alike, and their alliance was cemented by the perceived threat of Indian aggression which justified an inordinate emphasis on building up the young state's defence capacity. 45 This is not all to suggest that there is no substantive difference between military governments and some form of elected rule, which, as will be hinted at throughout the thesis, there clearly is. However it 31 The relationship between the 'metropolitan bourgeoisie' and dominant institutional and class interests within Pakistan has also not been without tension and conflict. Nonetheless, following the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a reconstituted historical bloc has reemerged to dominate a social formation which continues to change rapidly. As Pakistani society has become increasingly vulnerable to the vagaries of the international market, a multitude of class contradictions have emerged. Similarly, given the inability of the historical bloc to maintain national unity under the banner of Islam, conflicts along ethno-nationallines have proliferated. Yet these have been - and continue to be - evaded by incumbent political power. To reiterate, this thesis considers evolving social forms so as to understand the development of the political sphere in the post -1971 period, while positing that cultural dispositions, political imaginations and practices, and the logic of capital are the constituents of these forms, and that none can be reduced to a simple reflection of another. As such this exercise should intuitively be conducted at two heuristic levels, namely at the level of dominant classes and the state oligarchy and at the level of the subordinate classes, the purpose of which would be to understand the manner in which the existing configuration of power is reproduced as a function of both dominance and consent. In general political economy accounts of Pakistan totally neglect to consider the latter, perhaps for two largely related reasons; that it is the ruling classes who write history through the largely brute exercise of power; and that capturing the logic of subordinate class practices is both conceptually and empirically very difficult. Subaltern studies historiography has attempted to correct this shortcoming in the mainstream readings of Indian history by bringing into focus popular struggles that cannot be considered simple corollaries of the nationalist movement (cf Chakrabarty, 1981; Guha, 1983). However it can be argued that this seminal effort has increasingly suffered from an inadequate emphasis on the determining economic and political contexts within which subordinate class practices are played out (cf Sarkar, 2002). In general post-structuralist scholarship takes the idea of a 'blurring' of state and society is indubitable that the oligarchic structure of power has remained intact even during the tenure of elected governments. 32 too far thereby ignoring the importance of class, state power, and discourses of dominance (cf Jeffrey and Lerche, 2001). In any case, it is crucial to understand the logic of practice at the level of the subordinate classes for another reason, namely to establish how and why strategies for domination change over time. As E.P. Thompson (1995: 142) has pointed out, it is never the case that dominant classes can mute any and all potential challenges to their power, and there often exists a 'vigorous self- activating culture of the people' that 'constitutes an ever-present threat to official descriptions of reality' . Importantly, as has been underlined in the political economy literature on India, the role of the so-called intermediate classes needs to be considered in depth to fully grasp the complexity of accumulation processes (cfHarriss-White, 2003). In the seminal neo-Marxist analyses, intermediate classes often referred to salaried professionals and state functionaries. However, the role of the intermediate trading, small-scale manufacturing and wholesale/retail classes has only more recently attracted greater attention. Without doubt this segment of the intermediate classes have increased their role in the accumulation of capital by engaging the state strategically, and more generally reinforcing the prevailing dynamics of the conventional political sphere (cf Khan, 1998). It will therefore be important to understand the politics of the intermediate classes as much as subordinate and dominant classes and institutional interests to construct a holistic picture of the political sphere. Most political economy accounts of Pakistan are structured as descriptive chronological accounts in which six distinct periods are conventionally delineated, starting with the first II-year period of bureaucratic consolidation, followed by the Ayub Khan dictatorship, the Yahya interregnum in which the eastern wing seceded, Bhutto's rule, the Zia dictatorship and finally the post-Zia decade in which four governments were not allowed to complete their terms in office (cf Ziring, 1997; Malik, 1997; Waseem, 1994; Rizvi, 2000). This thesis focuses specifically on the post-197I period, and in doing so will not be fashioned along the lines of a traditional political economy. The periodisation reflects the fact that the current Pakistan came into being only in 1971, but arguably more 33 importantly that the post -1971 period marked a renewed attempt by the Alavian nexus of power to reinforce a hegemonic politics of common sense in which the participation of subordinate and intermediate classes was essential to counter a burgeoning confrontational politics of class that threatened the historical bloc. Religious groups including the ulama have also become increasing more influential in the post -1971 period. Furthermore, it is worth bearing in mind that Alavi's own 'overdeveloped' formulation described the state and politics in Pakistan prior to 1971. Methodology In concluding the introductory chapter, I would like to note some methodological points as well as provide basic details about fieldwork sites. For the most part, scholarly efforts to theorise on the state have relied on a reified notion of the state, whether as a conglomeration of interests, or as a coherent set of institutions operating within the confines of a well-defined rationalism. As I mentioned at the outset, the major theoretical and empirical contribution of the thesis is reflected in Section 2 where I seek to go beyond the traditional academic conventions and conduct an 'anthropology of the state'. Given that I seek to debunk the notion of an 'underdeveloped' society that is engaged only functionally by an 'overdeveloped' state, and illuminate the intimate nature of the state-society relation, it seems natural to consider the 'everyday state and society' in different parts of the country (cf Fuller and Benei, 2001). In other words, to understand the fashioning of the hegemonic politics of common sense is it is necessary to investigate the actual engagement of the subordinate classes with the state (as well as the dominant and intermediate classes that are also beneficiaries of the hegemonic project). Thus I adopt an anthropological method which permits a thorough investigation of the manner in which the actions of the administrative apparatus and dominant social classes as well as ideas of the state corne together to inform the political action of the subordinate classes. Adopting such a method allows me to simultaneously understand the cultural logic of the social formation as well as the differential impact of capital in the various regions that I study. While I have drawn on anecdotal evidence from numerous parts of the country, the three major fieldwork sites that I identified at an early stage of my research are Okara 34 in Punjab province, Charsadda in NWFP province and Badin in Sindh province. 46 I designed my fieldwork so as to study at least one site in each province, but had to eventually exclude Balochistan. 47 In all three locations, my major ethnographic work was conducted in one or two villages as well as the major urban marketplace where the farmers/fisherfolk sell their output. 48 Of course it must be acknowledged that the empirical material generated during my fieldwork cannot be considered representative as such and that it offers only a limited insight into Pakistan's political sociology. 49 Having said this it is important to dwell a bit on choice of fieldwork sites and why I believe I can draw broader inferences from the very localized research that I conducted. Both Okara and Charsadda are in that part of Pakistan that has undergone rapid changes over the past two to three decades and where capitalism has penetrated the deepest. As such these are also areas that can be said to have been 'coopted' into the prevailing power structure to a much greater extent than, say, Badin (and other parts of Sindh) and large parts of Balochistan. As will become clear in subsequent chapters, I place a great deal of emphasis on the fact that the structure of power remains exclusive despite the great objective changes in the wider society. In this regard, the Okara and Charsadda fieldwork sites are symbols of this growing contradiction. A final note on the actual methods employed to generate information is in order. I did not use questionnaires or formal interviews but in a handful of cases. For the most part I relied on participant observation and open-ended interviews. The most fruitful engagements came in the form of focus group discussions in which the discussants often guided the terms of the discussion/debate. Over the course of fieldwork I came 46 Okara city is approximately 120km south of Lahore on the Grand Trunk Road, and part of the Canal Colony heartland of the Punjab. Charsadda is 150 km west of the federal capital Islamabad and is 30km from the NWFP provincial capital Peshawar. Charsadda too is part of a relatively rich and fertile canal irrigated belt called the Peshawar Valley. Badin is on the southernmost coast of Sindh province, approximately 200 km from Karachi city. Agriculture is also the mainstay here but in recent times major floods have inundated large parts of the arable land in the district. My fieldwork villages are on the Arabian Sea and are approximately two hours drive from Badin city. 47 My exclusion of Balochistan from the fieldwork sites was primarily a function oflogistical and material constraints. However, notwithstanding substantive contextual differences, and in particular the fact that Baloch ethno-nationalism is now the most radical strand of resistance to the Pakistani state, I submit that many of my general conclusions do apply to Balochistan. 48 The Okara villages are Chak 45-3/R and Chak 4-4/L; the Charsadda village is Madni, Tehsil Tangi; the Badin villages are collectively called Zero Goth. 49 This limitation is as much about method as the small number of research sites. Anthropological studies of the state do not permit broad generalisation because of the emphasis on the 'local'. 35 to concur completely with the contention of Bourdieu et. al (1999: 610) that the most successful ethnographic research amongst subaltern groups takes place when the interviewer and interviewee are 'interchangeable'. 50 ' . . 50 In other words it is crucial to dispense with the delusion of perfect impartiality; I found that the richest insights emerged after I had established relationships of trust with the interviewees. 36 Chapter 2 The military: Arbiter of power In discussing the Alavian nexus of power it is instructive to start with a short discussion of Alavi's original conceptualization and how the present work adds to or departs from this conceptualization. I will attempt this for each corporate institution and class, starting off with the most dominant of them all, the military. Alavi's view of the military is encapsulated in the term 'military-bureaucratic' oligarchy. In other words the military and the bureaucracy were somewhat indistinguishable in Alavi's theoretical schema. He viewed both institutions as comprising the 'state' and therefore implied that their interests (and various other features) were essentially congruous. In more historical writings, Alavi necessarily distinguished the two, noting for example that the Ayubian regime was not an instance of 'military rule' as military men had little role in matters of administration (Alavi, 1983a). In the main, I wish to emphasise the importance of theorising the military and bureaucracy separately, so as to add dynamism to Alavi's formulation. Alavi himself acknowledges that over time a shift takes place within the relationship between the bureaucracy and the military in favour of the latter, but his theoretical schema does not reflect this. So, for example, while Alavi does mention that the military and bureaucracy do accumulate capital under the guise of 'development', he makes no attempt to distinguish the means and methods of either corporate group, which, as will be shown presently, is crucial to understanding various aspects of oligarchic rule. In particular he tends to marginalize the fact that the accumulation of capital is dependent on the accumulation of power. Alavi also pays very little attention to the ideological bases of oligarchic domination. In particular he does not consider how and why the military comes to secure an exalted position within the polity on account of Pakistan's constitution as a national security state. This oversight also reinforces the notion that there is no meaningful distinction between the military and bureaucracy whilst also ignoring the importance of legitimation of oligarchic rule 'from below'. 37 As such, through the Ayub period, the imperative of national security had already been firmly established which meant that the military's role as arbiter was being taking root. While this role was disputed by some of the underrepresented ethno- national groups, and particularly the Bengalis, in Punjab the military was considered the undisputed guardian of the state. Jingoism vis a vis India was widespread, whilst a belief had been inculcated within the rank and file of the military as well as the wider west Pakistani public that the modernization spearheaded by the military was making Pakistan into a model third world state. Even so the military was not at this stage the 'mediator' of the historical bloc that it would become in the post-Bhutto period. Ironically the skewed modernization policies of the Ayubian regime were the primary cause of its downfall. Within Pakistan and indeed in much of the third world, populism was the vogue in the late 1960s and the Pakistan People's Party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto managed to capture public support amongst the newly politicized social forces in Punjab and Sindh, namely students, industrial workers and intermediate classes associated with secondary and tertiary sectors of the agrarian economy. Meanwhile the secession of the eastern wing dramatically undermined the military's power. In the subsequent period, the military's political role as well as its image was resuscitated by the Bhutto regime. On the one hand this was reflected in the continuing expansion of its corporate interests while on the other its coercive law and order function was consistently invoked by the government. The politics of common sense has emerged as a distinct form of political engagement throughout the wider social formation in the post-Bhutto period, in conjunction with the reemergence and consolidation of the military as Pakistan's preeminent political force. It is imperative, therefore, to elucidate that it was only with the military at the helm that the historical bloc could have countered the politics of resistance that characterised the 1967-77 period. But first it is necessary to discuss the colonial roots of military power. I will dwell briefly on the unique nature of civil-military administration in the northwest of India during the colonial period and then go on to show how the Pakistani military acquired a symbolic association with the post- colonial nation-state itself. 38 A colonial army Punjab under the British constituted a remarkable experiment in social engineering insofar as the introduction of perennial irrigation canals in the heartland of what is today Pakistani Punjab dramatically altered the social structure of the region and accordingly vested in the state unprecedented power to mold the social order (cf Ali, 1988). The colonial project in the Punjab was premised upon the firm belief that the northwest frontier of India was the crucial buffer that would protect the vast British empire - extending as far east as Australia and New Zealand - from potential aggressors to the west and the north. The rank and file of the British Indian army then, particularly after 1857, was derived disproportionately from the Punjab and the Pakhtuns of the Northwest Frontier. 51 The state then proceeded to effectively buy the loyalty of this volunteer army through the systematic issuing of land grants in the canal colonies. The end result was the creation of a nexus of military-bureaucracy- landed notables that has persisted beyond the end of colonialism (Tan, 2005). As such a unique form of government was institutionalized, popularly known as the Punjab school of administration in which 'authoritarian' tendencies were not only present, but were in fact encouraged. Military men were inducted into positions of civilian authority in repudiation of the well-established colonial principle (Tan, 2005: 219). Even the electoral regime created and refined by the British from 1919 onwards reinforced the unique civil-military regime, based as it was on a very deeply ingrained principle of distribution of patronage and heavily skewed towards rural-military interests. 52 The rural notables-state oligarchy nexus of power championed the tremendous social and economic modernization that took place in the province throughout the century of British rule, and has continued into the post-colonial period. There were the dramatic economic effects of cantonment towns, the highest density of 51 The 1857 War of Independence (or Sepoy Mutiny as the British called it) also signaled a clear shift in colonial thinking in terms of recruitment patterns such that the Punjabis, Pakhtuns and Gurkhas - the so-called martial castes - became the recruits of choice. The northwest of India therefore became the heartland of the army replacing previous recruiting grounds in the eastern and northern parts of India (cf Cohen, 1998). 52 The electoral regime in Punjab was deliberately crafted to ensure that the latent oppositional tendencies of urban areas were subordinated to the pro-establishment vote of the rural areas. More generally the British expanded 'democratic' institutions in India in the hopes that 'India's democratic urges could be contained and ensnared in these institutions, which served the colonial state's needs; that they were incapable of providing launching pads for a broader oppositional politics and were controllable through networks of resource distribution.' (Wash brook, 1990: 42). 39 railroad track in the subcontinent, a formidable road infrastructure, and the like (Dewey, 1988: 138). It is clear therefore that the relationship between state and the rapidly changing society in Punjab set the stage for the continuation of civil-military administration following independence. Fieldwork interviews with officers of the Pakistan arm/ 3 indicated quite clearly that the 'garrison state' model in which civil and military power were considered two sides of the same coin was seamlessly interwoven into the worldview of the administrators of the new state. 54 Arguably just as important was the support from colonial society at large for this form of administration. On the whole, the agriculturalist that was the mainstay of the social order envisaged by the state benefited considerably from this order and therefore could be counted upon to stand by the prevailing social and political order (Dewey, 1988: 148). Meanwhile the unirrigated and relatively poor Potohar plateau in the northern part of the province was the major recruiting ground for the army, and was kept relatively underdeveloped so as to ensure the loyalty of the majority of the subaltern population that was almost entirely reliant on recruitment to the army for its livelihood (Pasha, 1998). In essence this short historical survey of colonial Punjab allows us to make two distinct theoretical inferences. First, Alavi's contention regarding the power of the military-bureaucratic oligarchy in the post-colonial period is only partially accurate. There is no doubting the clear historical legacy of oligarchic rule in what became the dominant province in Pakistan, and further that oligarchic rule was supported directly by at least one propertied class - namely the landed notables 55 - that was part of the power sharing arrangement in the new state. 56 However, Alavi's analysis neither 53 Interview with General (Retd.) Hamid Gul, 22 January 2007. 54 The most obvious example of this shared understanding of politics and administration was the induction of the first indigenous Commander-in-Chief of the army, Ayub Khan, into the 1954 cabinet as Minister of Defence; the civil bureaucracy and complicit politicians clearly did not see the need to make the army subservient to civilian authority. 55 The upper peasantry which was also quite cozy with the state may be considered a distinct class in the mold of the Russian kulak. 56 According to Alavi, the post-colonial state mediates between three dominant classes - under colonial rule it was the landed notables in what were to become the Pakistan areas that were clearly ascendant in 40 considers the historical roots of military-bureaucratic accommodation (in any particular region), nor the manner in which this accommodation evolves. More importantly, Alavi sees the colonial state as being fundamentally disjointed from the social formation in which it was ensconced, instead theorising the state as constituting the superstructure of the economic base in the metropole. In actual fact, as the history of colonial Punjab suggests, there is a highly complex and mutually constitutive relationship between the colonial state and the social formation that is based on established as well as newly evolving economic, political and cultural foundations. The implications of this discussion are clear in the sense that the military's direct role in administration and its concurrent garnering of public resources was deeply institutionalized (its influence and support base concentrated in the Punjab), and this pattern could be expected to continue. 57 As such therefore this chapter seeks to trace the development of the military's independent corporate empire and confirm the argument made by Siddiqa (2007) that as time has passed, and particularly following the Zia dictatorship, the military's need to maintain a firm grip on power is largely explained by its desire to expand its economic interests. 58 As will be argued in subsequent chapters, the state oligarchy that existed at partition has changed considerably, as have the three propertied classes in Alavi's formulation. Crucially it has been the military's ability to lead the other members of the historical bloc, as well as new contenders for power that have emerged since the 1960s that explains the persistence of the Alavian nexus of power from above. 59 Having said this comparison to the very small indigenous bourgeoisie, whereas the foreign bourgeoisie was represented by the colonial state itself. 57 The preeminence of many migrants in the high bureaucracy in Karachi did not necessarily undermine the military's claims to power-sharing; the imperative of 'national security' guaranteed a central role for the soldiers. 58 See also Rizvi (2000) who argues that the various 'hybrid' civil-military regimes that have existed in Pakistan, particularly during the 1990s, reflect the military's commitment to a principle of coming into power directly only if its corporate interests are threatened. 59 Having said this, it is important to bear in mind that, as a general rule, post-colonial militaries are neither conceived of nor equipped to undertake the administrative function which is typically the preserve of the civil bureaucracy. In this respect we differ with the extensive literature on civil military relations in the decades which asserts that third world militaries were better equipped to lead post- colonial states into the era of independence primarily on account of their superior organizational capacity (cf Huntington, 1968; Perlmutter, 1977). Similarly, as was pointed out in the introductory chapter, the civil-military oligarchy requires dominant classes - and particularly landed notables - to mediate its exchanges with the popular classes. Thus in conceiving of the military as the dominant force within the historical bloc in the post-Bhutto period, it is crucial to reiterate that the military exercises power only because it does so with the consent of other members of the historical bloc. 41 the military's embeddedness within the patronage-based political system has in recent times given rise to increasing alienation because of its growing economic and political clout. The military's rapid rise to the pinnacle of economic, political and social power is in fact the greatest threat to oligarchic rule because it has endangered its historical relationships with other components of the historical bloc whilst also exploding the myth of its selflessness amongst the subordinate classes. The military's ability to divert surplus to its independent economic enterprises has been a direct function of the polarization within Pakistan between pro and anti Bhutto camps from the 1970s onwards. The military acquired the mantle of mediator within the historical bloc as the symbol of the anti-Bhutto camp. In this role of mediator, the military has become landlord, industrialist, and even civilian administrator. 6o It can therefore be argued, that Alavi's observation about the relative autonomy of the state and its mediatory role in the immediate post-colonial period needs to be adapted to account for the post-Bhutto period in which the military has effectively acquired relative autonomy and mediates the interests of all other members of the historical bloc. 61 My focus here is on the reemergence of the military and the support offered to it by traditional and new contenders for power in the post-Bhutto period. Crucially, the military reasserted its image as guardian of Pakistan while projecting the state as an entity beyond the reach of the subordinate classes which, in the name of Islam, would rigorously impose order. The historical bloc was committed to rolling back the gains made by the subordinate classes during the late 1960s and 1970s by slowly but surely reducing the latter's influence on state policy and posture, thereby eliminating their potential to capture the state. 62 The historical bloc consensus once again crushed the possibility of a democratic process taking root in favour of maintaining the existing oligarchic order. 60 Siddiqa (2007: 108) suggests that the military 'cuts across' or 'penetrates' other classes. This is consistent with our analysis, but is perhaps an inappropriate metaphor. The conceptualisation of the military as a distinct 'class' will be explored in the concluding chapter. 61 This appears to correspond to what has been called the 'colonisation of the state' by the military (Lowy & Sader, 1985). 62 I will analyse the popular upheavals of this period in greater depth in Section 2 of the thesis. 42 The national security state 63 The new state was formed under tumultuous circumstances that provided an opportunity for the bureaucracy, military and propertied classes of the western wing to emphasise the imperative of national security at the cost of promoting the fledgling political process. This imperative was simply not questioned by any political actor or for that matter within society at large (Rizvi, 2000: 76).64 The role of external powers and particularly the United States in reinforcing this unique conflation of interests in which the military eventually rose to a dominant position will be discussed in Chapter 6. In any case, the military's ascent followed from the inordinate importance associated with 'national security' from the very beginning. In the early years following the inception of the state, the military garnered a hugely disproportionate share of public resources in the form of the official defence budget taking as much as 70% of the budget expenditure in the first year (Siddiqi, 1996: 70). Over time, the size of the official defence budgets has decreased, at least in relative terms. That having been said during fieldwork it was apparent that a broad cross- section of society unanimously concurs that the military's 'institutionalised corruption' has increased over time. For example it is now common knowledge that the military has transferred pensions for its retirees into the civilian head of the budget so as to make its own budget appear more modest. Dissident intellectuals have also made it a point to assert the difference between combat and non-combat defence expenditures. 65 Nonetheless, it can be safely asserted that the military has not been able to secure as big a share of government expenditure as in the immediate post-partition years or the period following dismemberment in 1971, especially given the exponential increases in the debt repayment burden over the past 20 years. On the one hand the military has augmented its resource flows by allying itself closely with its American counterpart 63 This term is being used in the tradition of Ahmad (2000) and Johnson (1985). 64 Nationalist sentiment, and the anti-India consciousness in particular, was concentrated primarily amongst the migrant communities of Punjab and urban Sindh. Ethno-national groups on the margins of national discourse did not ascribe to 'official' nationalism largely because they were often victims of military aggression on the part of the centre. 65 Interview with Kaiser Bengali, 3 May 2007. See also Cheema (2003: 44): 'Many defence items are camouflaged and are listed under some other ministry's budgetary allocation. These are known as hidden allocations - resources allocated to the non-defence sector but whose outcome forms a significant part of the overall defence activity' . 43 through official assistance agreements (to be discussed in Chapter 6). However, as will be shown, American (and other) aid assistance has been erratic. Accordingly, it has been the military's systematic and autonomous accumulation of capital that began with its entry into power politics under Ayub that has guaranteed its corporate interests. Underlying the military's ability to manipulate state affairs and divert surplus has been the discourse of internal law and order. This discourse has been multi-pronged. On the one hand it has linked the external threat to territorial sovereignty with internal dissent (Cohen, 1998; p. 45). On the other it has emphasised the perceived ineptitude of politicians. This perception was consolidated at a very early stage as parliamentary government failed to take root in the first decade of the country's existence, with different factions competing to win favour with a powerful civil bureaucracy. Over time the military - and importantly a significant section of the intelligentsia - has propagated the myth that it offers stability and direction in comparison to politicians. During fieldwork it was clearly observed that the project of demeaning politicians has been a successful one. All across the social formation, cynicism about the intent and performance of politicians is rife. Finally the military'S aura was built up through 'heroic' episodes of assistance to civilian authority in the wake of natural and man-made disasters (Rizvi, 2000: 77_8).66 As - if not more - important have been public disturbances such as the Ahmadi riots of 1953 when the first martial law in the independent country's history was imposed. By taking responsibility for the restoration of the public peace the military very deliberately cultivated an image for itself as the ultimate guardian of the state. The key to maintaining this self-created image has been to limit its public interventions and contrasting itself to the 'callous' and 'self-absorbed' politicians and even bureaucrats that ordinary Pakistanis interacted with on a regular basis (Siddiqi, 1996). Following the dismemberment of the country in December 1971, the public myth of the military's omnipotence was crushed. This was reflected in scathing attacks on military professionalism in major newspapers; editorials lamented that the military'S 66 See Moore (1969) for a perspective that celebrates the military's role in nation-building. 44 humiliating surrender in east Pakistan was a direct outcome of the military's negligence of its professional duties during its prolonged time in power (cf Shafqat, 1997: 166). Accordingly the Bhutto regime was presented with an unprecedented opportunity to relegate the military to a position of subservience to civilian authority. More than thirty years removed from the experience, military officers today narrate tales of Bhutto' s viciousness towards the military and the fact that for at least the first two years after coming to power he systematically undermined its internal authority structure. 67 The anti-Bhutto sentiment appears to derive from the fact that what was considered the military darkest hour - the surrender in Dhaka - perversely marked Bhutto's coming to power, even though many of the military officers interviewed clearly believed that Bhutto was at least as responsible for the debacle as Yahya Khan and other military men. In any case, despite the fact that the PPP regime had a unique opportunity to attack the edifice of the national security state at a fundamental level, Bhutto preferred to emphasise the failings of a few 'fat and flabby generals'. 68 Perhaps more than any other regime in Pakistan's history, the PPP government reasserted the national security paradigm and particularly the anti-India imperative, thereby providing a golden opportunity for the military to reemerge as a major actor in the power-sharing arrangement. Defence expenditures increased markedly under the PPP government, while it also initiated the nuclear program which has subsequently become a major pillar of the national security state. 69 Bhutto also employed the military liberally to quell internal dissent against industrial labour in Karachi and urban centres in Punjab, thereby also rehabilitating its complementary law and order function. Perhaps most crucially, the military was called in to crush a nationalist movement in Balochistan in 1973, a mere 18 months 67 Interview with Brigader (Retd.) Shaukat Qadir, 15 January 2007. See also Shafqat (1997: 167-181); the manner in which Bhutto removed General Gul Hasan and Air Marshal Rahim indicated his almost unchallengeable authority over a demoralized military. 68 Bhutto's personal assistant Rafi Raza puts this down to Bhutto's belief that the military was a permanent fixture on Pakistan's political landscape and it was thus futile to try and eliminate it (Raza, 1997). 69 Defence expenditures in 1974 reached an all-time high of 8.4% of GDP; in no year since Pakistan's founding has defence expenditure been higher than 7.2% (Hashmi, 1983: 105). 45 after the eastern wing of the country had been lost because of the historical bloc's unwillingness to fashion an equitable power sharing arrangement. Historically the military's image of guardian of the state has been synonymous with the use of force against nationalist movements for autonomy (Alavi, 1987: 106-7). The Balochistan episode reignited the flames of chauvinism in the Punjab against oppressed nationalities and was central to the restoration of the Punjabi-dominated military's prestige. Military officers interviewed during fieldwork agreed that it was Bhutto's invocation of the military's classic 'restoration of order' function that allowed the soldiers re-entry into the corridors of power. 70 Guardian of the state once more The Bhutto regime's liberal use of Islamic idiom ironically paved the way for the intense ideological stresses of the Zia dictatorship. Given the highly polarized society that the Zia regime sought to neuter, the use of Islam as the apparent guiding principle for government was quite logical especially in light of the long history of instrumentalisation of religion in Pakistan. Crucially Islam was the guise under which flagrant use of force was justified, and it was this unbridled use of force that undermined the confrontational class politics that constituted a major threat to the oligarchy and the propertied classes, the details of which will be discussed at length in Section 2.71 Following the Ziajunta's coming to power, it became apparent that the restoration of even a nominal democratic process would likely condemn the military to the cowering position that it had suffered through during the Bhutto years.72 Thus the modus operandi for both old and new contenders for power in the post-Bhutto period has been to prevent the emergence of popular challenges to status quo. My interactions 70 Interviews with General (Retd.) Hamid Gul, 22 January 2007; General (Retd.) Talat Masood, 24 November 2006. Officers active at the time concur that the immediate cause of the Zia coup was the PNA movement that raged for four months - many skeptics believe that this movement was supported by elements within the state keen to get rid of Bhutto but needing a pretext to do so. See also Jalal (1994). 71 During fieldwork in the national archives it was observed that under the Zia regime numerous notifications issued by the 'Political Section' of the Interior Ministry entitled 'action against objectionable literature and books having material against Islam' gave law enforcers an explicit mandate to arrest and harass dissidents under the pretext that they were 'anti-Islam'. 72 In fact the generals that carried out the coup clearly feared for their lives in the event of Bhutto's return to power; perpetrators of military coups were subject to the death penalty under the 1973 constitution. 46 with serving and retired civil and military officers, as well as propertied classes indicated this consensus clearly, although the most obvious anti-Bhutto (read: anti- populist) biases were found amongst military officers and urban capitalists (both big and small), both insistent that military leadership was essential to reestablish 'order' in a highly polarized society. More specifically, in the immediate post-Bhutto period, it became important to conceive of and then build a set of alliances that would allow the military to overcome its lack of popular legitimacy.73 This political strategy would have to be backed up by a constant reassertion of the military's ultimate function: its coercive force. Perhaps un surprisingly, it was the familiar members of the historical bloc that were willing accomplices of the new military junta; a demoralized high bureaucracy, an industrial bourgeoisie forever scarred by what they considered to be Bhutto' s whimsical economic policies, and the landed class, that fit as searnlessly into Zia's schema of political engineering as it had done in all previous dispensations (Waseem, 1994: 360- 9). The Afghan War also set the stage for a consolidation of the relationship between imperialism and the military. Finally, the Zia period marked the emergence of the ulema as a mainstream political force that pushed its way into the historical bloc on account of Zia's choice of an obscurantist Islam as state ideology; and the intermediate classes that had been the major force behind anti-Bhutto populism. The expanded historical bloc was united by the need to undermine the counter hegemonic power of the popular classes. This explains the remarkable stability of the Zia regime, even though it reneged on its promise of restoring democracy numerous times, beginning as early as three months after the July 1977 coup. In other words the high bureaucracy and propertied classes recognized that only a strong-arm period of military rule could counter the politics of class that had characterized the Bhutto years, and thus they accepted the military's leadership. The political system that the Zia junta created, and which was backed by other dominant groups, was based crucially on a 'personalization' of power insofar as the military used the institutions and resources of the state to serve its own independent 73 Interview with Brigadier (Retd.) Shaukat Qadir, 15 January 2007. 47 corporate interests, whilst patronizing allies, and also attempting to coopt the intermediate classes into an ever expanding web of state patronage. 74 This personalized form of politics was not a qualitatively new phenomenon but was institutionalized in response to the more expansive mobilizations along class lines in the preceding period. 75 While the Zia regime targeted the whole polity in this effort, it was most crucial that the intermediate classes be coopted. 76 In Pakistan today, sifarish (asking for favours) and rishwat (rewarding of someone who does a favour) are commonplace. During fieldwork, it was observed both in everyday discourse as well as in the popular media that there is a certain lament about the cynicism that has crept into everyday social exchange in the form of sifarish and rishwat. 77 Popular memory - across the entire breadth of social classes - tends to position sifarish and rishwat as having become widespread only recently, as opposed to the more pristine image of society in an earlier period in Pakistan's history. Civil and military officers tend to associate the ascent of a sifarishlrishwat culture with Bhutto, but even if the rot started during the PPP's time in power, it became widespread under the Zia regime. The post-Bhutto reassertion of a patronage principle in the political sphere will be discussed at length in subsequent chapters. Nonetheless, as pointed out above, the politics of common sense is predicated upon the state possessing the credible threat of coercion. Returning to Gramsci' s schema, hegemony exists in the form of a complex dialectic of coercion and consent, in the complementary role of state as the repository of power and civil society as the terrain of 'common sense' action. Ayubi (1995: 172- 3) insists that 'the predominance of the 'political' and the cruciality of the state is in some ways a function of the lack of class hegemony in society'. While it is true that no single class is dominant within the social formation, our contention that the 74 Noman (2001) has called this systematic use of state resources 'shadow privatisation', while the literature more generally describes this as 'privatisation of the state'. See Bayart (1993) for the most cogent exposition of this idea. The chapter on the intermediate classes will also discuss the possibility of using the even more suggestive idea of 'criminalisation of the state'. 75 Shafqat (1997: 82) asserts that personalization of power is the 'hallmark of Pakistan's political system'. 76 It can be argued that Bhutto himself initiated this process of personalization, however, he did not completely coopt the independent class and interest based associationallife that had emerged during his rise to power. It was only during the Zia regime that the latter were deliberately undermined through a combination of coercion and cooption. 77 See also Verkaaik (2004). 48 military has effectively acquired the role of mediator between dominant classes while representing the omnipotence of state power for the subordinate classes is consistent with the existence of hegemonic power relations in that the politics of the subordinate classes has become an 'anxiety from below to find a place in the complex vertical links of political power' (Ayubi, 1995: 169). Evidently, the post-Bhutto military regime successfully restated the idea of the state in the public mind in a manner that made it, at one and the same time, impersonal and dominant, but also accessible and personalized. In other words, for the politics of common sense to be truly hegemonic, the military regime had to create the perception amongst the subordinate classes that confrontation of the kind that had become commonplace through the 1970s would be met with the severest of consequences and that relying on localized patronage networks leading to the state was 'rational' in the sense that the 'class action' was unlikely to lead to a superior outcome (Khan, 2000: 576).78 The making of an empire This rather long preface outlining the historical bloc consensus over the need to maintain oligarchic rule and the attendant cultivation of the military's image within the context of a national security state explains the military's gradual ascendance. When thinking more specifically about military officers as a distinct sociological group, it becomes clear that, throughout the post-colonial period, the military's corporate interests have arguably been the single most important factor in explaining its methods of political action. Ayub's takeover in October 1958 marked the direct entry of military men into administrative positions, notwithstanding episodic interventions such as the 1953 martial law in Punjab. Hence the regime's primary base of power remained the military; '[Ayub] knew the importance of being able to maintain decent standards of living - not only while serving but after retirement' (Cloughley, 2000: 33). As military men became cosy with the high bureaucrats that still occupied the preeminent position in the polity, they became firm in the 'belie[f] that the perks of the officers 78 The highly dynamic nature of the subordinate classes' political actions will be discussed at length in Chapter 9. 49 should match those of the civil servants' (Siddiqa, 2007: 130). Most military officers remain firmly convinced that they are fully entitled to the perks and benefits they enjoy even today; many even express surprise at the growing criticism that they face from the general public. Retired military men tend to be more circumspect in their judgment of the practice?9 Most independent military economic activities that were initiated in the Ayub period were explained by the need to provide for the welfare of army personnel, a claim that appealed both to the rank and file as well as the Punjabi heartland that remained committed to the national security state. 80 More generally, the military's entry into the economic sphere in this period through the investments of the Fauji Foundation reflected its close linkages with the nascent industrial bourgeoisie that relied heavily on state patronage (Siddiqa, 2007: 130-5). While the military was politically at its weakest during the Bhutto period, its corporate interests were not fundamentally undermined. As pointed out above, formal expenditures on defence increased markedly, while the regime increased salaries at the lower levels of the army, and liberally issued land grants, ostensibly to win the favour of junior officers and even NCOs (Rizvi, 1984: 219). However, it was under Zia that the military definitively emerged as the country's biggest corporate conglomerate. As was the case with the Ayub regime, the Zia junta's political dominance depended, in the first and last instance, on the support of the military itself. This support is what Zia and his corps commanders cultivated, and it has been the single-minded pursuit of the officer corps' own interests which has been crucial to the military's continuing dominance after Zia. Over the course of the 11 year period in which Zia ul Haq ruled the country, not only was the confidence of the military restored following the decade-long demoralization from 1968 onwards, but in fact the military developed such interests that even following Zia's death, it 79 One telling interview was of a retired major-general who headed the Pakistan Ordinance Factory (POF) at Wah; he was critical of the dramatic increase in perks and benefits to military officers in recent years, as well as of the military's encroachment into the ream of the civil bureaucracy. However, he was later invited to become ambassador to the United States at which point his criticism dramatically dissipated. 80 The importance of Punjab to the military'S role in nationbuilding needs to be reiterated; the eastern wing was alienated from the state at large, while the smaller nationalities in the western wing were relati vely weak politically. 50 would only tolerate a political dispensation in which its interests were institutionalized. The most obvious difference between Zia ul Haq and Ayub Khan was the former's retention of direct charge over the army, which ensured his regular and continued personal contact with both the officer corps and to a lesser extent, the rank and file (cf Burki, 1988: 1094-5). Islam was a tool not only to gain political legitimacy within the wider society but also functioned as the military's unifying ideology, and which appealed greatly to what Stephen Cohen has called the 'Pakistani generation' of military men, who hailed from much less elitist backgrounds than the two previous generations of military recruits (1998: 82). This generation had also spent considerable periods serving in the Arab world which heightened their commitment to Islam. 81 However, arguably the more important influence that came of this exposure to the Arab world was a growing attachment to material rewards and a penchant for consumerism (Rizvi, 2001: 203). More generally the Zia regime opened up opportunities for the military to access a wide range of resources and opportunities. Not only was the officers corps given access to 'regimental funds' that were not subject to any form of public accountability, there was also a systematic opening up of educational and health facilities for military personnel, which meant the beginnings of a separate social sphere inhabited only by the military. The four welfare foundations were allowed to create subsidiaries at will, and there was a systematic displacement of existing public sector providers such as Pakistan Railways by military-run public organizations such as the National Logistics Cell (NLC). Perhaps most importantly, military men were drafted into numerous government agencies which meant that an increasing number of public tenders and contracts were issued to military companies (Siddiqa, 2007: 141-8). Finally there was a consolidation of the long-established practice of allotting land to both serving and retired officers. While it is true that there had been no meaningful let-up in the colonial pattern of allotment even in the first 30 years of the country's 8l The most prominent example is Zia-ul-Haq himself who was posted to Jordan in the late 1960s where he helped the regime of King Hussein to dismantle the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). By this point in time Zia had already developed an intense dislike of the radical secular political currents then widespread across the Muslim world. 51 existence, during the Zia period there was a shift from simple allotments to the systematic creation of military housing societies and encouragement to the military companies and foundations to actually undertake real estate development (Siddiqa, 2007: 149-50). While the practice of allotments of agricultural land was an old one, it has been the military's expanding interests in urban real estate that has garnered huge profits over the past two decades. 82 Military cantonments in the major urban centres in particular have been a major source of profiteering as there is no check on the ability of the military to use land in cantonments for commercial purposes. A 'conservative' estimate of the value of land in the Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta cantonments is Rs. 500 billion (Siddiqa, 2007: 189). After Zia Given the tremendous expansion of the military's corporate interests, it is natural that there would be a conscious attempt on the part of the major beneficiaries of this expansion, i.e. the top brass, to maintain these interests. When Zia did finally restore a modicum of parliamentary government in 1985, he ensured his (and therefore the army's) permanent role as arbiter by introducing the 8 th amendment in the constitution giving the president the power to dissolve the assemblies at will. This set the stage for a recurring theme over the next decade when four governments were dismissed by presidential decree. However, what is important to understand is that the dismissal of these four governments - including that of PM Junejo which had been installed by Zia himself - reflected the alliance of the president with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), leaving the third member of the so-called 'troika of power' - the prime minister - usually isolated and powerless to resist. This system, while extremely debilitating for the political process at large, was a form of 'civilianisation of military rule' that allowed the military to avoid the scrutiny associated with directly holding the reins of government whilst protecting its corporate interests, both through official means and by way of its independent corporate empire (Rizvi, 2000). Yet the stability of this arrangement depended on the continuing support of other members of the historical bloc as well as the robustness of the patronage networks that underlie the historical bloc's hegemony. For the most part, support to the military 82 While the real spurt in the military's urban land acquisition and commercial activity has taken place since the Musharraf coup, the practice was systematized during the Zia years. 52 was forthcoming, at least insofar as the two major political parties, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) - both representing landed and industrial interests - deferred to the military, and even promoted the military's corporate interests, ostensibly to provide a disincentive to the military from coming back into power (Siddiqa, 2007: 151-166). There always appears to remain a healthy constituency within mainstream political parties that invokes the military, a fact that was evident during fieldwork which was carried out at a time when the Musharraf military regime was coming in for increasing public criticism. Pro-government politicians clearly indicated their preference for the military as it alone possesses the mandate to undermine dissent under the guise of protecting national security.83 More generally there seems to be a consensus amongst many politicians that the military is a permanent player and that it is better to be on its good side so as to be able to enjoy the fruits of state power. Nonetheless, contradictions within the historical bloc arose throughout the 1990s, culminating in the sacking of the Nawaz Sharif government in 1999. 84 In the first instance this reflected the decreasing patronage of the Pakistani military by external powers, most notably the United States. More specifically, aid and technical assistance dried up. However, more importantly, the military was reacting to the perceived slight on its corporate interests by the Nawaz Sharif government. The 8 th amendment was repealed by the parliament on account of the overwhelming majority that the ruling party enjoyed. 85 The military therefore lost the ability to undermine the government through this highly arbitrary constitutional deformity. Secondly, there was the fallout of the ruling party with the military high command over the Kargil episode, which was indicative of the military's concern over the foreign policy stance 83 Indeed, the head of the ruling party PML-Q became the spokesperson for the military's unchallengeable position when he insisted that any anti-military polemic was no less than sedition. See http://www.dawn.coml2007/04/05/nat2.htm. 84 Tension between the PPP governments and the military was most obvious; the PPP has always maintained somewhat of an anti-establishment image, whereas the PML governments that came to power through the 1990s were much closer to the establishment. It was thus ironic that it was a fallout with a military protege, Nawaz Sharif, that precipitated a return to military rule. 85 Of the four government that were in place through the period 1988-1999, only the Nawaz Sharif regime that won the 1997 election actually enjoyed an absolute two-thirds majority in parliament. The military has historically thrived because civilian governments have tended to be weak coalitions that can easily be destabilised. The Nawaz Sharif government was not prone to as much behind-the-scenes arm-twisting. 53 of an increasingly belligerent civilian cabinet. 86 In particular, the military was concerned that the civilian government was bowing to external pressure - and more specifically from the Clinton administration - to cap the nuclear program and make peace with India (Talbot, 2002).87 Meanwhile, the politics of common sense was reinforced through the 'democratic' interregnum of the 1990s. On the one hand, the military's image of saviour of the nation was reinforced due to the perceived inability of politicians to establish a workable political settlement. The inability of any of the four governments of the PPP and PML to complete their terms was put down to politicians' hunger for power and self-aggrandisement. Thus the subordinate classes were further convinced of the futility of 'politics' as a means of addressing their needs and aspirations, a point that will be discussed at length in Section 2. A more obvious reason for the debilitation of potential political challenges to the military was the enhanced autonomy of the intelligence agencies that was a direct product of the Afghan War of the 1980s (cf Haqqani, 2005). In the first instance, this effect has been enhanced by the systematic targeting of national politicians, starting first and foremost with the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and then continuing into the 1990s with the undermining of successive governments and victimization of political opponents. This was important as it indicated to the subordinate classes that even dissident members of the historical bloc were subject to the state's wrath. But more important has been the 'producing and reproducing' of the state-society divide by the subordinate classes themselves mostly through the creation of, and propagation of myth (Mitchell, 1991: 94-5). In other words the omnipotence of the intelligence agencies is at least partially explained by the hyperbole that circulates openly within the polity, which enhances the perception of the state's power in the eyes of the 86 Kargil is a remote mountain post in the disputed region of Kashmir. In July 1999, the military high command with General Pervez Musharraf at the helm undertook a covert guerrilla operation, infiltrating the so-called Line of Control and occupying Kargil for a period of 2 weeks. India's response and pressure from the international community forced the military to retreat. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has always claimed that the operation was conducted without his knowledge and flew in the face of a peace policy his government was committed to at the time. See http://www.dawn.coml2006/09/25/top9.htm 87 It was under Nawaz Sharif that the military conducted the nuclear tests of May 1998 which resulted in heavy international sanctions and the beginnings of a balance of payments crisis. 54 subordinate classes, already subjected to substantive interaction with a state that is always willing to resort to repression. 88 Unchartered territory Thus the stage was set for the third bout of extended military rule under General Pervez Musharraf. In this period the military has replicated the past pattern of protecting, and even expanding its corporate interests through three main channels, namely, the official budget, external aid, and its independent economic ventures whilst also bolstering its political mandate. The scale of the military's economic pilfering is unprecedented and reflects its corresponding domination of state affairs. However, the military is yet to be confronted by a countervailing power that would constrain its accumulation of both power and capital. The practices outlined as having taken root during the Zia period have intensified since 1999. There has been a marked increase in the number of military men in positions of civilian authority, 89 a large number of them already retired. The influx of retired officers corresponds to a general increase in the 'post-retirement' benefits that the Musharraf regime has institutionalized. 9o This implies that the military fraternity- which according to Siddiqa (2007: 7) is a tighly-knit group including officers (both serving and retired) and civilian beneficiaries of the military's economic exploits - has grown in size and thus it can be expected that the support for the military's activities has increased accordingly. The military'S rapid encroachment into all spheres of social life was very apparent during fieldwork. Not only is the fact that 'faujis' - as military men are referred to- are involved in a variety of economic and administrative activities a very common topic of discussion, it is also clearly emerging as a major faultline across the social 88 See also Verkaaik (2001: 357): ' ... several law and order forces run their own agency and often appear to be interested in each other as much as in anybody else. This also means that the state cannot be regarded as Big Brother, spying on its subjects through secret activities penetrating private places and thereby effectively keeping society under its thumb. It instead resembles a troubled, fragmented family of several brothers who are deeply distrustful of each other and cannot rely too much on each other in their dealings with the outside world'. 89 DAWN reports that there were 1,027 military men occupying civilian posts in 2003 (http://www.dawn.coml2003/09127/natl.htm) while Siddiqa (2007: 213) puts the figure at anything between 3000 and 5000. 90 Interview with General (Retd.) Talat Masood. 55 formation with the distinction between 'civilians' and 'faujis' becoming ever more acute. This means access to the state and to economic resources is increasingly a function of one's contacts to military men, much more so than at any other time in Pakistan's history. Given the nature of the military enterprise and the fact that there are greater and greater pressures to reproduce and even expand the scale of the corporate empire, it can and should be expected that the military will only acquiesce to a power-sharing arrangement in which its ever expanding interests can be protected. It can be surmised that such an arrangement is not possible under the 'civilianisation' model that worked through the decade of the 1990s, precisely because of the enormous expansion in the military's corporate interests over the past 8 years. This is potentially problematic given the military's need to take along its allies within the historical bloc, many of whom continue to demand access to the state as well given the opportunities for patronage that such access brings with it. However I believe that the withering away of the military's image as saviour of the nation due to its increasing contact and conflict with the subordinate classes constitutes the biggest concern for the military. In particular, a large number of military officers interviewed during fieldwork expressed great discomfort at the fact that the military no longer enjoys the pristine image that it once did, and that they are themselves often embarrassed by the discontent prevalent about the military's overarching position within the wider social formation. 91 There seems to be a consensus that the so-called Sher Ali formula of limiting public interaction was a successful strategy that allowed the military the benefits of power without the attendant fallouts. 92 In the current conjuncture, this formula seems to have been abandoned altogether, and the arrogance of the present military top brass is alarming to many retired officers. Be that as it may the military's ability to divert resources to its own independent economic activities reflects its close association with propertied classes in that there 91 Interviews with Brigadier (Retd.) Shaukat Qadir, 15 January 2007, General (Retd.) Hamid Gul, 22 January 2007, General (Retd.) Talat Masood 24 November 2006, Colonel (Retd.) F. Yusufzai, 15 June 2007. 92 Major-General Sher Ali suggested to Yahya Khan upon the latter's coming to powerthat it would be best to handover power to the politicians so as to avoid further possible erosion of the military's image in the public eye (cf Haqqani, 2005). 56 has been a willful acceptance of this practice by the latter. 93 For example, the landed class in particular, but other corporate groups as well have had to accept the military'S right to acquire land because they too have benefited from the retention of, or acquisition of land. Similarly, the industrial bourgeoisie continues to benefit greatly from the personal contacts that it enjoys with the oligarchy, and therefore would not dispute the military's claim to pursue its business interests. 94 Perhaps the most important inference from this discussion is that which has already been stated at the outset - that it is state power that underlies class power in Pakistan. The military'S ascendance to becoming the biggest industrial conglomerate and landlord in the country is a direct correlate of its control of the state, to varying degrees, albeit most obviously since the Zia coup of 1977. Differentiation within the armed forces? It is important to conclude this chapter with a discussion of the internal dynamics of the armed forces, as this has serious implications for the continued prospects of the military to remain politically ascendant. First there is the relationship between the three services and higher and lower ranks within each service. There is little doubt that the Air Force and Navy have been historically subservient to the Army in all senses, namely in size and strength, political influence, and financial clout. However there is little evidence that there has been any major dissent within the forces on account of the Army's dominant position. In fact, it is clear that insofar as all of the forces are sharing in the benefits of the military's historical dominance over state affairs, differences are limited, or at most, not voiced. In any case, the Pakistan Navy for example, primarily through the Bahria Foundation, 'has a far more extensive presence in real estate development' than the Army (Siddiqa, 2007: 193). Meanwhile, the Air Force has established a virtual monopoly over the aviation industry, including travel agencies. 93 Systematic land allotments are enjoyed by a variety of professional groups/state functionaries including lawyers, journalists and judges. Naturally such groups are then not in a position to dispute the military's rights to acquire (or even grab) land. 94 In fact, the military today constitutes the biggest industrial interest in the country. In the absence of so much business being channeled in the direction of the military'S foundations and companies, it is possible to argue that the private industrial bourgeoisie may have been far more of an economic force than it is today. See Ahmad (1980) for a distinction between the state bourgeoisie and the private bourgeoisie. See also Bayart (1993) on the concept of 'straddling'. 57 The nature of the relationship between the higher and lower ranks of all the services, and particularly in the army, is more ambiguous. Throughout the history of the Pakistani military's existence, numerous internal coups have been attempted against the top brass, primarily by the junior officer cadre. 95 The vast majority of these coups have been unsuccessful which suggests that ultimately the military's command and control system has remained robust in the face of internal dissent. Nevertheless, the fact that regular coup attempts have taken place does suggest that dissent amongst the lower ranks remains rife. During fieldwork it was observed that dissent amongst the lower ranks has increased because of the incredible scale of accumulation by the top brass. 96 However, there is also a belief that 'the rewards of towing the line are so many that one would not want to risk it'. 97 Blom (2005) uses the term 'military syndicalism' to capture the nature of the evolving military corporate empire. She argues that in spite of the fact that the boundless accumulation of power and capital over the past two decades has been the cause of envy and competition within the military, internal dissent remains negligible, and that 'paradoxically, the military's "privatization" contributes to its internal cohesion'. As far as the rank and file are concerned, the military's strategic recruitment policies have engendered a great deal of stability. On the one hand, there is a great deal of ethnic homogeneity within the rank and file because recruitment is still primarily undertaken from five districts (Cohen, 1998). This homogeneity is further reinforced by the fact that joining the army remains one of the only livelihood options for the working age male population of the arid Potohar region where highly unpredictable rain-fed agriculture remains the primary livelihood source. In other words, the logic that underlied recruitment in the colonial period has more or less remained intact, and has proven to be very durable. Indeed, during fieldwork there was anecdotal evidence that a substantial number of the rank-and-file had parents or other close relatives in 95 Consider for example the serious internal condemnation of General Yahya Khan following the surrender in Dhaka in December 1971. The most recent internal dissent was evidents in a series of assassination attempts on General Pervez Musharraf. The alleged perpetrators, many of whom were junior and mid-level officers were court-martialed and eventually sentenced to hang. See http://www.dawn.coml2006/12/07/top3.htm. 96 Many junior officers appear to retain some idealism about the military's nationbuilding role. and also come into contact with the wider society more than their superiors, and thus face the brunt of the public reaction. 97 Interview with Brigaider (Retd.) Shaukat Qadir, 15 January 2007. 58 the military as well. It is amongst these soldiers that one finds the most resistance to criticism of the military. More generally, the central plains of Punjab - the most populated part of the country - remain the major support base of the national security paradigm and the prevailing oligarchic system, with a few notable exceptions. Notwithstanding the large and growing number of landless, the region is the most economically developed in the country and is networked with the outside world, therefore enjoying the highest level of upward social mobility. Since the colonial period, Punjab has been the heartland of the military's power, and therefore the pillar of the oligarchic dispensation. It would appear to remain so today. 59 Chapter 3 The bureaucracy: Two sides of the same coin The introductory chapter asserted that British rule brought with it an expanded political sphere in which the state, as the main repository of power in society, became inextricably intertwined with almost all social interactions. In other words, as more and more basic facets of everyday life became linked to the state - including but not limited to the resolution of disputes, control and distribution of resources, and delivery of services 98 - the state's interventions in social life expanded accordingly. This is true even in the conception of the state propounded by Ahmad in which the state rules through intermediaries 99 as in this case the dominant propertied classes were backed up by recourse to the institutions of the state, particularly the thana and katcheri. The relationship between propertied classes and the state will be discussed at length in the next chapter, however, suffice it to say that, directly or indirectly, the state's role in social life increased as the colonial 'public sphere' was constituted Ccf Chatterjee, 2002). This role has increased in the post-colonial period, which means that the role of the personnel that make the state what it is - the civil bureaucracy - remains crucial to the exercise of power.!OO Ultimately the hegemonic project of the historical bloc in the post-Bhutto period has been predicated upon the overwhelming role of the state in public life, whether direct or indirect. As the previous chapter indicated, the military has been the mediating component of the historical bloc, but it has relied on the civil administrative and security apparatus and the propertied classes as well as the 'common sense' legitimation of the subordinate classes and the rhetoric of Islamic orthodoxy to actually exercise power. 98 Many of the aspects of life mentioned here, particularly delivery of services, only became a part of people's lives with the establishment of the modem state, insofar as the modem state - including its colonial variant - was the harbinger of the concept of a public good. 99 Which is the pattern associated with the method of indirect rule more generally. 100 Sobhan (2003: 8-9) asserts that the state's already considerable role in class formation and empowerment has been augmented by the external resources that it has garnered under the guise of 'aid'. See the discussion below on aid, as well as Chapter 6. 60 This chapter focuses on the administrative apparatus of the state, or the bureaucracy. Alavi's saw the bureaucracy as the pillar of the oligarchy, and insisted on its relatively autonomous role vis a vis all social classes. As I have already pointed out, Alavi's assertions represent his reposition of faith in a static conception of structure whereas this thesis attempts to derive conclusions from a much more historicized and dynamic theory. Thus in this chapter I propose two major improvements on Alavi's formulations vis a vis the bureaucracy.lOI First the bureaucracy is not a monolith characterised by uniform interests. Alavi broadly clumps all personnel of the state together into the category of 'salariat', or the auxillary class of educated and urbanized salaried professionals that competed for jobs and privileges under colonial rule. Indeed he suggests that it was the 'sa1ariat' that led the struggle for Pakistan and subsequently inherited the new state. However, distinctions must be made between the state - and personnel - with which the popular classes come into contact, and the higher echelons of the bureaucracy. 102 As will be shown below, there is a disjunction between the ethos of the low and high bureaucracies in terms of sociological background, sensibilities and understanding of the role of administrator which is why it is impossible to consider the bureaucracy as an undifferentiated whole. More importantly, the distinct roles of both the low and high bureaucracies explain the politics of common sense from above, and below. The second and related point has to do with the 'relative autonomy' of the bureaucracy. In suggesting that the bureaucracy enjoys the ability to act autonomously of dominant social classes, Alavi overlooks the fact that the bureaucracy - and as I will show presently, the low bureaucracy in particular - cultivates direct relationships with the popular classes, and the question of autonomy should not just be considered vis a vis the dominant classes. Moreover neither the high bureaucracy (in relation to the dominant classes) nor the low bureaucracy (in relation to the popular classes) exercise relative autonomy as Alavi understands it. Instead their composition and actions are mutually conditioned by these various social forces. 101 In the previous chapter I have already pointed out the need to distinguish the military and bureaucracy even while acknowledging that they act collectively as an 'oligarchy'. 102 Alavi (1991 a: 156) does broadly distinguish between the salariat at the higher and lower level of the state structure but only fleetingly. 61 This chapter then will first analyse the high bureaucracy, one of the components of the historical bloc, with a particular emphasis on how the relative power of this segment of the historical bloc has been steadily diminished. This will be followed by a discussion of the low bureaucracy in which I will delineate the actual mechanisms through which state power is exercised, by focusing on the exact practices that govern the delivery of services, provision and regulation of livelihoods, and resolution of disputes. As already asserted I start from the basic premise that the bureaucracy is not a monolith characterized by uniform interests. The 'high' bureaucracy As has been exhaustively documented by numerous writers (cf Jalal, 1990, 1995; Sayeed, 1968), when the new state came into being, it was the newly constituted Pakistani civil service that inherited power from its erstwhile colonial predecessor. Insofar as this suggests the relatively unfettered ability of the incumbent high-level bureaucrats to make substantive decisions related to the allocation of resources and overall political direction of the new state, it is largely unchallenged in the literature. Yet numerous studies of the bureaucratic structure of the new state have shown the considerable differences and even conflicts, within the officer corps (cf Kennedy, 1988; Braibanti, 1966). In particular it has been noted that members of the most elite cadre of the civil service, the Civil Services of Pakistan (CSP), were resented greatly by members of other cadres and generally that 'staff' officers enjoyed superiority over 'line' officers, or in other words generalists over specialists. Thus even at the level of the officer corps there is little evidence to suggest a seamless decision-making structure. However, on the whole, from the inception of the new state, the 'high' bureaucracy - or in other words the officer corps - was interested in maintaining the privileged status accorded to the Indian Civil Service (ICS) under the Raj. As was made clear in the first chapter, the chaotic conjuncture of partition ensured that the bureaucratic elite immediately acquired a great level of authority. The deliberate manipulation of unelected bureaucrats such as Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad ensured that the fledgling political process was derailed during the first decade of Pakistan's existence (cf McGrath, 1998). Following the 1958 coup, the bureaucracy retained its power to a large extent as Ayub preferred to rule mostly 62 through the existing state structure so much so that some scholars suggest that the Ayub regime could not be described as rule by the military (Alavi, 1983a). The bureaucracy was the mechanism through which Ayub's modernisation policies were effected, and even political innovations such as the Basic Democracies reinforced rather than undermined bureaucratic power. 103 Indeed it was still the officer corps of the civil service that made decisions about the allocation of resources. It was thus that the bureaucracy came to publicly bear the brunt of the mass mobilizations that took place towards the end of Ayub's tenure. Nationalist sentiment in the eastern wing was driven largely by the perception that the actual number of Bengalis in the services was far too low, and that an arrogant Punjabi and Urdu- speaking dominated 'high' bureaucracy104 was responsible for the systematic deprivation of the Bengali people. Meanwhile in the western wing the outpouring of dissent led in large part by students and industrial labour - the politics of resistance - was also targeted against the high bureaucracy which was seen to be the architect of unjust policies and committed only to its own self-aggrandizement (cf Ali, 1970; Noman, 1988; Waseem, 1994). Accordingly, when Yahya took over from Ayub, his purge of over 300 high-level bureaucrats was widely welcomed (Kennedy, 1988: 77). In the aftermath of this widespread public resentment and the subsequent dismemberment of the state, the Bhutto regime undertook to fundamentally alter the position of the high bureaucracy, reducing its power dramatically, and arguably setting the stage for the widespread entry of serving and retired military men into higher-echelon civil service positions under Zia ul Haq. There is a considerable literature on Bhutto's civil service reforms and more specifically on the manner in which these reforms once and for all tilted the balance of power within the civil- military oligarchy towards the latter (cf Noman, 1988; Alavi, 1983a). As far as this analysis is concerned, Bhutto's reforms ostensibly aimed to undermine the insular and autonomous nature of the high bureaucracy, and thus assert the authority of the political leadership over the administrative arm of the state. As has been n o t ~ d , Bhutto's efforts were contradictory and rather than being an effort to structurally 103 As will be discussed in the following chapter, bureaucratic power - both at the higher and lower levels - and the power of the landed class was symbiotic. 104 In the lower reaches of the civil service in the eastern wing Bengali representation was commensurate with the Bengali share in the total population. 63 overhaul the post-colonial state were an attempt to sure up his own power by instituting loyalists at all decision-making levels (cf Raza, 1997; Ahmad, 2000). In particular the Bhutto period marked a progressive politicisation of the bureaucracy insofar as this meant that over time high bureaucrats no longer exercised power over resource-allocation and the general political direction of government independently of an elected political leadership. While the autonomy of the bureaucracy had been affected during the Ayub years in the sense that its hitherto largely unchallenged power now had to be shared with the military high command, beyond the first year of Ayub's government there was no direct interference into the day-to-day operation of the bureaucratic structure per se. The tightly-knit cadre system with the CSP at the helm was altered but fundamentally undisturbed by Ayub (cf Burki, 1969; Rizvi, 2000). Under Bhutto however, particularly with the introduction of lateral entry into the officer corps, not only was the exclusivity of the high bureaucracy undone permanently, in fact for the first time since the state's inception, a new power sharing arrangement took shape at the centre in the form of 'an implicit compromise between politicians and bureaucrats' (Kennedy, 1988: 83). The high bureaucracy was far less threatened by direct military recruits than by lateral entrants because of the inherent similarities in outlook and ethos of the civil and military services (Mahmood, 1988: 54).105 Be that as it may, the arbitrary nature of the Bhutto reforms became increasingly apparent. The reforms did not constitute a meaningful attempt to redress the structural imbalance between the administrative and representative institutions of the state. Bhutto's mistrust of the very democratic process that brought him to power ensured that the administrators continued to enjoy considerable power even if the high bureaucracy no longer functioned as a coherent whole and interference of politicians was now possible. As has been suggested in the literature, nationalisation of industry and most other major policy initiatives under Bhutto increased the state's control over productive sectors of the economy, thereby expanding the opportunities for political appointees to distribute patronage on the basis of access to the state (cf Burki 1980; Noman, 1988). In general during the Bhutto period the focus within the high 105 The shock of the 1973 civil service reforms was even more acute in that the PPP's elected leadership comprised numerous members of the subordinate classes. 64 bureaucracy shifted away from the 'civil' services and towards the security-related institutions of the state including the police because of the regime's regular recourse to coercion (Ahmad, 1974). Thus it was an expanded set of state institutions or more accurately, vehicles for patronage, that Zia ul Haq inherited. The high bureaucracy, demoralized and fragmented, was immediately inclined towards military rule as this signaled that the elected leadership of the 1970s was relegated to a position of relative obscurity and even made a target of repression. Interviews with CSP officers who have since retired indicated that the' elite idealism' of the first two decades of unchallenged bureaucratic domination was replaced by a concern with personal survival and a commitment to a new status quo in which the military was the ascendant power.106 Either way, the high bureaucracy's prior commitment to oligarchic rule was reinforced. The institutionalisation of the patronage politics with which this thesis is concerned accelerated under Zia. In creating a new class of status-quo oriented politicians based primarily in urban Punjab, while resuscitating the dominant groups that had suffered under Bhutto, Zia' s military regime was undermining the ideological politics of the late 1960s and 1970s and one of the pillars of this undertaking was the high bureaucracy (cf Wilder, 1998). Of course Zia ensured the subservience of the bureaucracy by effecting a virtual revolution in its upper echelons through the induction of large numbers of serving and retired military officers who were loyal to the army chief (cf Zaidi, 2005a: 502). As highlighted by the detailed analysis in Chapter 2, it was this influx of army officers into the administrative structure that marked the encroachment of the military into hitherto un penetrated spheres thereby ensuring the continuing derailment of the democratic process, whilst also preventing the reemergence of a politics of resistance. In this effort, the high bureaucracy has been a crucial pillar. During the so-called 'democratic' interregnum of 1988-1999, the high bureaucracy became even more prone to politicization due to the highly unstable nature of each successive regime. In this sense whatever remained of the high bureaucracy's 106 Interview with retired deputy secretary, Foreign Office, Salim Nawaz Gandapur, 26 October 2006. 65 autonomy was further eroded as both of the (extremely weak) mainstream political parties attempted to manipulate the administrative institutions to gain ascendancy over each other (cf Chadda, 2000). Each incoming government took the practice of installing loyalists in important positions to new heights. Career bureaucrats became even more adept at towing the line of the party in power. Thus the high bureaucracy became increasingly incoherent in its functioning, which, as a matter of fact, reinforced the politics of common sense insofar as cynical use and abuse of public resources increased dramatically. Nonetheless it is important to emphasise that the high bureaucracy remains a crucial cog in the historical bloc, because of its direct control over day to day administration and more generally the state's continuing centrality to almost all forms of social exchange. All governments in Pakistan following Bhutto's have been keen to keep the high bureaucracy 'onside' because of the inevitable influence that it continues to exercise. This observation was corroborated during our fieldwork by simply spending time in the offices of high bureaucrats. For example, the chairman of the Capital Development Authority - the administration of Islamabad - spends the vast majority of his time attending to personal requests for transfers, appointments, land allotments and various exemptions. Most of these requests come from military men (or to a lesser extent politicians) seeking to distribute patronage but requiring an administrative official such as the CDA chairman to actualize their objective. In cases where state resources have been allocated for a public scheme, even when this allocation has been made by a high bureaucrat, the military executive (or politician) seeks to be seen as the benefactor. The CDA chairman admitted to feeling 'incapable of refusing the requests of politically important personalities' .107 As such the major difference between the high bureaucracy before and after 1972 is that it no longer espouses the elite self-righteousness that the civil service had imbibed from its colonial predecessor at the time of independence. Indeed, British officers were part of the Pakistani high bureaucracy uptil 1960 which was a major !O7 Interview with Chairman CDA, Karman Lashari. 12 February 2007. 66 reason for its self-confidence and continuing contempt of politicians, who, as was the case under the Raj, were perceived to disrupt smooth administration (Mahmood, 1988: 32). CSP officers assert that in the pre-l 972 period the high bureaucracy was unanimous in the conviction that politicians had no business in matters of administration, including revenue collection and law and order. 108 The erosion of the elitist spirit was coeval with the high bureaucracy's changing composition. The character of entrants into the higher echelons of the civil service has changed over time, and particularly following Bhutto's reforms. Very few members of the English-educated, urbanized propertied classes now take up positions in the high bureaucracy. Urban high society, which is considerably bigger than in the early decades of Pakistan's existence, is inclined towards private sector occupations which are far more lucrative. Perhaps more importantly, the civil service no longer evokes the image of superiority that it did uptil the 1970s. The bureaucracy's image as morally steadfast has been greatly eroded, and it is now widely believed that the high bureaucracy is 'corrupt' and motivated only by self-interest. During fieldwork interviews it was clear that the sense of responsibility that the high bureaucracy had in its earlier years - albeit driven by an inherent sense of superiority - has now been replaced by a deep cynicism and mediocrity that reflects the progressive erosion of autonomy of the civil service. 109 Yet what has remained intact is the high bureaucracy's commitment to a policymaking framework which both reflects the nature of Pakistan's dependent economy and more broadly the oligarchy's inclination towards the west. 1 10 While in the first 4-5 years after independence the bureaucracy did enact a number of politically astute and independent policies through individuals such as the Governor of the State Bank and later head of the Planning Commission, Zahid Hussain (Alavi, 108 Interview with retired federal secretary, Tasneem Noorani, 1 December 2006. 109 Interview with retired federal secretary, Tasneem Siddiqui, 7 March 2007. A related point is that the high bureaucracy is much more porous than its military counterpart precisely because it no longer espouses the insularity - socially and institutionally - that it did in the first 25 years of the country's existence. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the military's internal cohesion and corporate ethos are crucial factors in explaining its dominance of state affairs and preponderant position within the historical bloc. 110 See Rosen (1995) for a discussion of the influence of foreign advisors on Pakistan's policy discourse in the early years, particularly in the economic realm. See also Haque & Khan (1999) for a critique of the lack of autonomy of the intelligentsia in Pakistan's earl y years. 67 1990), by the early 1950s the bureaucracy and its policy matrix had become heavily influenced by American economic advisors. 'Functional inequality' in the Ayub period was the culmination of this foreign-inspired economic policy framework. More generally, the high bureaucracy has not been committed to long-term planning, preferring to make policy on the basis of its institutional whim and the political needs of the time (Burki, 1994). This lack of dynamism and commitment to banal reproduction of status quo was very evident during fieldwork. High bureaucrats are largely indifferent to policy matters, and far more concerned with how they will be accommodated into any new political dispensation. To the extent that there is an impetus to formulate policy, the high bureaucracy has maintained its 'urbanist' orientation. This trend at the level of policy has remained intact, even though the disproportionate number of Urdu-speaking migrants in the high bureaucracy has decreased. Nonetheless, this urban orientation has had to be tempered by the state oligarchy's need - in much the same way as the colonial state needed - to maintain order in a society that has characteristics quite different from those of the urban, highly educated classes. This is where the role of the low bureaucracy, which will be discussed presently, becomes so crucial. It may be suggested that the role of the high bureaucracy has also been reduced as the state's involvement in the economy declines with the onset of neo-liberalismY I State assets are being sold to the private sector, downsizing is taking place in those enterprises still in the public sector, and trade liberalization implies considerably less revenue than in the era of high tariffs and duties. However, even if these factors are contributing to a lessening of the state's direct control of the economy, the amount of resources that continue to flow through the state - particularly in the form of increasing levels of foreign aid - ensure that its influence remains largely undiminished. This inevitably means channels for patronage through the distribution of public monies remain open. III A similar point may be made about the growing share of 'informal' activities within the economy, but as will be pointed out in Chapter 8, the involvement of state functionaries in the 'informal' economy is substantial. 68 To reiterate, the autonomy of the high bureaucracy has been steadily undermined in an effort initially by Bhutto to assert the power of elected politicians, and then subsequently by the military which has gradually established itself in the top echelons of the administrative structure. Nonetheless, the high bureaucrat remains an important part of the historical bloc and it is through him that ascendant military officers, and to a far more sporadic extent, politicians, are able to exercise state power. One final point about the high bureaucracy is of crucial import. As suggested earlier, it was not surprising that the high bureaucracy would respond favourably to the Zia regime. However, beyond the political reasons for such favour, clear qualitative changes had already taken place in the social and economic position of the upper echelon civil servants even prior to the Bhutto period that made it natural for them to ally themselves with a military ruler who was keen to reward loyalty. In particular, pay scales of the high bureaucracy have fallen dramatically over time, and as suggested above, over the past two decades, high bureaucrats salaries as compared to private sector professionals have become less and less favourable. I 12 However, the colonial practice of issuing of land grants and other perks and privileges has continued in both the civil and military services, as the second chapter emphasized in the case of the military. This practice was not necessarily hidden from public view following the inception of the new state and has been continued without major censure (Mahmood, 1988: 33). As such, the military and civil services remain close allies for purely material reasons, even if differences in ethos and self- perception have developed between them.113 More generally, both the high bureaucracy and the officer corps of the military recognize the importance of maintaining control over state institutions and resources as it is this factor that directly correlates to their material interests. 112 Salaries of civil servants under the Raj were astronomically high and have fallen steadily since. For recent figures, see Bilquees (2006). 113 See for example the very public announcement made by PM Shaukat Aziz that land grants would be made to federal secretaries ostensibly to appease the latter in the wake of widespread acquisition of public land by senior military officers. See http://www.dawn.coml2006111103/nat18.htm. 69 The 'low' bureaucracy As suggested at the outset, the vast majority of scholarly analyses of the civil services implicitly assume uniformity in their composition and practice. But in actual fact, bureaucracies are typically 'bottom-heavy' and the politics and practice of the officer corps are considerably different from that of the majority of civil servants. In Pakistan for example, well over 90% of the bureaucracy is comprised of low-level civil servants that do not enjoy officer status. 114 Moreover, when conceiving of the bureaucracy in post-colonial societies like Pakistan, the stereotype of 'faceless bureaucrats' is misrepresentative because in actual fact the lower echelons of the civil service are 'staffed by people with whom some kind of social relationship can or could exist' (Fuller & Harriss, 2001: 15). As was asserted in the introductory chapter, one of the basic departures that this thesis makes from Alavi's overdeveloped state formulation is that it is far too functionalist to conceive of the state as overdeveloped as compared to an 'underdeveloped' society. Further, the decisive factor in the resilience of the prevailing configuration of power is the participation of the subordinate classes in a patronage-heavy vertically arranged political sphere in which the oligarchy and dominant classes - and increasingly the intermediate classes - reinforce their political power. For the most part, the popular classes come into contact with the 'low bureaucracy', and this section will explicate the composition, politics and evolution of this low bureaucracy. In post-colonial societies such as Pakistan in which capitalism tends to be stunted by the metropole and there are accordingly limited substantive formal employment opportunities in industry, the state becomes the primary site of employment for the popular classes (cf Alavi, 1987). Indeed during fieldwork it became apparent just how coveted state employment is, particularly in rural areas where there is little in the way of alternative for those who can no longer earn an living off land. State employment is very secure in that it offers regular income, extended periods of leave, and a steady, albeit minimal, pension following retirement. However, the lure of state employment extends beyond official benefits. 114 See for example figures provided in Maddison (1971: 143). 70 I have already reiterated the overbearing power of the state apparatus in Pakistani society, and more specifically the state personnel immediately associated with the allocation of public resources, including delivery of services and the resolution of disputes. The low bureaucracy, including but not limited to the patwari, tehsildar, station house officer (SHO), and clerk (munshi), is responsible for public dealing of all kinds, and this has remained true from the inception of the state until the present day, notwithstanding the numerous experiments in local government, including the present one. 115 Fieldwork corroborated in particular the role that the thana and katcheri play in the lives of the subordinate classes. The low bureaucracy is thus heavily intertwined with the lives of people, and it can be argued that this is at least partially a function of popular classes invoking the state, a hypothesis to be discussed at length in Section 2. In any case, in the course of this intense interaction with the popular classes, because it is endowed with the power to provide/withhold services, dispense/deny justice and provide/deny employment, the low bureaucracy actually shares in the power that is typically assumed to be exercised by the high bureaucracy. However, the nature of the low bureaucracy's power, and the manner in which it is exercised is qualitatively different than in the case of the high bureaucracy. In the first instance, the low bureaucracy is staffed by members of the popular classes themselves, rather than by the landed or industrial classes. A common saying in Pakistan posits that in any average family, one son will enter the police force, the other will enter the army, and the third will look for employment in any civilian department. I 16 There is therefore a very close sociological link between the low bureaucracy and the popular classes. In this respect alone, there is a clear difference between the very elitist ethos of the high bureaucracy and that of the low bureaucracy. While Weber's impersonal rationalism is present in the higher bureaucratic structure, at least in the design of official policy and in the administering of the coercive liS This is a carry-over from colonial times. lalal (1995: 10) writes: 'For the vast majority of Indians, local bureaucrats such as the district collector - quintessential creation of the British administrative system - disbursed a personalised form of patronage and judicial arbitration within the overall context of a rule-bound, indirect and impersonalised institutional structure.' 116 Needless to say this may not always be true in the literal sense, but is nevertheless an indicator of the covetedness of state employment as well as the sociological make-up of the lower echelons of all state institutions. 71 institutions of the state, it is almost entirely missing at the lower rungs of the bureaucratic structure. II7 Instead there exists a highly permeable and personalized bureaucratic structure which instrumentalises the cultural logic of the social formation in the sense that intimate social relationships, whether based directly on shared caste, ethnic or linguistic ties or otherwise are invoked in the business of the state. I IS This is not to suggest that impersonal dealings may not take place at the level of the low bureaucracy, or even that invoking personal social relationships is a guarantee against the use of coercion, but only that this is a far more overt feature of the bureaucratic structure at the lower than at the higher level. To put it more succinctly, at the level of the low bureaucracy, the exchange of money or favours is not hidden from public view or considered immoral per se, whereas within the high bureaucracy the obvious exchange of money or favours is typically considered 'corruption' or nepotism. Impersonal rationalism is not necessarily much more entrenched in the 'high bureaucracy' beyond rhetorical policymaking; personalised exchange does take place at the higher echelons of the bureaucratic structure especially in the form of sifarish but as such there is a limit to the extent to which the issuing of favours and other exchanges can be overt. Within the low bureaucracy however, there is a certain 'amoralism' associated with what would conventionally be called 'corruption' in the sense that such practices conform to the prescribed norms of society, and in particular the habitual exchange of favours or what might be termed reciprocity more generally. The comfort of the low bureaucracy with such practices is explained by it being far more sociologically integrated with the groups and individuals with whom it comes into contact. Within 117 See Jeffrey and Lerche (2001) for a similar discussion in the case of the United Provinces (UP) in India. 118 In the context of the Indian post-colonial experience, which bears considerable similarities to Pakistan, this phenomenon has been described as follows: 'Long-term historical memories and time tested ways of dealing with power of the political authority took their revenge on the modem state, bending the straight lines of rationalist liberal politics through a cultural refraction of administrative meaning.' (Kaviraj, 1997: 235) 72 the high bureaucracy there is much more of a pretense of uprightness and honesty whereas at the lower level there is no need to hide how the state actually functions. 1 19 Given the state's commitment to a social order based on extraction of surplus from the subordinate classes for the benefit of the dominant propertied classes in society as well as the high officials within the institutions of the state, this 'cynicism' is not surprising. It may instead be more accurate to think of it as a 'lack of ownership' of the state. During fieldwork it became clear that in the eyes of the low bureaucracy, the state and its resources are not considered a trust of the people. Accordingly, in the post-Bhutto period, the low bureaucracy has been emboldened to capture these resources. 120 The sociological differences between the high and low bureaucracy, while much more pronounced in the first couple of decades after independence, continue to persist. As already pointed out, before the civil service reforms high bureaucracy hailed exclusively from the urban and highly educated classes. This greatly impacted policymaking trends, and even though the make up of the high bureaucracy has changed considerably, it remains more or less urbanist in orientation, particularly in its tendency to parrot externally inspired models. More significantly however, the high bureaucracy's remains contemptuous in its understanding and handling of 'the people' . On the other hand the vast majority of low-level civil servants either hails from or has some persistent link with the subordinate classes, a link that has been crucial since colonial times when the language of the state was communicated to the popular classes through the low bureaucracy. In fact, the colonial state believed firmly that its longevity was dependent on control over a largely rural social formation and this 119 It should be mentioned that in the first thirty years after the state's inception, the bureaucracy in general was perceived to be a steadfast institution that was committed to a nation-building project, and this was reflected in the self-perception of the low bureaucrat as well. Over time however, especially after the Ayub period when public perceptions about the bureaucracy had already plummeted, the low bureaucracy started to imbibe some of the more systematic practices of self-aggrandisement that were believed to be commonplace in the higher echelons of the services. 120 See the discussion in Pasha (1997: 198) in which it is posited that society sees the state as an 'external agent'; there is therefore a societal disregard for the state, amongst state personnel as well, that is manifest in the abuse of privilege and refusal to contribute to the public good. This is not to be confused with the 'blurred' nature of the state-society divide. 73 entailed not only a mutually beneficial relationship with rural notables but an administrative structure that facilitated a stable order (cf Waseem, 1994). A stable order meant that the subordinate classes had to be integrated into the power sharing arrangement. The need for the low bureaucracy to be familiar with the cultural peculiarities of politics in the rural social formation is easily explained by the fact that the high bureaucracy itself was not equipped to engage with 'the people' beyond the propertied classes. Therefore, the low bureaucracy always hailed from amongst the 'natives' as opposed to the officer corps which was exclusively British until the third decade of the 20 th century. From the time of inception of the colonial state, the low bureaucrat was recruited from the subordinate classes by design; indeed, intermediary administrative positions such as zaildar, numberdar and others were created by the state for this purpose (Cheema et. aI, 2006). The low bureaucrat then interacted with the state's favored large landlord in the area - who was considered the ultimate authority in local matters - and also provided the crucial link to the people (cf Cheesman, 1997). This pattern of politics remained intact in the post-colonial period, but was soon challenged by the burgeoning mass politics revolving around more expansive identities such as class that emerged in the late 1960s. While this new political culture was a product of the cities, it inevitably impacted the rural social formation. It was therefore essential for the Zia regime - in concert with the other members of the historical bloc - to reestablish a familiar political system based on the wide-ranging influence of the administrator at the local level. In fact the Zia regime skillfully expanded the scope of the local state's functions by coopting the rapidly emerging commercial classes into the web of state patronage. As will be discussed in Section 2, this class has a predominantly rural background and therefore was familiar and even comfortable with the logic of localized patronage politics built around the low bureaucracy (cf Hasan, 2002b; Zaidi, 2005a). Cheema (2003) argues that to a large extent a rule-based logic persisted in the way that the bureaucracy operated until the Bhutto period, and this was reflected in systematic patronage of large industrial houses and other coherent corporate groups. However, following the Bhutto reforms and the subsequent institutionalization of a 74 patronage politics under Zia ul Haq, this rule-based logic of the state was unraveled and the bureaucracy started distributing patronage through factions at the local level. As such this analysis implies that the low bureaucracy's importance under Zia and afterwards was significantly enhanced insofar as it was the mechanism through which the 'non-rule' based logic of state action was entrenched. Accordingly, the low bureaucracy became more intertwined with processes of accumulation at the local level. 121 Interestingly, Cheema asserts that this qualitative change in state action implies a weaker state insofar as it is less cohesive and rule-bound, and therefore prone to 'capture' by non-state actors. My understanding is slightly different. First it is important to note that social exchange between the low bureaucracy and the popular classes in the form of rishwat and sifarish is not a phenomenon unique to the post- Bhutto period. However, under the PPP regime the distribution of state patronage became more widespread, and even more so under Zia ul Haq. The reasons for Bhutto's reforms, as discussed above, were related to the regime's desire to undermine the authority of the high bureaucracy. The politicization of the bureaucracy all the way down to the local level was a side effect of the reforms. In the case of the Zia regime however, the 'localisation' of politics was a very conscious objective. The consolidation of a political system based on patronage all the way down to the lower level was far from an incidental development, and reflected the oligarchy's, and more specifically the military high command's commitment to eradicating the confrontational politics that was still lingering even after Bhutto' s demise, and thereby completing its revival from the depths of December 1971. However, in no way can this development be considered one that weakened the state per se, in the sense that the state oligarchy's dominance was restored after a period of at least a decade. That this state was substantively different is indisputable; the post- Bhutto state was far more prone to capture by a wide array of social groups, and state involvement in 'informal activities' increased greatly. However, it has been this 121 As already pointed out, I consider the low bureaucracy to have been part of the process of accumulation at the local level since colonial times, however, what is being asserted here is that there was an intensification of this process both as a function of the increasing influence of capital as well as the political needs of the oligarchy. 75 dynamic - what I have termed the politics of common sense - which has prevented the emergence of an overt popular political challenge to the Alavian nexus of power, and thus the historical bloc has become stronger rather than weaker, in large part by giving parts of the pie to new contenders for power. As has been asserted earlier, one of the primary arguments of this thesis is that the post-colonial state has continued to playa defining role in molding the social formation. New developments in the post-colonial perioq have, at various times, both reinforced and challenged this role of the state. Hasan (2002b) argues that the state structure has remained largely unchanged in spite of the dramatic changes that have taken place throughout the social formation, primarily on account of the deepening of capitalism. On the other hand Cheema (2003) insists that the state has undergone considerable changes that have both conditioned and been conditioned by changes within society at large. In my understanding the state has changed considerably, thereby losing some of its power to direct the nature of change within the social formation. Yet the Alavian nexus of power has remained intact by adapting the exercise of power through state personnel and emergent social forces so as to facilitate both the accumulation of power and the accumulation of capital. As was argued in the introductory chapter, while the fact of the historical bloc's continued commitment to oligarchic rule can be explained - and will be in the following chapters - the survival of the Alavian nexus of power in spite of the far- reaching changes that have otherwise taken place in the social formation can only be explained by the politics of common sense. And given the state's overwhelming role in social life, including the lives of the subordinate classes, without the low bureaucracy's engagement with, and cooption of, the subordinate classes, the politics of common sense cannot persist. 76 Chapter 4 The Landed Class: Keeping the boat afloat It is a testament to the widespread significance of land on the socio-political landscape of Pakistan - and for that matter most other post-colonial countries - that the landed class figures prominently in the analyses of every other dominant class and corporate institution. Direct or indirect control over land as the primary productive resource - and also as an autonomous source of social prestige and power - in a predominantly rural society122 has arguably been as crucial as any other single factor in determining the configuration of power that persists in post-colonial Pakistan. 123 While it may be argued that control over land no longer exclusively determines who wields power in the social formation, there is little doubt that an historical link can be drawn between all dominant social groups and land (cf Sobhan, 2003: 8-9). Prior to Bhutto's civil service reforms of the 1970s, 'few individuals from non-landed families achieved prominence in government decision-making as either civilian or military bureaucrats; wealth in land, or some relation to wealth in land, appear[ed] to be a major, but not the only, requisite for political elite standing' (LaPorte, 1975: 92). As will be discussed in the next chapter, many landed scions have gone on to be big players in industry as well. Again here it is instructive to consider Alavi's basic insights on the landed class and how this chapter will seek to improve upon them. Alavi's primary observations about the landed class are first that it is the mainstay of most mainstream political parties; second that its interests are not contradictory to those of the state or the other propertied classes; and third that there is an 'organic link' between the landed class and the two administrative institutions given that individuals from landed families are a major component of these institutions. All of these observations are not incorrect but need to be supplemented so as to gamer greater insight into the politics of the landed class and its relationship with other 122 Chapter 8 will suggest that much has changed in Pakistan over the past many decades on account of the tremendous urbanization that has taken place in the country as suggested by the figure that 56.5% of Pakistan's population is urbanized (Qadeer, 2000). Qadeer argues that what can be considered features of urban society are now commonplace in the rural social formation. 123 The two preceding chapters have illustrated how acquisition of choice residential and agricultural land remains a major incentive for the high bureaucracy and military officers to retain political power. 77 members of the historical bloc. But first I wish to reiterate what has already been pointed out in the introductory chapter about the state's inability to rule over the social formation in the absence of support from the propertied classes, and particularly the landed class. The colonial state project was premised upon the close link between the British administrators on the one hand and local influentials - a large number of whom were transformed into landowners by the British themselves. My proposition that the state is in fact overdeveloping is consistent with the notion that rural notables remain structurally integrated into the hierarchy of power that the British fashioned because it was by instrumentalising the highly personalized relationship between landlord and the subordinate classes that the state was able to penetrate social life more generally. This then leads to my second point, namely that the 'organic link' between the landed class and the administrative institutions is less important (and arguably less resilient) than the organic link between the landed class and subordinate classes in the rural social formation, because, in my understanding, the oligarchic order is hegemonic only insofar as it coopts the subordinate classes into a state-centred web of patronage. The landed class provides the 'organic link' to the subordinate classes. Third I agree that there is no basic contradiction between the landed class and the state oligarchy, because, as pointed out above, the landed class plays an important role in blunting counter-hegemonic impulses within the rural social formation. But I contend that the economic power of the landed class has been undermined to a significant extent in the period starting with the Green Revolution. And therefore it is necessary to understand how the state and the logic of practice of the rural social formation have helped the landed class maintain its political influence. To appreciate how the changes associated with the Green Revolution and Middle East migrations have affected the exercise of power within the rural social formation, and to supplement Alavi's reflections on the politics of the landed class more generally, it is essential to complete a short historical sketch of the basic skeleton of power inherited in 1947 from the British. 78 The preceding two chapters have touched upon the two central pillars of the basic structure of power - the permanent institutions of the state, or the so-called steel frame. As already pointed out above, the landed class played the crucial intermediary function that made this skeleton of power viable. It is the basic argument of this chapter that despite the fact that the social power of the landed class has been eroded, it continues to exercise considerable political power primarily because of its continuing patronage by the state oligarchy, but also due to its long-standing politico- cultural entrenchment in the rural social formation. The state's continuing patronage of the landed class explains why the latter - and therefore the major political parties of the country - does not challenge the oligarchy and consents to remaining junior partner in the Alavian nexus of power. The colonial inheritance It makes sense that the British would prop up and privilege rural notables in an agrarian social formation the preservation of which they perceived as being largely functional to their purposes of resource extraction. Indeed, as the military chapter illustrated, the British created vast agricultural tracts in the Indus Plains where previously scattered, subsistence-level nomadic populations were the norm. Be that as it may there was considerable debate within the colonial state - and for that matter in Whitehall - about the kind of property rights regime that should be instituted in colonial Punjab. On the one hand there was the belief that indigenous forms of communal property should be left intact while on the other the creation and consolidation of the individual peasant proprietor was considered to be essential to meeting the ideological and material objectives of colonialism in India (cf Nelson, 2008). It is not clear that the perception of a communal property rights regime was accurate to begin with, and ultimately, in many parts of contemporary western Pakistani Punjab, as well as in Sindh and to a lesser extent in the NWFP, the colonial state enfranchised individuals and families that it perceived to be both historically powerful and supportive of the colonial project more generally (cf Gilmartin, 1998; Ansari, 1992; Cheesman, 1997; Rittenburg, 1988; Low, ]991). This mayor may not have been in contradiction to the state's otherwise stated concerns; indeed, the British constantly vacillated between the objective of extracting surplus from colonial society 79 through entrenchment in the ruthless global trading and production chain, and maintaining social and political order. Thus while a wide variety of concerns informed the manner of the state's accommodations with the rural social formation, ultimately the colonial state shielded landed notables from the disruptive effects of capitalist integration by allowing them to retain their land in the face of displacement by more market -oriented producers. As such therefore, the state was fashioning the manner of integration of the Indian economy into the larger capitalist world system, aiding and abetting certain processes while stunting others. '[C]olonialism could continue as a relation of power in the subcontinent only on the condition that the colonising bourgeoisie should fail to live up to its own universalist project. The nature of the state it had created by the sword made this historically necessary' (Guha, 1997: 64).124 The protective measures undertaken by the British meant that the landed class was very favourably disposed towards the state, aware of how both its strength - that the British needed its support to ensure the survival of colonialism in India - and also its weakness - that the state was protecting it from the adverse effects of deepening capitalist relations - were reflected in the relationship. The two allies had, in a manner of speaking, intertwining spheres of influence; the colonial administrators dealt with matters of policy, defence, economic management and revenue collection, whereas the rural notables had considerable freedom to adjudicate on local disputes: 'For haris and smallholders, Waderos were the real power in the land. The British authority, with its police and lawcourts, was remote, spiritually and also physically' (Cheesman, 1997: 91).125 In the final analysis, the state and landed notables were hand-in-glove, and this was no more evident than in the cooperation between the district administration and the big landlord(s) of the district: 'This two-pronged political system - feudalism and colonial bureaucracy - engendered a relatively permanent 124 When Alavi discusses the 'structural imperative of peripheral capitalism', he focuses only on fact that 'the continuation of pre-capitalist socio-economic forms in non-metropolitan contexts is in fact a realisation and not a negation of the universalist project of capital' (Brass, 2000: 136). What is crucial is that the state largely determines this process; Alavi's theoretical formulation does not account for this essential fact. 125 This is not to suggest that conflicts between the state and landed notables did not take place. There were many conflicts, some quite considerable, especially where landed notables insisted on more autonomy than the state was willing to concede. See for example the example of the Hur rebellion spearheaded by the Pir Pagaro (Ansari, 1992: 57-76). 80 hierarchy within the community and centralized the political control of the bureaucracy' (Gadi, 2003: 99). A very important related point has to do with the broader assumptions made by the British regarding local custom and tradition, particularly in the Punjab. On the one hand the British claimed to want to do away with 'backward' traditions that characterized the native society. On the other hand however, colonial policy was based upon British perceptions of the social orders and hierarchies that prevailed in Punjabi society, and in fact the British 'tied their authority to a structure of social organisation central to Punjabi life, but one defined and systematised, through British social analysis, by the state itself' (Gilmartin, 1988: 16). Thus there was an astonishing level of 'mapping' of society - based on British perception - so as to make policy best suited to control without social upheaval. In many ways then the colonial state 'reified' existing social identities - including but not limited to 'tribe', biraderi, qaum and zat - and both during and after the tenure of the British, both dominant and subordinate classes have employed these identities in negotiations with the state and within society at large. More generally, the British promoted a brand of politics that they viewed to be reflective of the nature of the rural social order, given that they wanted to ensure the preeminence of rural interests over urban ones. This clear bias necessarily had an impact on the developing nature of urban politics as well (Waseem, 1994: 41_2).126 The reforms that never were The state's proactive and highly visible role in public life that is associated with the onset of British rule progressively increased over time. In other words, the state became relatively more interventionist in the post-colonial period. In the first instance, there was an extension of the state's infrastructure and coercive power into areas that were previously almost completely autonomous including present-day Balochistan (particularly the former Kalat State) as well as the tribal Pakhtun areas. The state's presence may still be limited in certain areas, but is clearly more visible than it was 126 In the post-colonial period there is clear evidence that politicization of such identities in urban areas is also common. See for example Nelson (2008). 81 during the colonial period. Substantive changes have also taken place in the state's attitude towards the agrarian sector. The post-colonial state has been keen to develop an urban, industrial economic base in accordance with the state-led industrialization orthodoxy that characterized most 20 th century post-colonial nationbuilding experiments (cf Thomas, 1984). In conjunction with the steadily deteriorating terms of trade for agricultural goods worldwide over the past few decades, this change in the state's posture has necessarily translated into severe pressures on the landed class. Landed families have not benefited from the kind of unambiguously beneficial legislation that the British instituted to protect them from increasing exposure to the rigours of an ever expanding international division of labour. This has encouraged many landowners to diversify their assets, particularly by investing in industry. 127 Nevertheless, this has not prevented the landed class from continuing to be a major part of the power-sharing arrangement within the historical bloc. To understand this apparent anomaly, one must recall that, at partition, the state exercised little authority in the vast majority of the country, and only when the provincial landed magnates pledged their allegiance to the federal government in Karachi was a modicum of administrative order established. As demonstrated in earlier chapters, the combination of landed notables' proclivity towards administrative rule and the fear of power shifting to the eastern wing in the event of national elections reinforced the alliance between the state and the landed class. Nonetheless, consistent with the highly factional nature of politics within the rural social formation (cf Alavi, 1971; 1972; 1973), there was a great deal of positioning and posturing during the first decade as various landlord factions attempted to establish themselves vis a vis others. It was this perceived chaos and 'irresponsibility' of mostly landed politicians that was employed as justification for the 1958 coup, and very soon afterwards, for the announcement of the 1959 land reforms. 128 Allegedly these reforms sought to break 127 During fieldwork in Okara it was established that politicians like Mian Zaman have acquired major business stakes after establishing themselves as major political players on account of their control over land. 128 As was pointed out in earlier chapters, the oligarchy was unwilling to run the risk of allowing national elections scheduled to be held in 1959 on the basis of the 1956 constitution. 82 the back of the landed class and promote a new capitalist farmer that was not only more efficient than the traditional landed class but also ascribed to a different social sensibility that was 'modem' and did not cultivate 'feudal' dependencies. 129 However, in the final analysis, the evidence suggests that the reforms did not greatly alter the dynamic of power in the rural social formation at large. In the first instance, the reforms did not necessarily enfranchise landless tenants (who had to pay for what land they did receive), but rather only reduced the size of landholdings of the largest landlords. Less than 1.3% of total land was resumed - of which only a fraction was actually cultivable 130 - while evasions were commonplace (Khan et. aI, 2007: 36). The economic impact (or lack thereof) of the reforms was similar to their political impact. Even if rural notables were somewhat jolted by the seemingly overt attack on their interests, they emerged from the experience relatively unscathed. Their sources of local support remained intact, largely on account of the fact that it was still through them that subordinate classes accessed the state. More generally, the factional nature of politics survived the reforms. Indeed on the whole the landed class prospered through the decade of Ayub's rule as its relationship with the bureaucracy remained intact (Jones, 2003: 29-35).131 Furthermore, there was no distinctly new class of 'capitalist farmers' that benefited from Ayub's reforms and the green revolution technologies that proliferated during his rule, rather it was the old landed class that adapted to, and benefited from, the many changes that took place during this period (Alavi, 1983b: 239-241). There is also clear evidence of political accommodation between Ayub and the landed class, in spite of gimmicks such as the Basic Democracies. 132 In fact, as earlier 129 This is the perception of scholars that see the Ayub period as heralding a qualitatively new dynamic in rural areas led by a new capitalist farmer. See for example, Burki (1976). J alaI (1994: 160) points out that to the extent that there was a middle-sized landlord that was favoured by the reforms, it was in the form of the retired military and civilian bureaucrat. 130 Khan (1999) claims this figure to be less than 25% while Herring (1983) asserts that it was upwards of40%. 131 For a detailed discussion of the impact of Green Revolution technologies across classes within the rural social formation, see Alavi (1983b). 132 The Basic Democracies was a system of local government introduced by Ayub Khan which was lauded by many scholars as a new innovation in democracy suited for third world countries (cf Mellema, 1961). However, the 60,000 or so Basic Democrats ended up being Ayub loyalists, acting as the electoral college for the presidential election, and ultimately reinforcing the patronage-based political order. In retrospect, the Basic Democracies initiative served the express purpose of generating 83 chapters suggested, Ayub's political innovations were not innovations as much as mechanisms for already powerful rural interests and the bureaucracy to maintain their power with the general outcome that 'little was done to correct the politics of landholding and the influence of the landed class remained virtually unchecked' (Ziring, 2000: 85). On the whole Ayub mistrusted urban politics, while the industrial class remained aloof from power politics (as will be discussed in the next chapter). In the absence of an unfettered democratic process, the landed incumbents were the only intermediaries between the popular classes and the oligarchy and thereby allowed the personalized politics based primarily on ascriptive attachments reinforced under the colonial regime to survive a little bit longer. However, as will be asserted at length in the second section, changes associated with the Green Revolution in particular were throwing up new contenders for economic and political power.133 A new, primarily urban, political culture was emerging with dramatic effect. The landed class, bureaucracy and the industrialist families that controlled an exorbitant stake in the economy were the natural targets of the politicization of the subordinate classes, and Bhutto was the man to spearhead the polemic against the incumbents. There is a feeling that the 1970 elections represented a tumultuous defeat for the landed class, given that established aristocrats such as the Pir of Pagaro were roundly defeated. However, while there was clearly a shift in the basis of political action away from purely traditional alignments in the sense that the popular classes had been awakened to the possibility that they could rebel against the existing political order (to be discussed at length in Chapter 9), the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) did make alliances with landed families, many of whom were in the fold of the party very soon after the elections (Alavi, 1983a: 46). Indeed following the 1970 elections, the landed class and the bureaucracy joined hands to undertake a spate of tenant evictions (Jones, political legitimacy for an unelected military regime, not unlike the similar local government initiatives undertaken by Generals Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf (Cheema & Mohmand, 2003). 133 It is worthwhile to briefly spell out what exactly the Green Revolution was. In short the Green Revolution marked the mechanisation of agriculture in South Asia. It did not constitute a fundamental break from the process of commodification that, as suggested in the introductory chapter, began in earnest with the onset of British rule, and in fact intensified it. Among other things, a defining feature of the Green Revolution was the mass import of new high-yield varieties of wheat and other cash crops from international agribusiness conglomerates along with inputs such as pesticides and fertiliser. 84 2003: 428). By the time of the 1977 elections Bhutto's radical rhetoric had almost completely dissipated in the face of political expediency, and the landed class was the undisputed dominant force in the party. The two land reform legislations enacted by Bhutto also told a similar story. The 1972 legislation followed within three months of Bhutto taking power, and was clearly designed to further fuel the populist wave that brought him to power. Rhetoric focused on the 'feudal system of land tenure' and the proposed solutions included the setting up of cooperative farms and agrovilles, the latter conceived of as peri urban settlements for the rural poor that would be fitted with all basic amenities (Esposito, 1974). Landlords whose land was resumed were not offered compensation, in contrast to both the 1959 and 1977 reforms. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, the 1972 land reforms were less substantive than the 1959 reforms on almost all accounts. Only 0.6% of total land was resumed, while only 61.5% of this land was actually distributed to landless tenants; only 10% of all landless tenants actually received land. As was the case during the Ayub reforms, there were a variety of methods employed by landlords in cahoots with the bureaucracy to avoid dispossession. This meant that the potential impact of reducing the land ceilings for both irrigated and unirrigated land was wasted (Khan et. aI, 2007: 43).134 The 1977 reforms remained largely on paper. While the land ceilings were reduced to 100 acres irrigated and 200 acres unirrigated, a mere 74,000 hectares ofland was resumed, which constituted only 0.09% of total land in the country. Of this resumed land, a little over half was actually distributed to the landless (Khan et. aI, 2007: 43). As it turned out, Bhutto managed to alienate a powerful segment of the landed class prior to the 1977 election but not because of the land reform legislation. It was instead his nationalization of agro-processing industries in which many landlords had personal stakes that represented a crucial mistake at a crucial juncture. It was thus that many landlords supported the agitation led by mandi merchants against Bhutto under the guise of the Pakistan National Alliance (Alavi, 1983a: 89). 134 The most meaningful of all PPP policies directed towards the agrarian sector were the homestead reforms of 1972 in which home ownership was granted to large numbers of landless farmers across the country. See Cheema et. al (2006). 85 Be that as it may, the landed class emerged from the three land reforms arguably still the most dominant propertied class in Pakistani society. The avowedly 'progressive' high bureaucracy and military leadership, and even an immensely powerful politician such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto clearly required the support of the established landed magnates to wield power. In relying on the landed class, those in executive authority were propping up 'feudal power': Until the 1970s, 'primordial sentiments and feudal power were exacerbated by a 'variable' factor, namely state policy, and were not a 'permanent' social/cultural condition' (Whaites, 1995). By the late 1960s substantive social changes had taken place across the country, and most obviously in Punjab. Modernisation of agriculture and the increased availability of alternative livelihood sources for previously dependent sharecroppers had a definitive impact on the exercise of power by the landed class. Nonetheless, as the following section will assert, in spite of the fact that the economic power of landed notables has been eroded, and even though new competitors have emerged, the landed class's ongoing accommodation with the state has ensured its continued salience as a major force in Pakistani politics. The more things change, the more they stay the same There is little question that Pakistani society has undergone an enormous transformation over the past four decades on account of the deepening of capitalism. Agriculture, which at the inception of the new state, accounted for over half of total output, now constitutes only 21.6% of the total. Importantly however, the vast majority of the population still derives its livelihood from agriculture-related activity, approximately 66%.135 Nevertheless, it is no longer the traditional landed class that retains exclusive economic power in the rural social formation. A new intermediate class has emerged which is linked closely to the proliferation of mandi towns, a development that is associated primarily with the green revolution (cf Hasan, 2002b; Zaidi, 2005a). The genesis of this intermediate class and its urban counterpart will be discussed at length in Chapter 8, however, for the purposes of the present discussion it is sufficient to note that the traditional landed class now does have economic 135 See GoP (2007). The latter figure is highly disputed - Zaidi (2005a) puts the figure at 48%. 86 competitors but these intermediate class competitors do not challenge the existing political order. This thesis has argued from the outset that accumulation of capital is symbiotically related to access to state power, and indeed, state power often underlies class power. Thus there can be no question that the historical accommodation of the landed class with the state cannot be replaced by autonomous bastions of wealth overnight; in any case it is a matter of debate just how autonomous the intermediate classes' source of wealth are. In In the first instance all evidence suggests that the landed class has established links with much of the intermediate class, or the mandi economy more generally. During fieldwork in Charsadda and Okara, it was observed that traditional landed magnates have considerable interests in the secondary and tertiary agricultural economy in towns, or at least have explicit political links with traders and middlemen operating in this economy. This means to say that members of landed families themselves have become mandi merchants - as was the case in Charsadda - or mandi merchants have developed their businesses on account of their links to the landed influentials, the latter providing contacts within the local and national state - as was the case in Okara. For the most part then, the landed class has been able to draw emergent intermediate class political players into factions that the former dominates. And even when intermediate class factions are able to stand on their own, they reinforce rather than challenge the politics of common sense, which, in the final analysis, is beneficial to the landed class. Historicising this analysis provides a clearer picture of the nature of the change. I showed in the first chapter that Bhutto's highly flawed attempts to undermine the civil bureaucracy by instituting loyalists at all levels of the administrative structure proved to be the first step in the expansion of the state's patronage function. The PPP interregnum was conspicuous for the fact that hitherto excluded social groups gained 87 access to state institutions. Previously, the high bureaucracy's insular and elitist nature limited who could or could not directly access state patronage. 136 The state's patronage function was further enhanced by the post-Bhutto military regime, primarily through the medium of local body elections. This allowed the regime to extend patronage to those segments of the popular classes that had emerged as contenders for power due to the social changes engendered by capitalist modernisation. These classes could not initially compete at the national and provincial level, but were able to make inroads at the local body level. In other words traditional landed magnates were now having to compete for state patronage with the 'new' middle classes, a process that Wilder has termed the' democratisation' of patronage (1998: 200). The purpose of this deliberate manipulation of the political process was to suppress the politics of resistance that had existed through the Bhutto period by reasserting a familiar form of politics that emphasized a vertical hierarchy of power culminating in the patronage-distributing institutions and/or personnel of the state. Biraderi, qaum and zat were restored as the loyalties around which political alignments were cultivated, albeit articulated in a way that accommodated new political actors such as the new intermediate class. In the process, Bhutto's PPP was greatly weakened given that 'an opposition party with no access to patronage and bitterly opposed by the establishment had little chance of electoral success in a system fuelled by patronage and easily manipulated by the bureaucracy' (Wilder, 1998: 132-33).137 In no way was the Zia regime's political engineering designed to undermine the landed class but rather aimed to discourage landed politicians from engaging in populism. In fact, as pointed out in Chapter 2, the purpose of the regime's machinations was squarely to acquire the support of the dominant classes so as to 136 This is not to suggest that the popular or even the intermediate classes benefited necessarily. In many cases it meant simply that the dominant class representatives nominated by Bhutto to manage state institutions gained opportunities to dole out patronage. 137 The first local body elections that Zia held in 1979 proved that it would take a long-term project of political engineering to undermine the ideological politics of which the PPP was clearly perceived to be the vanguard. The so-called awam dost candidates in this non-party election that were known by everyone to represent the PPP, won handsomely in every province but Baluchistan, including many landlords who, as they tend to do regularly, recognized the importance of being on the side of the winner (Jalal, 1994: 175). 88 resuscitate the historical bloc. With some notable exceptions, the landed class's political loyalties lay not with Bhutto but with whoever was in power, and this was reflected both in its steady acquisition of power within the PPP after the party's coming to power in 1971, and also in the immediate abandonment of the party by numerous landed notables after Bhutto' s ouster in July 1977; many joined one of the constituent members of the PNA expecting that the Zia regime would favour the alliance in any subsequent political accommodation (Richter, 1977: 411). In addition, following Bhutto's deposal, landlords started to freely evict tenants from their lands both because they were freed from the impediments imposed upon them by Bhutto' s populism, and because the imperatives of a deepening agricultural capitalism demanded it (cfRouse, 1983: 264). Indeed, with the reemergence of ascriptive attachments as a major factor in the determination of who acquired access to the state, the landed class was able to consolidate to a large extent its privileged position within the rural social formation, although it necessarily had to alter its politics given the considerable changes in the worldview of the landless and small peasantry and artisans through the late 1960s and 1970s. In particular, 'a partnership with the state that ignored the rural middle and lower classes was no longer feasible' (Cheema et ai., 2006: 15). Ultimately however, the landed class could maintain a privileged position so long as it accommodated new political actors into a system that had changed but yet was the same insofar as factional alliances remained the modus operandi. The landed class still enjoyed considerable entrenchment as the major intermediaries between the subordinate classes and the state, and new political actors could not bypass these established networks. This was quite clearly proven during fieldwork in Okara and Charsadda. Landed families that have historically been powerful in these regions remain major intermediaries, many having craftily coopted the populist idiom of the late 1960s and 1970s while effectively stymieing radical political action amongst small and landless farmers and also making sure to take along a significant number of the new, upwardly mobile political players based in the town. Indeed, in both Okara and Charsadda the major landed politicians have been associated with populist parties. For example Rao 89 Sikander Iqbal is a PPP stalwart 138 while Asfandyar Wali Khan has a long association with ethno-national politics. In both cases, there is a careful mix of ideas of 'progress' with 'continuity' that calls upon shared historical identities. To take this point further, one must return to the argument forwarded in the introductory chapter about the persistence of pre-colonial politico-cultural forms. As suggested earlier in this chapter, the British came across social identities that they proceeded to politicize and thus reify; these identities were articulated in an entirely different manner prior to the emergence of the colonial state. In the first couple of decades following the creation of Pakistan, the state continued to rely on the political culture that the British had fashioned in which such 'primordial' identities were instrumentalised. When Zia came to power, and faced with the imperative of crushing the wave of mass politics on which Bhutto rode to power, a familiar and parochial identity politics was reintroduced and the intermediate classes that emerged following the intense modernization of the 1960s were able to gain entry into the corridors of state patronage. However, this form of politics, although inclusive of new political actors, was still historically anchored in the landed incumbents that have been the lynchpin of the oligarchic political system since colonial times. To expect that economic change will necessarily engender wholesale political and cultural change is to make the familiar mistake of a dogmatic Marxism, whereas - as this thesis has argued throughout - it is important to recognize that political alignments within the state, between state and society, and within society at large must be considered as being a product of numerous factors, including capitalist modernization, the 'autonomous' nature of the state machinery, and the evolved logic of practice within the social formation. This does not mean that the landed class will always enjoy a position of preeminence within the rural social formation, but that as long as the state continues to patronize it and thereby reinforce its well established cultural and political links to the subordinate classes, it will continue to be a major player. 139 138 However following the 2002 national election, he defected and formed his own faction of the PPP. 139 There are, of course, considerable variations in the power of landlords across different regions. Indeed, Okara is more modernized and also characterized by less land inequality than Charsadda, both factors necessarily impacting contemporary political alignments. Cheema et. al (2006) point out the differences between the more modern canal colony regions of central Punjab and comparatively more 90 Formal integration The Zia regime was keen both on creating new pliant political elites and winning over old ones. For eight years after deposing Bhutto, the Zia junta was able to repeatedly put off the holding of elections and restoration of even a nominal democratic process. During this period the landed class maintained its power in close alliance with the local bureaucracy thereby garnering - directly or indirectly - a share of the resources that were distributed by the centre to local governments. 140 When the regime eventually held non-party elections in 1985, the landed class once again emerged as the dominant electoral force. This underlined not only that the Zia regime did not undermine landed power but in fact that the form of politics that was favoured by the military junta required the support of the landed class in facilitating new entrants into the political sphere while continuing to be the main conduits between the state and the subordinate classes. On the whole, both the Majlis-e-Shura that Zia created, as well as the parliament that came into being after the 1985 non-party elections were dominated by landlords, both old and new. 141 'Localisation' of politics has remained pronounced in the two decades following the end of the Zia dictatorship. It became abundantly clear during the 1985 elections that the Zia regime had successfully eliminated larger issues of policy and ideology from the political mainstream and restored politics to a competition over local resources, both economic and political. As is clear from the cases of Okara and Charsadda, with the expanded opportunities afforded to the low bureaucracy and intermediate class groups associated with the 'informal' economy to engage in accumulation, the landed class has learned to deal with new social forces in rural areas and adjoining mandi towns. Nonetheless, landed notables remain crucial to the state's overall functioning and the hegemonic politics of common sense, because of their mediation role in insular villages. Similarly, as one commentator points out in rather dramatic fashion, 'Sindh is 100 years' (Duncan, 1989: 123) in the sense that the power of the landed class remains very deeply entrenched even compared to Punjab. 140 This was an inference that could be made on the basis of fieldwork in Okara. Political players such as Rao Sikander Iqbal remained close to the local administration in the 1980s; this was clear from the long-standing ties that he and members of his political faction enjoy with the police and administrative high-ups that have been active in the district for almost 3 decades. 141 In the non-party elections of 1985, landlords won 157 out of a total of 238 seats (66%) while in the 1988 elections, landlords won 156 of a total of 207 seats (76%). See Shafqat (2003). 91 disputes, their continued control over land, and their experience in making and breaking factions operative both during electoral contests and otherwise. A look at the various national assemblies in the post Zia period reflects the continuing influence of the landed class: 1990 1993 1997 Landlordsffribal Leaders 106 129 126 B usinessmen/Industrialists 38 37 39 Urban Professionals 46 26 32 Religious Leaders 11 8 3 Retired Military Officers 3 5 2 Others 3 3 2 TOTAL 207 207 207 Source: Shafqat (2003) It was pointed out earlier that landlords have not been the beneficiaries of unambiguous policy favours in the post-colonial period. However, the policy and political discourse remains skewed heavily in their favour, particularly when one considers that land reform has almost totally disappeared from the mainstream political debate (cf Gazdar, 2003). Furthermore, in spite of much rhetoric emphasizing the need for an effective agricultural income tax, no initiative has been taken in this regard either. This has meant that many landlords deriving income from non- agricultural sources have been able to avoid taxation by declaring such income to be derived from agriculture. In a country where direct tax constitutes such a small proportion of the overall tax revenue, agricultural income tax would contribute greatly to the state's coffers: estimates suggest that agricultural income tax collected by the province would be Rs. 3.7 billion, or 11 % of provincial public sector expenditure (Khan, 1999: 135-40). It is important to consider here the intensifying pressures on small and landless farmers in the agricultural sector largely due to the deepening of capitalism. The systematic corporatisation of agriculture has meant the slashing of state subsidies, most notably the elimination of food support prices. The longer-term structural change has been in tenure relations away from share cropping towards wage labour. 142 142 Tenant farms represented 41. 7% of all farms in 1960 and only 18.6% of the total in 1990 (Zaidi, 2005a: 42). It is virtually impossible however to quantify the extent of wage labour but '[i]t is unlikely that many of the tenants are in a position to become owners, so most of them will probably have been 92 Thus landlords and the intermediate classes associated with the agrarian economy are increasing their relative power in a rapidly urbanizing rural social formation. 143 This trend has been accentuated by the fragmentation of landholdings due to intergenerational inheritance, which, while having affected large landlords as well, has indubitably been more debilitating for small landholders. Is Pakistan Feudal?144 Arif Hasan (2002b) has argued that the 'feudal system of power' in Pakistan has collapsed and that it is entirely inaccurate to suggest that even the intermediary role of the landed class remains intact. He agrees however that the new intermediate class that is the major competitor to landed power has not necessarily challenged the landed class for power in terms of representation in the national and provincial assemblies. Hasan's argument is inconsistent with the analysis presented here inasmuch as he insists that the landed class has been effectively displaced by the mandi merchant as the primary intermediary between the state and the subordinate classes. Indeed, Hasan's himself admits that 'until the demise of feudalism is institutionalised' the landed class cannot be said to have relinquished power even though it has acquiesced to sharing power at the local level with new political players (Hasan, 2002b: 170). Fieldwork indicates that insofar as there is a hierarchy of power at the local level, it is quite variable with either landed incumbents or newer political players associated with the mandi economy in the role of arbiter in each different locale. However, given that the patronage chain leads vertically to the state, and that it is landed politicians that have access to the most patronage vis a vis their provincial and national level connections, more often than not it is the newer political players associated with the mandi economy that are compelled to approach establish landed political players to join the latter's faction. changed into agricultural or rural wage labourers or have migrated to urban areas and towns' (Zaidi, 2005a: 50). 143 Qadeer (2000) calls the Peshawar Valley - of which Charsadda is a part - and the densely populated central Punjab plains - of which Okara is a part - ruralolpolises, or, in other words, social formations a,Eparently rural but exhibiting many features typically associated with urban areas. 1 Taken from Zaidi's (2005a) insightful and exhaustive discussion on the nature of agrarian change in Pakistan. 93 Landed notables continue to have an extremely fluid association with major political parties, particularly in Okara where prominent landed notables are willing to desert opposition parties in favour of those in government. 145 It was observed during fieldwork that intermediate classes tend to desert 'losing' parties alongwith their landed patrons. As the example of the PPP during Zia' s rule illustrated, politicians associated with the opposition do not benefit from the largesse of the state. Only those politicians in power are in positions to distribute patronage, typically in the form of discretionary funds but also by virtue of having the power to hire and fire, issue licenses, and perform other favours. Thus rather than postulating that the persistence of landed power indicates the robustness of 'feudalism' , it is far more fruitful to recognise that tenure relations in agriculture have been subject to constant change beginning with the onset of British colonialism and ever since (cf Alavi et. aI, 1982; Zaidi 2005a). In particular the legal property rights regime that is associated in the first instance with the Permanent Settlement of 1793 made land into a saleable commodity, and marked the beginning of production for the market on a large scale. The persistence of a personalised and oppressive political culture with the landed class as the lynchpin, is not explained by suggesting that the social formation remains feudal, but in fact by showing, as this chapter has attempted to do, that despite the deepening of capitalism in agrarian society, landed power remains relatively entrenched on account of state patronage. The landed class or the political class? Given the fact that landed notables continue to be the mainstays of most of the mainstream political parties in Pakistan, it is important to consider why or why not they do not challenge the state oligarchy for power. It has been reiterated on many occasions already in this thesis that, in the aftermath of partition, the West Pakistani landed class and a Punjabi and Urdu-speaking dominated state oligarchy shared a common interest in preventing the outright establishment of a democratic political process. This alliance also had an historical legacy in the structures of power created under the colonial regime. However lalal (1994: 157) makes the important assertion 145 See the reports in Herald November 2002 about the 'horse-trading' after the October 2002 general election. In Okara Rao Sikander Iqbal deserted the PPP after the 2002 election and created a breakaway faction alongwith other renegades that joined hands with the military. This secured for Rao Sikander Iqbal the defence portfolio in the federal cabinet. 94 that it is more accurate to consider this historic alliance a product of a 'politics of compromise', suggesting that under certain conditions, the needs of the state and the landed class could be congruent, but that this was not necessarily true for all time. This provides a partial insight into why political parties have come into conflict with the state oligarchy about the nature of the power sharing arrangement at various junctures, even if the former have not challenged the oligarchy for outright power per se. It also provides yet more evidence that the landed class - in accordance with the political economy of both the colonial and post-colonial periods - has tended to act in a fragmented way in that landed notables are in perennial competition to win favour with the state and evidently are far less committed to the autonomous corporate interests of their class. For example, it has been noted that for most of Pakistan's history the agricultural sector has transferred resources to the industrial sector (cf Khan, 2003). The majority of the surplus extracted from the sector has come from the small and landless farmer, while green revolution technologies and mechanization more generally were clearly biased in favour of the large landlord (cf Alavi, 1983b). Nevertheless, during fieldwork large landlords cribbed incessantly about the 'anti-agriculture' changes that have taken place over time, and how they too have been at the receiving end of unfavourable policies. 146 Yet there has never been a coherent response on the part of the landed class to the urban industrial bias that has characterised successive government's planning paradigms. 147 As a general rule, the landed class has been relatively unconcerned with modernizing agriculture, doing so only when state policy has demanded it. In contrast it has been far more concerned with the maintenance of its political privilege in terms of access to the state. Thus one can argue that land counts for more as a political resource than an economic one in the sense that it is the political power that is derived from being a big landlord that the landed class values rather than the tangible economic benefits 146 In Okara larger landlords sarcastically said that every ruling regime says that zaraat reerh ki haddi ke baraabar hai (literally: agriculture is the backbone of the economy) but that this is never reflected in actual policy. 147 As pointed out above, land reforms and the institution of an agricultural income tax have been thwarted but this is not equivalent to saying that the long-term policy focus of the state has been pro- agriculture. 95 garnered from the land per se. 148 This helps explain why landlords tend toward factionalism and consistently attempt to undermine one another, whether in the electoral realm or in terms of influence within a particular locality more generally. The landed class, insofar as it is a class-in-itself, does not necessarily act like a class- for-itself in the sense of expressing its interests in coherent class terms. 149 This is best reflected in the fact that the evasions of land reforms that followed all three major land reforms were not a product of a coherent strategy on the part of the landed class, as a class-for-itself, but depended on the relationship that individual landlords or families enjoyed with the state. ISO Thus, intriguingly, it can be argued that it has been the state oligarchy's commitment to a patronage politics based on a deliberately reinforced cultural logic that has actually ensured the continuing survival of the landed class, both as an economic power, and more importantly as the state's major conduit with the subordinate classes. In many ways, the story of the landed class, particularly in post-Bhutto Pakistan, mirrors that of the landed class in colonial India towards the end of the 19 th century in that in both cases the state ensured the survival of this class in spite of otherwise adverse objective conditions. Following the green revolution of the 1960s, the landed class recognized the need to adjust itself to changed economic realities, and was facilitated in this effort by the state itself, regardless of the latter's polemic proclaiming the establishment of a new social order. l5l Ever since, the state has disposed of the rhetoric in favour of land reform altogether, and - particularly in the case of the military - state institutions themselves have become part of the landed class in their own right. Thus the landed class remains as crucial a component of the historical bloc as ever. It may not have formulated a coherent strategy as a class-for- 148 The point that land should be considered a political as opposed to an economic resource has been eloquently and forcefully argued by Neale (1969) who suggests that colonial administrators remained impervious to the meaning of land in India, which he encapsulates in the notion of 'land-to-rule', which can be opposed to the notion of 'land-to-own'. 149 There are few organizations that represent the interest of big landlords in Pakistan; the most prominent of is the Farmers Association of Pakistan, which is currently headed by Shah Mahmood Qureshi, an important pirllandlord from Multan who has variously been a member of the Pakistan Muslim League and the PPP. 150 Having said this, it is also true that landed notables clearly exercise enough clout as a class to have banished agendas such as land reform from the mainstream discourse. 151 This was broadly true during both Ayub's and Bhutto's tenure. 96 itself, and is clearly comfortable with the role of junior partner to the state oligarchy as the 'politics of compromise' continues to hold forth. 152 152 Nevertheless, as will be discussed in the concluding chapter, landed politicians are increasingly aware of the growing dissatisfaction within the subordinate classes with the obsolete military- dominated political system and some have even started to chime in a with a loud and growing chorus calling for substantive changes in the structures of power. 97 Chapter 5 The Indigenous Bourgeoisie: Building new roots Alavi's observations about the indigenous bourgeoisie focused primarily on its mutually beneficial relations with the metropolitan bourgeoisie (implying its 'comprador' as opposed to a 'national' character) as well as the manner of its accommodation with the military-bureaucratic oligarchy. Only in his later writings did Alavi actually start to consider the dynamic evolution of the indigenous bourgeoisie (cf Alavi, 1990). My concern in this chapter is with extending Alavi's treatment in historical terms to the period beyond the 1970s, and particularly to the emergence of a new industrial bourgeoisie in Punjab. The major addition is a discussion of the sociological roots of this new Punjabi bourgeoisie, which became a major supporter of the Ziaist military regime and has remained firmly committed to the politics of common sense from the end of the Bhutto period. Pakistan inherited both the granary of the subcontinent as well as the areas from which the majority of the military was recruited. As discussed in earlier chapters, the configuration of power in the new state's most influential province was constituted primarily of an authoritarian nexus of landed notables/upper peasantry and the civil- military state oligarchy. The low bureaucracy and landed notables came into contact with the popular classes, while the military's ability to acquire political power in a predominantly rural social formation was contingent on its ability to coopt both the bureaucracy and the landed class. As such, for the first half of the country's existence, the Pakistani industrialist class had even less contact with the popular classes as it had virtually no historical link to the complex socio-political fabric of the social formation, interacting with the popular classes only in the context of the urban workplace. It is telling that Pakistan's industrialist class is a unique creation of the post-colonial period. The Pakistan areas were not home to any of the subcontinent's fairly developed manufacturing industry, which was based in and around the thee major port cities of British India, namely Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. To the extent that there was an urban business community in the Pakistan areas, it was almost entirely Hindu in constitution and migrated en masse following the partition. Accordingly, both the western and eastern wings of the new state were conspicuous for their almost total lack of industrial infrastructure, including a distinct shortage of military equipment. 98 Thus, alongside the immediate imperative of building up its defence capacity in the face of the Indian 'threat', the new state strongly emphasized the need to build up the manufacturing sector based on indigenous raw materials such as cotton, jute, hides and skins. For this purpose the Statement of Industrial Policy was issued in 1948. Import substitution was the almost unquestioned modus operandi, reflected in the fact that 99% of the substantial economic growth that took place in the 1950s could be attributed to import substitution (Kemal, 1999: 152-9). The high bureaucracy, in keeping with its urbanist, modernist outlook, clearly privileged the cause of industry, considering it the key to the economic survival of the new state. 153 Importantly, a substantive class of industrialists that could spearhead the process had to be literally created from scratch. There was some support issued to the Muslim League in the period leading up to partition by wealthy Muslim business groups, particularly prominent Memon families such as the Haroons of Sindh, and the Adamjees. A handful of influential Muslims business families did migrate to Pakistan after independence and continued to playa significant role in the teething phase of the new state. For example the Habib Bank was said to have loaned the new government Rs. 80 million, which equaled more than half the projected revenue in the first budget (Rehman, 1998: 9). As such Pakistani business came to be associated with the primarily Gujrati trading families that crossed the border in and around the partition period, settling in Karachi on account of their links - albeit tenuous - with the Urdu- speaking leadership in the new central government (Alavi, 1983a: 46). It was thus a highly personalized relationship between the civil bureaucracy and an insular and family-based business community that accounts for the nature of Pakistan's industrialization process, at least until the nationalizations undertaken by Bhutto. The industrial bourgeoisie in Pakistan did not emerge as a distinct political actor in that it did not seek to attain office or any representation in the formal institutions of the state, relying almost entirely on the largesse of the bureaucracy to enhance its interests. Unlike the landed class which negotiated with the oligarchy both 153 As suggested in earlier chapters, the oligarchy's perspective on the agrarian economy was guided less by economic considerations and more by the imperative of maintaining social order; thus economic emphasis was placed on industry while political accommodation was most crucial in the rural areas. 99 through direct personal contact and also through the medium of the political party, the indigenous bourgeoisie preferred a much more explicit patron-client relationship with the oligarchy. However, in the aftermath of the political convulsions of the Bhutto period, as well as the emergence of an intermediate class of traders, merchants and various assorted middlemen with organic links to the industrial bourgeoisie, the latter has entered the formal political fray and has helped to consolidate the logic of localized, patronage politics reintroduced into the polity by the Zia regime. Moreover, in referring to the indigenous bourgeoisie it is no longer accurate to speak only of the Karachi-based Gujrati families. In fact the Karachi-based families have been replaced as the dominant force within Pakistani industry by a predominantly Punjabi industrialist class that is far more deeply integrated with the local social formation. In any case, the industrialist class has not challenged the oligarchy for direct control over state power primarily because it acts in a fragmented fashion with families and groups coveting their personal links to the state. Furthermore the industrialist class has always perceived itself to be weak in comparison to the other major propertied class, the landed notables. Thus it remains committed to oligarchic rule. 154 From one robber baron to the next The initial expansion of business interests in Pakistan was a function of the windfall profits accruing to the Gujrati trading families due to a number of related factors. In the first instance, the new government pegged the Pakistani rupee to the American dollar, which resulted in a sharp appreciation of the rupee vis a vis the pound sterling and an attendant decrease in the price of imports. There was also the tremendous boom caused by the Korean war which in the first instance created a major market for exports, and accordingly an increase in imports (cf Zaidi, 2005a: 92-3). Finally, there was the setting up of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation in 1950 which facilitated the entry of private capital into industries that were otherwise neglected 154 This commitment to oligarchic rule has become even more pronounced since the onset of neo- liberal policies in the late 1980s which, while emphasizing the rollback of the state from the economic sphere, have also expanded the state's coercive functions in accordance with the need to facilitate the interests of private capital (cfPanitch, 1994). In any case, the personalized nature of business in Pakistan has ensured that the state remains an important actor in the neo-liberal project because processes such as the privatization of state enterprises are heavily coloured by personal contacts. 100 (Papanek, 1968; 92).155 All of these developments set the stage for the transformation of the mercantile bourgeoisie into an industrial one. It is important to bear in mind that while the state played a major role in propelling the industrial sector, often at the cost of agriculture, the share of the public sector in industry remained limited, reaching only 11.4% of total in 1969-70 (Kemal, 1999: 159). This corresponds with the widespread evidence that private capital had hoarded the vast majority of productive and financial assets by the late 1960s, as encapsulated in the rhetoric of the 22 families. G M Adarnjee reflected this in saying that for the business community, the first two decades of Pakistan 'was like the Gold Rush of the United States' .156 Meanwhile major under-the-table benefits accrued to the higher bureaucracy for its patronage of certain business families. The most infamous example of a state functionary using his position to expand personal business interests was Ayub Khan himself, who was accused of providing his son Gohar Ayub and the latter's father-in-law unlimited state patronage in facilitating the setting up of Gandhara Industries. 157 It would appear logical that the incipient bourgeoisie would defer to the high bureaucracy in the early years following the state's inception. After all, only the state's patronage can explain the emergence of the migrant business community as an economically dominant class within a decade and a half of its creation, a remarkably short period of time. 158 The Ayubian regime extended the logic of the first decade further by eulogizing the 'social utility of greed' and the role of 'robber barons' in the country's economic development (Papanek, 1968). This explains the quite incredible concentration of financial and non-financial assets in the hands of the refugee migrant 155 After providing the initial start-up capital and ensuring the smooth operation of a particularly enterprise for a short period, the PIDC would transfer ownership to private hands at highly subsidized rates. Aside form the PIDC, the Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC) and Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP) played a crucial role in financing industrial initiatives. 156 See the interview in DAWN, 23 September 1995, quoted in Rehman (1998: 11). 157 Many members of the bureaucracy and the military 'soon turned out to be owners of some of the largest business enterprises in the country' on account of their overarching control over the economic levers of the country (Alavi, I983a: 49). 158 Shafqat (1997: 126) compares this accelerated creation and consolidation of an industrialist class which engaged in conspicuous consumption with its counterpart in India where similar class formation took at least 30 years. 101 communities that has been exhaustively documented (cf White, 1974; Amjad, 1974).159 Be that as it may, it can be argued that after the burgeoning industrialist class had acquired a great deal of economic power, it should have asserted its independence vis a vis the state oligarchy. On the one hand the migrant bourgeoisie was constrained by its own internal contradictions insofar as it was itself entirely dependent on state largesse to succeed. Moreover the business community in India has historically been considered socially inferior to the professional classes and the landed gentry, and it would appear that to some extent this perception was internalized by both the Gujrati and Chinioti business communities in post-partition Pakistan (cfPapanek, 1967: 40- 6).160 As inward-looking communities that clearly believed themselves to be vulnerable to the whims of the bureaucracy and politicians hailing primarily from the landed class, the emphasis was on the solidarity and insularity of the group rather than a developed sense of wider class interests. In other words, one finds the same dynamic within the indigenous bourgeoisie as was discussed in the case of the landed class, namely that it did not act as a class-for-itself, and instead favoured the development of personal ties with the bureaucracy with a view towards maximizing one's own business opportunities vis a vis a competitor. The most striking evidence of this is the proliferation of business associations that were constituted almost without fail by insular communities, and most often groups of families related by blood or marriage. The associations' primary purpose was to systematically represent their parochial interests vis a vis the state, and as such, it can be posited that the dramatic emergence of these associations was a 'testimony to the highly individualistic, personalised and fragmented character of the Pakistani business community' (Kochanek, 1983: 119). These associations tended to adopt more and more regionalist identities through the 1960s as Punjabis started to encroach into an 159 While there are differences in the estimates of these two major studies, there would appear to be consensus on the fact that well over half of industrial assets and more than 80% of banks and insurance companies were controlled by a maximum of 44 families. It is important to note however that in both of these seminal studies, only companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) have been accounted for, whereas a large majority of businesses were, and are still not, publicly listed (Rehman, 1998). 160 Even today many Gujarati business families in Karachi are extremely insular, living in virtually exclusive neighbourhoods, only marrying within their community and remaining distinct in almost all spheres of social life, including dress and religious observance. 102 industrial sector previously dominated by the Karachi-based refugee families. As the number of competitors within business circles increased, and smaller and medium sized entrepreneurs entered the market, the more established families withdrew from leadership positions, ostensibly because they considered themselves above the petty politics of elections (Kochanek, 1983: 153-61). The disinclination of the clannish refugee business families to assert themselves politically - a function both of their traditional aloofness from the political sphere and the intimidating posture of the oligarchy - was one of the main causes of their gradual eclipse by a new indigenous industrial element in Punjab that rose to prominence in large part due to the major modernization that took place in that province through the 1960s. On the one hand the shifting of the federal capital from Karachi to Islamabad in 1960 had a direct bearing on the access of the incumbent business families to state patronage. The Ayub regime was also keen to expand its network of patronage into the Punjab, and the new 'middle class' to which modernization policies were catered (cf Zaidi, 2005a: 501). There were of course Chinioti business families already part of the industrialist class that gained in prominence through the Ayubian decade. However it was the tumult of Bhutto' s nationalization that provided the primary impetus for a change in the constitution and politics of the indigenous bourgeoisie. The perils of aloofness Prior to the nationalization of industries carried out by the Bhutto regime, the industrialist class had already suffered a major setback due to the secession of the eastern wing. The highly skewed nature of united Pakistan's economy had mandated that many of the big business families housed their industrial infrastructure in the eastern wing of the country, primarily because they were involved in the export of jute, the country's major cash crop that was grown almost exclusively in east Pakistan. When Bangladesh was created, the Adamjees for example lost the 'biggest jute mill in Asia' (Rehman, 1998: 12). It can be argued that in many cases, the loss of the eastern wing constituted a bigger economic shock to the bourgeoisie than Bhutto's nationalizations. The primary impact of the nationalization policy was not economic but political inasmuch as it exposed the complete vulnerability of the business 103 community to the caprice of a populist government. 161 This factor in addition to structural changes in the economy, explain the nature and politics of the industrial bourgeoisie after the Bhutto interregnum. The first nationalization in 1972 targeted a number of heavy industries in which the 22 families were dominant. While the initial nationalizations had been expected, it was the series of nationalizations starting with the vegetable ghee industry in 1973, then the banks and culminating in the agro-processing industries in 1976 that constituted the most significant political blows to the industrialist class. Most of the assets of big business were concentrated in the sugar and textile industries that remained largely unscathed. The industries nationalized comprised 18% of total large- scale manufacturing and their contribution to exports was 8.3% (Shafqat, 1997: 133). Those who were stripped of their assets were compensated quite generously. Politically however, the nationalizations completely demoralized big business and there was a 'dimunition in official respect for leading industrial families' (Noman, ] 988: 77-8). As it turned out, the post-1974 nationalisations - and particularly the nationalization of agro-industries - were highly arbitrary and not a function of the PPP government's commitment to anti-capitalist ideology. In fact, by 1974, Bhutto had fired many of the socialist ideologues in the party and had started to woo the bourgeoisie. Working class movements were ruthlessly targeted and special incentives provided to big business in the budgets of 1975 and 1976 (Ahmad, 2000: 227-8). By this time it had become clear that the PPP government did not have a consistent policy vis a vis the industrialist class. This was evidenced by the fact that some business families remained close to and were patronized quite actively by the regime (LaPorte, 1975: 111-2; Noman, 1988: 77). As with the other seemingly radical redistributive policies of the period, the emphasis seemed to be on asserting the power of the government rather than necessarily carrying through the promise of radical change to its culmination. 162 161 To a large extent the nationalizations undertaken by the PPP regime prior to 1974 were informed by a genuine ideological conviction. It was the fact that the state oligarchy was almost completely overwhelmed which allowed Bhutto to systematically attack the industrial bourgeoisie. 162 Interviews with rank-and-file PPP activists (Asghar Gujjar, 8 September 2007; Zahid Anjum, 19 August, 2007) as well as federal ministers such as Mubashir Hasan (4 April 2007) revealed that there was considerable disenchantment within the party at the manner in which both policies and internal composition of the PPP were changing while in power. However, the tragedy of those who believed in 104 Nonetheless, the confidence of the industrial bourgeoisie was permanently shaken and the organic link between financial and industrial capital shattered. As a result, a significant number of the big business families moved their capital abroad, with another attendant effect being the fragmentation of many of the major business empires. During fieldwork interviews it also became clear that many families involved in industries such as steel rolling completely withdrew from industrial production and moved to trade which was perceived to be less vulnerable to the government's whims. 163 This seems consistent with my observations regarding the emergence of small-scale traders and mandi merchants in Okara and Charsadda at the same time. In other words, private trade as a whole was more lucrative and less tenuous than private industry.164 Among other things, given that the primary targets of nationalization were the migrant business families, the door was opened for the Chinoitis of Punjab to ascend to the dominant position within the big bourgeoisie (Rehman, 1998: 79). Having been completely exposed to the whims of government, younger generations of the incumbent Karachi-based families admitted that' [we] deserved what we got' due to aloofness from the political process. They accordingly recognized the need to integrate themselves into the social mainstream to a much greater extent so as to establish a more robust political presence (Kochanek, 1983: 187). In other words it became clear that if and when they attempted to revive their economic fortunes, they would have to reduce their dependence on the state and be able to pursue their business interests not solely on the basis of patronage by the sitting regime. It is important at this juncture to point out some structural features of the Pakistani economy as it has evolved over the past three decades. First, the growth of the so- called informal economy has far exceeded that of the formal economy in terms of the socialist foundations of the party was that by the mid-1970s they perceived themsel ves to have no other option but to remain within the party as all other mainstream political forces had started to ally against the government alongwith industrialists and other dominant groups that felt victimized by the fc0puIist wave. 63 Interview with Rarnzan Ibrahim, 16 May 2007, 22 June 2007. 164 Small-scale industry was not targeted by the government which is why it also boomed in the 1970s and afterwards. 105 employment generation, value-added and growth in capital stock. 165 This implies that the relative importance of the 'big' bourgeoisie has declined in importance, or at the very least that it is crucial not to conceive of industry in the post-Bhutto period as being the exclusive preserve of large-scale enterprise. Moreover there is a need to recognize that the structural evolution of the industrial bourgeoisie is innately linked to the rise of the urban intermediate class. A related point is that the primary structural change in Pakistan's economy over the past three decades has been the dramatic emergence of the service sector, which now accounts for 50% of total output (GoP, 2007). Thus there has surfaced a service sector bourgeoisie also based primarily in the informal sector. The Bhutto period marked the emergence of the small and medium sized entrepreneur as a genuine social force, a substantive discussion of which will be undertaken in Chapter 8. For the purposes of this chapter however, it is important to recognize that the emerging intermediate trading and capitalist classes in the rapidly urbanizing areas of the country - mostly in the Punjab - were developing organic links with the state and graduated into the ranks of the big bourgeoisie based in Punjab. Indeed, the success of Punjabi industry during and after the Bhutto period can be explained by the 'small firms' proximity to large enterprises' (Zaidi, 2005a: 138). As opposed to the Karachi-based families, Punjabi industry is far more sociologically integrated with the local social formation, imbibing and influencing its culture, and therefore able both to understand and progress in local politics (Weiss, 1991: 11). The new bourgeois and the political sphere It may be inferred from the preceding discussion that the indigenous bourgeoisie in the first two and a half decades of Pakistan's existence was totally aloof from the formal political sphere. In actual fact, a handful of Karachi-based families did play significant political roles in the new state including Yusuf Haroon, the first chief minister of Sindh, Ahmad Dawood and A. K. Sumar. 166 It has been in the aftermath of the Bhutto period however, that 'a bumper crop of businessmen ... entered politics 165 Nadvi (1990), quoted in Zaidi (2005a). Importantly these figures reflect the situation only until the mid 1980s and fresh figures are said not to be available. However, Zaidi suggests that the trends can be expected to have intensified. 16<l And to a certain extent have continued to do so. Mahmood Haroon was a member of Zia's cabinet and Razzak Dawood was commerce minister in Musharraf's first cabinet. 106 [and] made fortunes in business ... without qualms of conscience' (Rehman, 1998: 118). While some prominent Karachi-based families did adapt their methods in the aftermath of the Bhutto period, both in terms of investing outside of Pakistan and also by attempting to establish a certain degree of political clout, they have not been able to match their Punjabi counterparts. In other words the Karachi-based families, while still an economic force, have clearly been relegated to a secondary position within the industrial hierarchy of the country. 167 After 1982, for the first time, the annual incorporation of companies in Punjab exceeded that of Karachi (Rehman, 1998: 69). The Punjabi industrialist has also emphatically emerged as a new contender for power, and thus changed the face and politics of the indigenous bourgeoisie. 168 Intuitively it would seem logical for the Zia regime to undo the nationalization policy as it was concerned not only with establishing a stable economy, but more importantly with acquiring the support of the industrialist class for its rule. Similar to the high bureaucracy, the incumbent industrial bourgeoisie was glad to be rid of the Bhutto regime and thereby offered cautious support to the Zia government. 169 The new military regime, however, did not undertake a major denationalization, preferring to keep most industries, and particularly the banks, within the fold of the state, aware of the major avenues to distribute patronage that these enterprises offered (Zaidi, 2005a: 116-7). Both because of the government's wavering policy on denationalization and because of political uncertainty private investment did not increase substantially. In fact, private investment in large and medium-scale industry was higher in 1972 than in 1981 (Noman, 1988: 172-5). However, it is important to contextualize these formal figures. The lack of an appreciable increase in private industrial investment may reflect the reluctance of the pre-1971 industrial bourgeoisie to return in a big way to an economy and polity that had, in its own eyes, treated it poorly. More importantly however, as pointed out above, these figures do not account for expansion in the 167 This is at least partially explained by the refusal of many old Karachi-based families to make substantive investments in the post-Bhutto period; the trend has been to 'milk the existing units' (Rehman, 1998: 68). 168 See Kochanek's (1996) discussion of the polities of the federal and Karachi chambers of commerce in the 1980s and 1990s, and the gradual ascendance of Punjabis within these formal associations. 169 The urban intermediate class was, of course, the main force in the PNA movement that provided a pretext for the military take over in July 1977. 107 informal economy, which is where most new productive activity has taken place over the past 30 years. As will be discussed at length in Chapter 8, the intermediate classes had emerged as important economic players by the 1970s and their economic power grew steadily through the Zia period as remittance incomes from the Middle East flowed in and added vitality to an already dynamic informal capitalist economy. Given the crucial role that the trading and merchant classes had played in the agitations against the PPP regime, it was natural that the military regime would attempt to patronize them. This inclination was accentuated by the fact that the intermediate classes accumulated primarily by developing links to the low bureaucracy and thus a symbiotic link between the state and this new emergent contender for power already existed. Thus, at least partially on account of the disappointing response of big business to the considerable incentives offered by the government 170, but more as a function of the greater need to undermine the politics of class and radical ethno-nationalism that still threatened the historical bloc, the government very willfully extended political access to small and medium scale entrepreneurs through local body elections. Given the importance of access to the state to further accumulation, the intermediate classes were keen to move from the local level upward into the ranks of an emergent industrial class, capture Chambers of Commerce at the provincial and national level and then subsequently make inroads into mainstream political parties through which they contested provincial and national level elections (Cheema, 2003). This was all made possible by the suspension of the formal political process at the national and provincial levels by the Zia regime for eight years. It was in this intervening period that the new industrialist politician gained a foothold in the political mainstream and emerged as an autonomous force in the 1985 elections with the assistance of the regime. l71 Importantly the transformation of segments of the small and medium scale entrepreneur into a genuine industrial class was an outcome of the state's perceived 170 These included tax holidays, duty-free capital imports and low-interest credit (Noman, 1988: 175). 17l It helped matters that the PPP boycotted the 1985 elections and that the elections were contested on a non-party basis. ]08 need for self-preservation and not a function of a clear and coherent economic policy. In other words the state's political engineering allowed a class of small and medium entrepreneurs to acquire political power far in excess of that which it would otherwise have had, which then precipitated the transformation of this class into the new bourgeoisie. The Zia regime was hardly responsible for its economic fortunes in the sense that the Gulf migrations had started under the PPP regime while economic modernization in agriculture had started even earlier. Thus it did not necessarily conceive of its political accommodations with the intermediate classes as a means of providing impetus to industry. In fact, in the Zia period 'the only change in the government attitude [was] the acknowledgement of the existence of the small-scale sector, though with no tangible policy thrust' (Sayeed, 1995: 143). As Addleton (1992) argues, during the 1980s the economy had become increasingly decentralized and it was the capitalist dynamic that, articulated with the political access offered by the military regime, precipitated the emergence of the new bourgeoisie. Weiss (1991) documents the nature of this new industrialist class in three separate industries, namely steel rolling, pharmaceuticals and sporting goods which represent three distinct kinds of industries - import substitution, basic manufacturing and export oriented manufacturing respectively. She asserts that there is a dynamism associated with the Punjabi industrialist as well as a cultural grounding in the social formation which has permitted these industries to grow, often in spite of quite formidable structural constraints. Perhaps most importantly she makes it clear that the role of the state in facilitating the industrialization process remains central. The implication is that with the acquisition of political power, this class has augmented its economic power as well, which once again illustrates the 'intrinsic connection between politics and economics' and the fact that 'each reinforce[s] the other' (Zaidi, 2005a: 503). An example of the new bourgeoisie is the Sharif family which rose to prominence during the 1980s due to its patronage by the Zia regime. Subsequently it took over the central leadership role in the Pakistan Muslim League and ran the central government twice through the course of the 1990s. The Sharifs are an industrialist family that suffered nationalization of their Ittefaq Steel Industries in 1972. As it turned out, the Sharifs were able to transfer a significant amount of capital out of the country, 109 primarily to the Gulf states, and thereby avoid economic ruin. However, the political scar of the nationalizations seemed to spur the Sharifs into active politics. I72 Ittefaq Foundries was one of the handful of industries that was denationalized in the period immediately following the Zia putsch. The Sharifs were not a major industrialist force prior to nationalization, but on the basis of their anti-Bhutto credentials emerged as a major political player in the aftermath of the Zia coup, and soon grew into one of the biggest industrial conglomerates in the country.173 N awaz Sharif was handpicked as the Punjab Finance Minister in 1981, and elevated to the position of Chief Minister in 1985. The Sharifs proceeded to build a robust network of political clients, primarily amongst the urban intermediate class that was also acquiring power at the local level. Thus in a different yet similar way to the Karachi- based families in the pre-Bhutto period, the new Punjabi industrialist class ascended to the pinnacle of political power at the behest of the state. 174 The rise of the challenger? The sacking of Nawaz Sharif in the 1999 coup could be interpreted to mean that the new industrial class reached a fundamental point of conflict with the state oligarchy, and the military in particular. In actual fact, the Musharraf regime has been the most pro-business - both in terms of formal policy frameworks and the doling out of patronage - in recent memory. It was asserted earlier in the chapter that the Karachi- based industrial class was never able to articulate its politics as a class-for-itself, tending towards factionalism and the winning of favour with the oligarchy. The short summary above detailing the rise of the new industrial bourgeoisie in the Punjab indicates a similar dynamic. However, there are some substantive and important differences. 172 It is a matter of conjecture what the impetus for this interest in politics was - possibly a desire to avenge its losses or a more detached interest in augmenting its existing stock of wealth? 173 Estimates of the total worth of the assets of the Sharif family vary from Rs. 10 billion to Rs. 21 billion (Rehman, 1988: 136). 174 More generally figures detailing the professional/class background of members of the national assembly (MNA) from 1985 onwards clearly indicate the dramatic emergence of the businessman as politician. In 1985,54 MNAs hailed from a business background, and this figure actually decreased in subsequent elections (Shafqat, 2003: 225). 110 First as mentioned earlier, this new bourgeoisie has a far more organic link with the local social formation, and in fact, as a political force, is itself a product of the localized patronage politics that the Zia regime championed. So, for example, urban- based politicians in Okara affiliated with Mian Zaman - twice elected as MNA from the PML - have based their politics almost completely on the creation of a network of clients in the city cobbled together over the various terms that Mian Zaman has been in power and able to dole out patronage. While this means that the business network is dependent on access to the state to secure political support, its politics is completely different than that of the pre-Bhutto bourgeoisie which had no such link to the popular classes. The second and already mentioned point is that the Punjabi industrialist class has an organic link to the intermediate class of traders, merchants and middlemen. In fact, in most cases, those who have graduated into the ranks of big industrialist families have almost all emerged from the urban intermediate class operating in the so-called informal sector. This explains the support that N awaz Sharif has garnered from the trading and small business community, as he is widely seen to be a moderately successful businessman that struck gold and therefore understands the psyche and needs of urban business interests (Wilder, 1998: 143-4). Third, the industrialist class has managed to establish a presence within the decision- making structure of the state by way of individuals and families that have emerged through the mainstream electoral sphere. In particular, it was noted during fieldwork that in Okara, the PML has clearly distinguished itself as the party of the urban entrepreneur, and this seems to be true throughout Punjab. Given that the new bourgeoisie ostensibly can now represent itself through the political party, it is not totally reliant on the civil bureaucracy - or the military as the case may be - to gain access to the state. Having said this, it is important to point out that the politics of the urban intermediate classes is not entirely congruous with those who graduate into the class of big industrialists, in spite of the organic link between them, a point that will be revisited in Chapter 8. At a certain level of accumulation the interests of the big industrialist tend to diverge with that of the small entrepreneur, and only in the cases where an 111 industrialist needs to garner support to acquire state power do their interests coincide. More specifically, it appears that if and when elements of the industrialist class actually acquire the reins of government, they mayor may not directly protect the interests of the intermediate classes. According to many intermediate class actors in Okara, the PML-N government from 1997 to 1999 reneged on many of the promises it made to its most vocal constituency which is why the intermediate classes engaged in agitation against it. This also explains the fluid nature of political engagements - some arhtis that had cultivated long associations with the PML-N sheepishly explained that they had changed their loyalties because the PML-N in power was a different PML-N from that out of power. Thus the industrialist class and the landed class tend to compete to win the favour of intermediate class factions that are politically influential at the local level but not beyond. The latter seek out patronage of provincial and national level political actors associated with mainstream parties that have a chance of acquiring state power. This illustrates the popular perception that the state remains the repository of power and that any class, party, or faction is only powerful insofar as it has access to the state and can distribute patronage on the basis of this access. This indicates that, for all of the considerable differences in the nature of the bourgeoisie prior to and after Bhutto, the basic impulse behind its engagement in the political realm remains the same. It also raises the important point about the practical meaning of politics. There is very little pretense in politics of this nature about ideas, principles or loyalties. It is clearly a cynical game in which access to state power is the determining factor in alignments. Big industrialists are a part of this game not because of any lasting political commitments but because they believe that political access is a pre-requisite for the expansion of their economic interests. 175 There is definitely an element of power for power's sake but this seems to be a sentiment that follows entry into the game rather than an explanation for entering the game in the first place. 175 Obviously there are arguably exceptions to this general pattern. For example, Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan in late 2007 and his vocal stance against dictatorship may be construed as principled politics, although this can only be proved conclusively in retrospect. 112 Reinforcing oligarchic rule The logic employed by the industrialist class while in power at the centre is no different than when it acquired power at lower levels of the state. For example the privatization process was initiated with fervour by the Nawaz Sharif government largely because it seemingly represented the interests of many business groups 176. As this thesis has argued from the outset, access to the state implies the ability to distribute patronage, particularly to important constituencies. Thus privatization seemed to be a reward to the Sharifs' closest business affiliates; numerous state- owned enterprises were sold to a handful of Punjabi business families at questionable prices through a highly questionable process (Rehman, 1998; Zaidi, 2005a). As suggested throughout this chapter, business families act as families rather than horizontally aggregating their interests as a class. Arguably it is precisely this dynamic - or at the very least the perception that this dynamic is predominant in Pakistan's political economy - that explains the continuation of personalised privatisation even after the coming to power of regimes not necessarily associated with the business community in the way that the Sharif family is. So for example Benazir Bhutto's regime also patronized a handful of industrialist families while shunning those in favour under Nawaz Sharif, some even forced out of the major capital accumulation stakes altogether (Rehman, 1998: 51-55). The military regime that acquired power in October 1999 - notably by deposing the 'pro-business' PML-N - has also clearly privileged its own handpicked set of industrialist families. 177 Ostensibly, the various business conglomerates - built up through 'traditional' practices such as inter-marriage as much as impersonal economic mergers and alliances - are content to curry favour with factions that enjoy immediate access to the state, even though the industrialist class as a whole has much more political clout than it did in the pre-Bhutto period and could, in principle, adopt a much more long-term strategy. This may partially be explained by the fact that the mainstream political parties - excepting the religious parties - are still dominated by the landed class, and 176 There was also pressure from the citadels of international capitalism, namely the international financial institutions (IFls). 177 One of the most high-profile incidents was the selling of Pakistan Steel Mills to the Arib Habib group that was widely rumoured to be close to the Prime Minister. The sale was later rescinded by the Supreme Court because of numerous irregularities. 113 thus there is a feeling that if these parties were to represent any class interest unambiguously, it would be that of the rural notables. While this is not to deny the changes that have taken place in the rural social formation - as was illustrated in the preceding chapter - the factional nature of politics typically associated with the rural social formation is still dominant. 178 In any case, the fragmented nature of both major propertied classes helps explain the non- negligible differences in the policy frameworks of governments throughout the 1990s, as each party coming into government was guided primarily by the cynical logic of gaining access to the state and distributing patronage rather than catering to the specific class interests of the party leaderships.179 This points to the fact that the model of patronage politics hoisted on the social formation by the Zia regime has not only persisted but has become the modus operandi. As asserted in earlier chapters, the initial push factor was a consensus within the historical bloc about the dangers of allowing the unfettered development of the more expansive ideological politics of the preceding period. However, the parallel outcome of the suppression of political ideas and expression has been the consolidation of an oligarchic system in which the military is the ultimate arbiter of power, the leadership of political parties is simply an agglomeration of propertied classes that acquiesces to the vertical pattern of patronage, and the electoral process 180 - to the extent that it is allowed to exist - becomes simply a reflection of this cynical system. As will be asserted in Section 2, this is a successful hegemonic project based on the consensus within the historical bloc that crucially requires the consent of the subordinate classes. 178 It was pointed out earlier that while this appears to be a pattern of 'rural' politics, urban politics has also been subject to similar dynamics since the British period, in large part because of the state's attempts to make this mode of politics dominant. 179 This must be qualified with a restatement of Alavi's original contention about the nature of the accommodation between the relatively autonomous state oligarchy and the propertied classes. While any individual propertied class may not be acting as a class-for-itself at any particular point in time, the very fact that it is willing to acquiesce to a role of junior partner to the oligarchy reflects that ultimately it remains committed to the existing power-sharing arrangement that privileges the interests of all the members of the historical bloc in comparison to the subordinate classes. This thesis has argued that all members of the historical bloc were united over the need to suppress the challenge to the existing socio-political order that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. 180 Zaidi (2005b) makes the crucial point that the existence of electoral contests does not imply democratic politics. 114 Importantly, in spite of the fact that there has been considerable transformation in the social formation since the 1960s on account of the deepening of capitalism, this has not led to a change in the dynamic between the administrative and political institutions of the state. It is often postulated by liberal theorists that liberal democracy is coeval with the rise of capitalism and the urban middle classes. ISl However in many post-colonial states the correlation between these two apparently related phenomena is weak, whereas in Pakistan it may even be argued that the converse is true. As this chapter has suggested, the emergence of a new industrialist class during and after the Bhutto period has not led to a deepening of democratic norms and practices, instead reinforcing a patronage politics that may be based on what has been called the 'democratisation of the state', but what has in practice led to the consolidation of oligarchic rule. 181 See Johnson (1985) for a vociferous rebuttal of this point of view and an assertion that in fact dictatorship is the most suitable political system for capitalism. See also Kaviraj (2005b) for a sophisticated discussion of the unsuitability of theories of modernity based on western experience in non-western contexts. 115 Chapter 6 The Metropolitan Bourgeoisie: External Crutch In Alavi's formulation, the metropolitan bourgeoisie was undoubtedly the most powerful of all three propertied classes. Alavi emphasized two points, namely that the metropolitan bourgeoisie should not be considered external to the Pakistani social formation and that it should not be assumed that it is able to dictate terms to the Pakistani state and accordingly dominate the social formation (cf Alavi, 1983a). While the intuitive point made by Alavi is an important one, there is substantial ambiguity in his formulation which needs to be demystified if one is to truly understand the nature and extent of influence of metropolitan forces on the Pakistani state. Namely, Alavi tends to analytically conflate the role of metropolitan capital, with the political impulse of metropolitan states, implying that the operational dynamics of these two qualitatively different manifestations of metropolitan power in the Pakistani social formation are indistinguishable. 182 As asserted in the introductory chapter, any viable attempt to understand the dynamics of the post-colonial state demands recognition of the dialectical relationship between the accumulation of capital and the accumulation of power. In considering the dynamics of metropolitan states within the context of an international capitalist division of labour, the same dialectic applies (cf Arrighi, 2005: 30). For the purposes of this thesis, this theoretical assertion is crucial because it permits an understanding of the power-capital dialectic that defined the colonial state and, following from this, analysis of the continuities and discontinuities in the operation of metropolitan power in the post-colonial period. The framework of reference to be employed here is that proffered by Harvey (2003) which emphasizes two competing logics of power in the operation of modern day imperialism, or as he calls it, 'imperialism of the capitalist sort'. On the one hand there is a 'territorial logic' of power which is expanded by taking control of territories and the resources within them. On the other hand there is the 'capitalistic logic' of power which is expanded as control over economic capital increases. Importantly, 182 In his empirical analysis however, Alavi's focus is on the manner in which the geo-strategic interests of imperialist states, and particularly the US, have been a major cause of the rnilitarisation of the Pakistani state (cf Alavi, 1991 b). 116 these two forms of power cannot simply be equated to each other, although they are often closely related. As concerns the exercise of metropolitan power in the Pakistani social formation and/or on the state, this is an essential distinction for two related reasons. First, as this thesis has argued from the outset, the conception of structure propounded by Alavi is static and therefore unable to account for the evolving nature of the metropole's role I83 in the state and social formation. Accordingly, the Alavian nexus of power- within which the metropolitan bourgeoisie is said to be the most powerful propertied class - is not a necessary outcome of a particular set of structural forces in the manner that Alavi has postulated and its persistence must be explained dynamically. Second, in attempting to outline a dynamic conception of structural forces, the political machinations of the state - both post-colonial and metropolitan - must be accorded explanatory power in their own right. It is the argument of this chapter that the role of the 'metropolitan bourgeoisie' has been guided not by the potentialities for capitalist development within the Pakistani social formation, but by the 'territorial' imperative of increasing western, and more specifically, American imperialism's sphere of influence. 184 While the engagement of the metropolitan bourgeoisie with Pakistan has been somewhat erratic, the net effect of metropolitan states' strategically motivated exchanges with the Pakistani state has been to reinforce the Alavian nexus of power, and most importantly, the military. In particular, the unequivocal support offered to the Zia regime during the 1980s was a crucial factor in not only suppressing the politics of resistance but institutionalizing the politics of common sense. The long-term impacts of regional geo-politics have included the strengthening of religious - including sectarian - political forces and the dramatic expansion of an underground/informal economy, both of which have undermined the politics of resistance and given impetus to the politics of common sense. 185 183 Or either of the two other propertied classes. Indeed, as will be argued in Section 2, the balance of structural forces can only be understood if 'non-dominant' classes and groups are also considered. 184 Until 1991 the major 'competitor' to the western world was communism; Pakistan was one of a number of countries in the region that were perceived as constituting a major anti-communist alliance in west Asia and that signed the so-called Baghdad Pact (CENTO). Other members included Turkey, Iran and Iraq. 185 Both of these distinct yet related phenomena will be discussed at length in Section 2. 117 Competing logics inherited from colonialism In describing the unique history of British colonialism in India while situating it within the context of a burgeoning international capitalist system, Harvey (2003: 139- 40) argues that there was a dialectical contradiction between the 'capitalistic' and 'territorial' logics insofar as the objective of British colonialism was not, in fact, to encourage the unfettered proliferation of the capitalistic logic in India, but rather represented a desire to achieve the inherently political objective of establishing and maintaining a territorial empire that spanned the globe. India occupied a position of great significance in this grand design as it not only possessed valuable human and material resources but more importantly was strategically located such that control over India greatly enhanced the British capacity to conquer swathes of territory across the vast Asian landmass. Insofar as there was potential for capitalism to organically develop within India, the British were keen to suppress this impulse in favour of the territorial logic of imperialist power. 186 As mentioned in Chapter 2, this was reflected in the role that the British Indian army played in conquering and then protecting British colonial possessions across the world. The notorious Great Game pitched British interests in Central and West Asia primarily against Russian influence from the North, and it was thus that the northwest frontier region of British India came to acquire crucial significance for the larger imperial project. In the changed geo-political stakes emerging after the end of British rule, there were many British colonial officers who argued for the continuing centrality of Pakistan as a potential buffer state that could represent the interests of western capitalism or at least stem the spread of the new threat from the north, Bolshevism (cf Caroe, 1951 quoted in Hashmi, 1983).187 Excepting the ambiguous - some would even call it non-aligned - foreign policy of the Pakistani state in the first five years after independence, Pakistan indubitably played the role of 'client garrison 186 Harvey proves this assertion by noting that the actual amount of capital invested in India by the British was miniscule in comparison to what was invested in other regions, including the United States and other capitalist contenders. 187 For the American perspective on the 'new great game', see Kux (2001; p. 62). See also lalal (1990) for an exhaustive discussion of the negotiations and intrigue that characterized the new state's relationship with both the British and the Americans. 118 state' to the US and its western allies in the struggle against communism (Alavi, 1991 b ).188 LaPorte (1975: 143-7) breaks up the operation of US power in Pakistan in the first two decades after the state's inception into three separate components, namely 'U.S. government operations (the activities of U.S. state department officials, USAID economic and technical advisers, U.S. military advisers and supply officers, and other U.S. officials); private foundation operations (economic and technical advisers provided by such organizations as the Ford Foundation); and U.S. business and private sector operations (U.S. businessmen with direct investment in banking, industrial, insurance, and other operations)'. He shows that private sector operations are the least significant in terms of investment by American firms, and if anything, the influence of private American capital was limited to the parroting of the American firms by their Pakistani counterparts. White (1974: 53-8) confirms this analysis in his exhaustive analysis of companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange by showing that foreign firms control only 9.2% of total assets in the Pakistani economy. 189 Thus, aside from the existing stock of British capital that remained in Pakistan after the departure of the British themselves, the evidence suggests that there was little substantive activity on the part of metropolitan capita1. 19o This was not surprising given the greater attraction of India - both politically and economically - and the fact that, as mentioned in the previous chapter, at partition industry in Pakistan was conspicuous by its absence. However politically motivated aid was much easier to come by. Following the signing of the first mutual defence agreement between the US and Pakistan in 1954, aid started flowing in freely to Pakistan, primarily to modernize the Pakistani military as a fighting force and to provide it with new hardware supplies in accordance with the American conviction that Pakistan needed to be stable and 188 It is another matter that the Pakistani state oligarchy cultivated this perception even though its primary foreign policy concern was India, and it viewed its ability to achieve a limited form of parity with India as being contingent on the material impetus provided by the American alliance. 189 The analysis is based on numerous statistical estimates, and the figure of 9.2% is, according to White, probably an over-estimation 190 Alavi (l983a: 54) points out that metropolitan capital did penetrate the Pakistani economy by way of tied credits through public financial institutions such as PICIC and IDBP and also through investment in state-led development projects. However, there is no suggestion that the magnitude of this penetration is substantive, at least in comparison to the interventions of metropolitan states, and particularly the US. 119 secure as one of the key members of its anti-communist network of states in the region. 191 'During the period 1954 to 1965, the US provided military grants assistance valued at $650 million, defence and support assistance valued at $619 million and cash or commercial-based purchases of $55 million' (Lohalekar, 1991: 47). This was a substantial sum, and could be compared to military assistance given to other countries in the region such as India; 77.8% of all US military aid to Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and Nepal between 1947 and 1962 was allocated to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Between 1950 and 1960,90% of aid to the 'Near East and South Asia' went to Iran, Turkey, Greece and Pakistan (Hashmi, 1983: 106-7).192 Pakistan received economic aid as well, which was, and continues to be, a major pillar of the economy; total foreign aid received by 1968 was $US 4.7 billion, which constituted 5.8% ofGDP. 193 The significance of aid is reflected in the fact that it was equivalent to 50% of total imports and 34% of total development expenditure. However, the importance of this aid must be put into context. Of the figure of US$ 4.7 billion quoted above, only US% 1.3 billion was in the form of grants, while the rest was offered as loans (Brecher and Abbas, 1972; p. 24). In historical terms, the majority of the grants were offered in the 1950-1955 period, whereas loans started to constitute a bigger share of total aid in the 1955-1960 window. By 1960-1965, 'large loans with high interest rates and increasingly harsh conditions completely mortgaged the country' (Rashid, 1983: 126). A British economist made the salient observation that the nature of lending by the western countries to Pakistan evolved coevally with perceived geo-political requirements of western governments, a pattern manifest first in the shift from grants to loans, and then culminating in the termination of US and other bi and multi lateral aid entirely following the start of the 1965 war (Griffin, 1965 quoted in Rashid, 1983). This is an important point, because, as will be asserted presently, there is a distinct 191 There was considerable negotiation and posturing that preceded the decision of the Eisenhower administration to accede to Pakistan'S requests for military assistance. It was American secretary of state John Foster Dulles who became convinced that Pakistan could playa vital role in securing American geo-strategic interests in west Asia and encouraged the alliance. See Hashmi (1983), Kux (2001). 192 Importantly Hashmi makes the point that these are only officially quoted figures whereas actual disbursements are most likely far in excess of the official disbursements. 193 This figure was as high as 7.5% in 1964. 120 pattern that prevails throughout the history of the evolving relationship between Pakistan and its western allies, namely that military and economic aid levels are clearly contingent on the geo-political considerations of the western powers (cf Akhtar, 2006a). In other words, aid has been substantial when Pakistan has been deemed a 'frontline state', and has been considerably reduced at other times. For my purposes, a related point upon which considerable stress needs to be laid is that, inasmuch as aid - whether military or economic - has been used as a tool to achieve clearly delineated political objectives of the aid-giver, it matters little what form the aid takes. In other words, in line with the theoretical framework outlined above, economic - as much as military - aid to Pakistan has reflected imperialism's 'territorial logic of power', the direct result of which has been consolidation of oligarchic domination within Pakistan. This territorial logic has prevailed regardless of the impact it may have had on the capitalistic logic of power. 194 This is borne out in practice by considering the impact of this aid on the polity. It is important to bear in mind that beyond technological gains from US military aid, the large amounts of economic aid that were doled out to the oligarchy by the US and other western allies had other crucial effects. Retired military officers interviewed during fieldwork suggested that the military grew in confidence vis a vis other members of the historical bloc, while at a more general level, it developed a commitment to modernizing the polity while according to itself the role of spearheading this process of modernization. 195 As an internal Department of Defence document published in 1967 testified: "From a political viewpoint, US military aid has strengthened Pakistan's armed services, the greatest stabilizing force in the country' (quoted in Alavi, 1991b). Thus there was a close linkage between the pretensions of the military to take direct control of government and the material and moral encouragement provided in this regard by the US. Indeed, US ambassador 194 In any case, aid given to Pakistan was subject to a startling dynamic which meant that Pakistan was actually paying for the military 'aid' it received; this was at least partially because the US insisted on differentiating Mutual Assistance Program (MAP) forces, or in other words those forces supplied by the US, and non-MAP forces which Pakistan funded itself (Alavi, 1991b). 195 Interview with General (Retd.) Talat Masood. As Cohen (1998) has noted, the generation of military officers that was exposed to American ideas and training in the 1950s and 1960s ensured that the secular - and elitist - traditions of the military inherited from the British remained intact. Importantly they also imbibed the bias within parts of the American foreign policy establishment - itself inspired greatly by academic exponents of the idea such as Huntington - that the military was potentially the preeminent political force in third world countries. 121 James Langley was one of the few individuals both within and without Pakistan who seemed to have advance notice of the October 1958 coup (Rizvi, 2000: 83). By the time of the 1965 war when aid was suspended to Pakistan, the military had already established itself as the dominant force within the historical bloc, and acquired the expertise and wherewithal to remain powerful despite the deterioration in bilateral ties with the US. However, there was another very important lesson to be learned from the breakdown in the US-Pakistan relationship. By the mid 1960s, Pakistan's economy had become reliant on aid; this was underlined by the fact that foreign sources accounted for 3.24% of total capital receipts in 1955-60 and 52.57% by 1966-7 (Waseem, 1994: 197). Aid in large part explained the impressive macroeconomic performance through most of Ayub's tenure. But the fact that aid would subsequently dry up also illustrated the dangers of aid-dependence, and provides the most cogent illustration of the nature of the peripheral capitalist system: By the mid-l 960s, Pakistan was perceived to a model of third world development only to suffer a dramatic collapse shortly thereafter due to serious internal contradictions and the fallouts of regional geo-politics. The emerging politics of jihad The contradictions of the Ayub regime's modernization policies coupled with the trauma of the 1971 dismemberment of the country explain the rise of Bhutto's populism. In spite of the generally held perception that this was a period in which the relations between the metropole and Pakistan were at an all-time low, there was negligible conflict between the Bhutto regime and the western capitalist countries. Bureaucrats in the foreign office interviewed during fieldwork testify that Bhutto's anti-imperialist tirades tended to be for domestic consumption while in practice his government's relations with the US and its allies were quite cordia1. 196 In particular Bhutto's government was the major go-between the Americans and the Chinese, while he took pride in the fact that it was under his leadership that the arms embargo imposed by Washington since 1965 was lifted (Shafqat, 1997: 184). 196 Interview with Retired Deputy Secretary, Foreign Office, Salim Nawaz Gandapur, 26 October 2006. 122 Regardless of whether the US was perturbed about the Fabian socialism being introduced into Pakistan by Bhutto 197 , there was little censure of the regime, except in the aftermath of Bhutto's announcement of Pakistan's nuclear program. But again this was a reflection of the 'territorial logic of power' insofar as a nuclear Pakistan was a geo-strategic liability for the western world. On the other hand, the Americans and the western world at large seemed to be far less concerned with the nature of the internal convulsions that were perpetrated by the Bhutto regime, although this could be because it was clear, particularly towards the end of the PPP's time in power, that the regime had not made a rupture with national and international economic and political structures. 198 In the aftermath of the coming to power of Zia ul Haq, with the start of the Afghan War, Pakistan was once again raised to the status of 'frontline state', and its military once again elevated to the position of central actor in the geo-political calculus of the metropole. The Afghan War hence constituted a fortuitous development for the military regime insofar as it insulated it from external pressures to revert to even a nominal democratic process, and indeed, provided a pretext for the brutalization of Pakistani society. 199 Indeed, secretary of state Haig apparently reassured Zia's vice chief of army staff K.M. Arif saying, 'General, your internal situation is your problem' (Kux, 2001: 257). Thus the military garnered the support of all three of Alavi's propertied 'classes' for its rule and, in the case of the metropolitan bourgeoisie, was offered invaluable material support for this purpose. Between the fiscal years 1977-78 and 1981-82, the Pakistani defence budget increased from Rs. 155 crore to Rs. 429 crore, whereas between 1984 and 1989, Pakistan was 197 The international financial institutions, and the World Bank in particular, were far from satisfied with the PPP government's adopted policy framework. While aid did not dry up as a result, lending terms became much harsher (Noman, 1988: 90-3). 198 Jalal (1994: 169-70) points out that the astoundingly well-funded PNA movement was widely reputed to have received at least some support from the US, and that this might be considered the Americans' method of punishment for Bhutto's insistence on carrying on with the nuclear program. The popular perception that the Americans directly supported the July 1977 coup was based in part on Bhutto's own claims to this effect during the two years between the coup and his hanging. Even if the US did have a part in the ousting of Bhutto, the fact that the Zia regime was not censured for continuing the nuclear program - ostensibly because of the changed geo-political needs of the US in the region after the start of the Afghan War - indicates the clearly functional nature of the American p,0licy towards Pakistan. 99 Rather perversely, 'Zia admirers proudly presented his formulation of Afghan policy as the most significant contribution of his era' (Shafqat, 1997: 206). 123 allocated a large number of defence grants as well as loans specifically catered to arms sales to the tune ofUS$1500 million (Lohalekar, 1991: 65-76). All told American aid during the Zia tenure totaled US$4.2 billion 2OO and needless to say tremendously augmented the ability of the Zia regime to overcome its lack of popular legitimacy, and offset the potential instability that would have arisen from economic woes?Ol Importantly, net aid flows decreased because of the increasing debt repayment burden, which indicates the cumulative effect of an aid-dependent economy (Noman, 1988: 164). The inherent weakness of the economy were exposed following the drying up of aid in the period following the signing of the Geneva accords, and it was the various governments in the 1990s that had to contend with another thaw in the relations between Pakistan and the 'metropolitan bourgeoisie'. The coming to power of the Zia regime also coincided with neo-liberal reaction in the western world, spearheaded by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In most post- colonial states, the most significant manifestation of this reaction has been the imposition of structural adjustment programs. This effectively signaled a shift in the basis of the global capitalist economy from production to finance, and an attendant 'disciplining' of post-colonial states that suffered from serious indebtedness by either metropolitan states and/or international financial institutions. Under the guise of what Harvey calls 'accumulation by dispossession' a new wave of metropolitan capital has invaded the post-colonial world in an attempt to offset a serious crisis of overaccumulation of capital within the metropole itself (Harvey, 2003). Intriguingly, Zaidi (2005a: 348) insists that when compared to other third world states, Pakistan's economic position did not mandate the rigorous fiscal stabilization, liberalization and privatization measures that characterize structural adjustment programs, and that the decision to continually adopt neo-liberal policies has been a political one rather than an economic one. Moreover all but one of the various agreements signed with the IFls since the first one in 1988 have been concluded by unelected governments, thereby suggesting that the IFIs and by extension western 200 The breakdown was US$2.5 billion in economic and US$1.7 billion in military aid. The initial aid package agreed totaled US$3.2 billion and lasted from 1979 till 1986, whereas a five year aid package from 1986-1991 worth US$4.02 billion was incomplete when the military regime gave way to the PPP fc0vemment (Haqqani, 2005: 152). 01 As will be discussed at length in Section 2, aside from foreign aid, remittances during the late 1970s and 1980s were a major cause of economic stability. 124 governments - regardless of their continued resort to the rhetoric of 'good governance' - have been directly complicit in the subversion of democratic norms within Pakistan (Gadi et. aI, 2001). Meanwhile, the capitalistic logic of power within Pakistan remained relatively weak throughout the 1980s and 1990s as reflected in low investment rates; growth rates in total investment actually plummeted to as low as -3.6% in 1998-99, while investment as a percentage of GDP steadily declined through the 1990s and was at l3% by the tum of the century (Zaidi, 2005a; p. 359). Frontline state yet again Pakistan once again emerged as a 'frontline state' in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. This follows on the heels of a decade in which Pakistan not only fell out of favour with the US and its western allies, but at one time was even categorized a 'rogue state' ?02 Aid levels had fallen precipitously through the 1990s, at least partially because of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which fundamentally reduced Pakistan's importance to the western world as the everpresent threat of communism had disappeared. Debt grew to alarming proportions suggesting that the 'structural reforms' undertaken under the rubric of adjustment had neither done away with what the IFIs termed 'distortions' in the economy nor addressed the aid- dependent nature of the economy?03 Once again a military ruler was in power, initially unpopular with the metropolitan bourgeoisie, but overnight transformed into the most precious ally of the 'free world'. And yet again the most obvious indicator of this remarkable turnaround in Pakistan's fortunes was the aid that was pumped into the economy. Between 2002 and 2007, annual aid inflows only from the US averaged US$1.75 billion of which the majority, or approximately US$1.14 billion has been military assistance (Husain, 2007).204 This is a startling amount of aid, and the US willingness to provide assistance has necessarily induced the IFIs to also oblige Pakistan. The IMF for example provided 37 countries with loans under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) 202 Towards the end of the 1990s, the Clinton administration started using this term extensively to describe states that had connections with international 'terrorist' networks. 203 Outstanding debt as a percentage of GDP reached 51.7% in 1998-99 (Zaidi, 2005a; p. 364). 204 Husain breaks down the military assistance head into direct military aid, which totals US$180 million annually, and logistic services provided to US troops in Afghanistan which totals US$80 million per month. Meanwhile the other major bilateral source is the UK which has recently doubled its annual grant from US$480 million to US$960 million. 125 over the past five years, with a total disbursement of US$6.88 billion of which Pakistan received by far the biggest loan totaling more than 22% of this amount (Zaidi, 2005a: 318). Aid from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank has exceeded US$8 billion. 205 Needless to say the aid provided has corne with the now standard set of prescriptions, which the Musharraf government was generally willing to comply with. Indeed, in comparison to the governments of the 1990s, the military regime was far less concerned with the negative fallouts of the neo-liberal policy framework it adopted; the only meaningful difference between the military and preceding governments was the intensity with which virtually the same policies have been implemented. In any case, the politics of aid has become exceedingly clear since September 11, 2001, and as in every previous period of overt US-Pakistan alliance, the most significant political impact has been the consolidation of oligarchic rule. During fieldwork it became clear that there is widespread popular resentment against the role of the United States in the sovereign affairs of Pakistan, and the Pakistani military for agreeing to serve the American geo-strategic agenda. This means that in the present conjuncture, metropolitan support to the military is actually undermining state hegemony. The dichotomy between the territorial logic and the capitalistic logic is clear even in this particular period, in spite of the fact that metropolitan capital is clearly increasing its presence within the Pakistani social formation. 206 On the one hand the privatization of state-owned enterprises - which Harvey considers to be the most significant mechanism through which accumulation by dispossession is enforced - has only garnered limited interest from metropolitan capital. The total share of foreign capital in privatized companies between 1990 and 2000 was a miniscule 2.5%. Since 2000 foreign capital's share in the privatized companies has increased markedly to 51.2%, but this only totals Rs. 234.6 billion, or approximately 3% of GDP (Kizilbash, 2007). 205 See www.worldbank.orglpakistan and www.adb.orglprm 206 However this presence is rather limited to the service sector as is most obviously manifest in the proliferation of international mobile phone companies. 126 Meanwhile foreign direct investment increased by 238.7% from 2005-06 to 2006-07, totaling 2.7% of GDP?07 Interestingly, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the major sources of foreign investment, their shares having increased dramatically over the past year by 221 % and 1408% respectively. Arab capital constitutes almost 52% of total foreign investment, with the US contributing 14% (GoP, 2007). This is perhaps the most interesting of all the figures presented here as this marks the first time in Pakistan's history that American capital has been eclipsed as the single largest component of metropolitan capital investment in the economy. However, this should be put into context because the amount of official aid provided by the US to Pakistan far exceeds private Arab capital investment. 208 While these figures do suggest that there has been a non-negligible increase in the capitalistic logic of power in the present period, there is little doubt that this is directly linked to the larger political situation. It is unlikely that the change in the overall economic climate would have taken place but for the dramatic geo-strategic shifts that followed September 11, 2001. Indeed, this is borne out by the fact that the biggest impetus for macroeconomic revival has been the increase in remittances from overseas in the same time period. Over the past four years, the economy has benefited from an annual inflow of US$4 billion (GoP, 2007). This dramatic increase in remittances is largely explained by the feeling of uncertainty gripping much of the diaspora in western countries in the post-911 period, which has induced a spurt of investment back home?09 207 Total investment as a proportion of GDP has risen to slightly less than 20%. 208 What seems more important to highlight is the role that both American and Arab states have played in reinforcing the politics of common sense. 209 Remittances have been forthcoming mostly from richer Pakistanis abroad, and the vast majority of investment has taken place in high-return, non-productive sectors such as real estate and the stock market. Thus remittances in the present period are likely not to have the poverty-reducing impact of the 1980s when remittances were directed mostly towards rural households who had sent a migrant abroad. On the whole, the nature of the current economic 'revival', based both on increased levels of aid and remittances is inherently unstable, particularly because the government has imposed virtually no capital controls thus leaving open the possibility of massive capital flight. 127 The Pakistani state: post-colonial or neo-colonial? In recent times, the cozy relationship that the Musharraf regime has enjoyed with its superpower patron has been subject to considerable strain. While there is no immediate indication that there will be a freeze in US-Pakistan relations, this chapter has shown that this relationship has been inherently unstable and subject to the geo- political whims of the US. In other words, there is a clear correlation between the geo- political requirements of the US and the nature and extent of the metropolitan bourgeoisie's intervention within the social formation. This relationship has resulted in a consolidation of Pakistan's dependent capitalist economy, or what Alavi calls 'peripheral capitalism', while at the same time greatly augmenting the political power of the military and the Alavian nexus of power more generally. Nayak (1992: 27) summarises this history succinctly: .... these military alliances with the imperialist bloc have meant grave disasters to Pakistan. They have not only helped in building a political nexus between the state civil personnel and those in the military wing (over the years, the former yielding place to the latter) but what is worse, it tended to dictate terms of building and alignment of upper strata of the propertied classes in Pakistan .... This pattern has persisted in the aftermath of the structural shift in the global economy in the 1970s, and, in fact, it can be argued that the territorial logic of imperialist power has become more pronounced in the Pakistani case during this period. In the context of the overall argument of this thesis, the role of the metropolitan bourgeoisie has largely been a political one in the sense that it has been dictated by the interests of metropolitan states, and particularly the US, as opposed to the universalistic logic of capital per se. This has reinforced the parallel impulse of the Pakistani military to accumulate power (and on this basis accumulating capital). It should be clear that this logic is quite distinct from the static understanding of the metropolitan bourgeoisie's role suggested by Alavi which tends to marginalize the distinctly political impulse that has been highlighted here. Importantly, the emphasis laid out here permits recognition of the additional impacts of metropolitan power on the social formation such as the increase in the influence of Islamist political formations and the widening of the scope of the black guns and drugs economy. This ensures a dynamic understanding of social structure, and most 128 importantly for this thesis, facilitates recognition of the larger context within which the politics of common sense has been institutionalized, and the attendant undermining of the politics of resistance. Another important point relates to the growing power of the military as a corporate entity, as discussed in detail in Chapter 2. This phenomenon too can be indirectly linked to the nature of the metropolitan interventions over the past thirty years. 129 Chapter 7 Islamic hegemony: The power of'sanction The role of Islam in any Muslim-majority country is considerable; in Pakistan it is even more so. According to the ideologues of the state, the difference between Pakistan - the only Muslim majority country to actually premise its existence upon religious affiliation - and other Muslim-majority countries in which ethno-linguistic ties are the basis of national identity is best summed up by the following: Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out Judaism from Israel and it will collapse like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse. 210 By this logic then, Pakistani nationalism is constructed on scarcely more than a shared religious identity.2l1 The myth of a monolithic Pakistani nation united by the bonds of Islam was totally exposed by the successful secession of more than half the population of the country in 1971. Yet instead of acknowledging the glaring holes in the official nationbuilding project, the state oligarchy reasserted Pakistan's Islamic . I 212 essence ever more vIgorous y. This confirms what has already been stated at various points in this thesis - that the instrumentalisation of Islam has been crucial to the emergence and continuing survival of oligarchic rule. On the one hand then, Islam has been little more than an ideological tool that has been invoked as the mandate for what J alaI (1990; 1995) has poignantly called the state's 'political economy of defence'. However, thinking about Islam in purely functional terms obscures the very real significance of religion in the lives of the popular classes. In other words, while it is true that the oligarchic system of power that has been outlined here relies greatly on the ideological pull of Islam to legitimize its very existence, an overly state-centric analysis obfuscates more than it illuminates. It is therefore important to acknowledge the dynamic 'from below' in trying to understand the complex role that religion plays in the social formation and, more specifically, how it is a constitutive part of the politics of common sense. 210 General Zia-ul-Haq, The Economist, 12 December 1981, quoted in Ali (1983: 133). 2ll More generally, the culture of Mughal India, particularly the Urdu language, was also a major constitutive part of the state's idealized notion of Pakistaniat (cf Khory, 1997). 212 It was in the late 1970s that the deliberate doctoring of textbooks began through which history was re-written to project the Islamic basis of Pakistan's creation (Hoodbhoy and Nayyar, 1985). 130 As such Alavi's formulation made no attempt to include a discussion oflslam, or social groups that derive their very raison d' etre from a religious-political discourse, namely, the ulema?13 I pointed out in the introductory chapter that the 'defence of Islam' became the raison d' etre of the state. Given the not insignificant and growing influence of the various religious political groupings on the mainstream political sphere, there is a need to augment the Alavian thesis with a discussion of the scope and dynamics of religio-political movements. 214 This will facilitate an understanding of the role that such movements have played in helping suppress the politics of resistance. Perhaps more importantly, there is a need to consider how and why, since the 1970s, Islam itself has - at least to some extent - become associated with a politics of resistance in lieu of the secular forms of politics that were more influential through the Bhutto period. This idiom of Islam as the language of the oppressed is particularly intriguing given that over the past three decades, Islamist politics has not been associated with any meaningful attempt to challenge oligarchic rule. It is the contention of this chapter that Islamist politics has in fact been a crucial element of the politics of cornmon sense and that while the intention of the Zia regime in undertaking 'Islamisation' is easily understood, the fact that this state-led process gained at least superficial acceptance 'from below' suggests the hegemonic power of Islam amongst the popular classes. Islamic or secular state? It is worth bearing in mind that throughout most of the period of British rule the great seminaries of the United Provinces (UP) were not necessarily anti-imperialist, but rather adopted a stance of 'a-political quietism' (Metcalf, 2001). Nonetheless the ulema were not necessarily amongst those segments of the Indian elite that were comfortably coopted by the colonial state. After the first world war the pro-Congress 213 Alavi did undertake analyses of the ulema and religious politics more generally but separate from his theorizing on the post-colonial state Ccf Alavi, 1987). 214 The Jamaa't-e-Islami is not strictly an ulema party, but for the purposes of the present discussion, all religious political entities will be considered together. My intention is not to gloss over the considerable differences between ulema parties and organisations such as the n. However what I am asserting is that all religio-political forces have played a crucial role in reinforcing the politics of common sense. 131 Jamia't-e-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) adopted a more explicitly anti-imperialist posture. It was a breakaway faction of the JUH that formed the pro-Pakistan Jamia't-e-Ulema- Islam (JUI) in 1945 and served the expressly functional purpose of endowing the Pakistan demand with a religious mandate (Pirzada, 2000: 2-13). Subsequently, ulema parties remained outside the ambit of formal politics till two decades or so after the new state's inception. If there was a religious political force in Pakistan in its defining years, it was the Jamaa't-e-Islami, which was perceived by its founder Maulana Maudoodi to be an ideological entity rather than a mainstream political party per se (Nasr, 1994). Maudoodi's somewhat contradictory utterings actually illuminate the nature of the dialectic of Islam and state that has defined the post-colonial period. On the one hand Maudoodi was opposed to the idea of a Pakistani state on purely theological grounds because it was inimical to the universalism of the Islamic ummah. On the other hand however, Maudoodi was clear that an explicitly Islamic organization such as the 11 would flourish in a state created on the basis of one's allegiance to Islam. He made no secret of his contempt for the 'anglicised style and the secular beliefs of Jinnah', and generally believed that ultimately it was the 11 and not the Muslim League that embodied the Islamic sensibilities of what would become the Pakistani people (Nasr, 1994: 20). Indeed, by appealing to Islamic symbols, particularly in the chaotic period immediately prior to partition, manifest most obviously in the slogan 'Pakistan ka matlah kya? La illaha illallah,215 , the nationalist leadership, regardless of its secular roots or its ideological pretensions, opened up a space for religious polemic in the new state. 216 In fact, in the aftermath of Jinnah's death, starting with the Objectives Resolution in 1949, the juridical structures of the state were given at least a partially Islamic colour, and the controversy over the character of the Pakistani state (theocratic or secular) was thereby permanently etched into its politics. In practice this did not mean that the secularity of the state structure or its managers was 215 Literally: What is the meaning of Pakistan? That there is no God but Allah. During fieldwork, almost all informants uncritically supported this slogan, both those from generations that experienced the country's creation as well as those that did not. 216 For a materialist analysis of the Pakistan movement that debunks the myth that it was based on millenarian grounds, see Alavi (1987). 132 compromised per se, but simply that the Islamic idiom was instrumentalised by the oligarchy and its allies. 217 Indeed, modem Islamist politics 'defies the facile religion versus secularism concept', and it is much more apt, particularly in the Pakistani case, to view Islam not as a challenge to the post-colonial statebuilding project, but rather as an ideational hinge of this very project (Nasr, 2001: 14; Ahmed, 2003). In the immediate post-partition period, Islam and the Urdu language became the symbols that the new state employed to assert the unity of the new nation. And in this effort, the migrant community played a crucial role. Scholars have documented the immensely influential role of migrants in the new state and have pointed out that their political weight and economic power was disproportionate to their actual size in the population (cf Waseem, 2004). For the purposes of the present discussion the crucial point is that the primarily urban migrant population infused the political discourse with an Islamic idiom, particularly by emphasizing the Indian threat, which reflected the deep psychological impacts of partition violence that the migrants had witnessed first hand (cf Wright Jr, 1974)?18 Importantly, the religio-political movements established a constituency in the primarily urban Muhajir community, replete with a commitment to the Urdu language that was the mother tongue of the migrant population. The religious parties' 'depiction of the plight of the Muhajirs as comparable to those of the original Muhajirs, the companions of the Prophet who migrated with him from Mecca to Medina' ensured that a symbiotic relationship developed between the religio-political movements and the migrant community with both privileging a militant and strict interpretation of Islam whilst also being the most vocal supporters of the unitary state project and opponents of the ethno-nationalist challenges to this project (Nasr, 1994: 89)?19 217 For a discussion of the historical mutual accommodation between the 'modernist' state elite and the 'traditionalist' religious forces, see Akhtar et. al (2006). 218 Waseem (2002: 267) points out: 'In spatial term, those regions which were not fully represented in the mainstream politics of the Pakistan movement, or failed to move to centre stage in the emerging State system, did not necessarily share what is otherwise billed as national consensus', implying that the anti-India sentiment was concentrated amongst Punjabis and Muhajirs, and by extension in urban areas of Sindh and Punjab. 219 See also Verkaaik (2004: 22) on this topic who asserts that within the Muhajirs there was a liberal element that was represented by the westernized state managers and a religious element represented by l33 Importantly then a disjunct developed between the urban and militant Islam championed by the migrant community, ulema (and non-ulema groups such as the JI), and to a certain extent the incumbent leadership of the new state 220 ; and the rural, folk traditions of the majority of the Pakistan areas. It has been the urban interpretation of Islam and the politics that it has engendered that has tended to impose itself on the wider society notwithstanding sporadic attempts by various regimes to patronize folk Islam as well. During and after the Zia regime, a militant state-sponsored version of Islam has engulfed large parts of the rural social formation as well, particularly in the Pakhtun areas near the Afghan border. In the early years following partition, urban protest in the name of Islam was commonplace. Examples include the 1953 Ahmadi riots, and the uproar over the Suez Canal in 1956. The suggestion being made here is not that the sensibilities of the rural, non-migrant populations were not Islamic per se, but that there was a definitive difference between what 'Islam' meant in principle and practice to different segments of the popular classes. In any case the state has effectively manipulated the discourse over religion so as to associate Islam with the 'defence' of the nation and, as such, make it both seditious (in terms of the state) and heretical (in terms of the religion) to dispute this discourse. Specifically, during the Zia regime Islam was used effectively as a symbol of fear in the sense that state repression was justified under the guise that dissidents were 'un-Islamic'. In this way, Islam has formed an integral constitutive part of the politics of common sense.221 Nativisation The state-led project has not always been without its fallouts. Throughout the Ayub and Bhutto periods, the ideational force of Islam came into increasing contradiction with the clearly secular multiple accumulation projects of the oligarchy and its junior the Deoband ulema: 'Whether liberal of "fundamentalist", Mohajirs were believed to be modem and educated city dwellers compare to, for instance, the Sindhis or the Pakhtun'. 220 Of course the high bureaucracy and the military top brass simply instrumentalised religion in whatever guise it stood to benefit them. For the most part the state managers were not particularly observant of religious practices and their lifestyles could be characterised as quite westernised'. 221 I wish to make clear here that the Zia regime marked a departure from previous governments in terms of the nature of and extent to which the state's instrumentalisation of Islam informed its larger political engineering. 134 partners in the historical bloc. 222 The Ayubian regime managed to largely coopt religious forces, at least partially because they were yet to emerge - with the exception of the 11 - as overtly political entities. Thus the regime did not face any major challenge from religious forces, except as part of the larger mass movement that eventually overthrew it. 223 Bhutto, on the other hand, while successfully manipulating the dominant nationalist discourse to come into power (cf Jones, 2003), eventually suffered the consequences of his own jingoism. During the tenure of the PPP, Pakistan reconfigured its foreign policy towards the Middle East, while domestically the government conceded more and more ground to religious forces, including but not limited to the declaration of Ahmadis as non- Muslims, the restoration of Friday as the weekly holiday, and the banning of alcohol and 'un-Islamic' entertainment. This was also the period in which the religio-political movements became a major oppositional force with the emergence of the two major ulema parties in the 1970 elections, and more generally because of the reaffirmation of the Islamic roots of the people following the secession of the eastern wing?24 It was however, under the Zia regime that substantive changes took place in the state and wider society vis a vis Islam. 225 Pasha (1997: 196) has called the larger phenomenon that characterized the Zia period 'nativisation', and has suggested that 'Zia's greatest legacy to Pakistan is the institutionalization of vernacular political interests in the state'. Indeed, after the toppling of the Bhutto regime by the PNA movement that was calling for the imposition of the 'Nizam-e-Mustafa,226, the Zia 222 As mentioned above, there is a ruralist, folk tradition of Islam that exists in a large part of Pakistan, and the dominant symbol of this particular interpretation of Islam has typically been the landed pir. As a general rule hereditary pirs have been associated with the mainstream political parties, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML). Their politics is therefore entirely distinct from that of the ulema, and while they accede to the instrumentalist use of Islam within Pakistani politics, they have not been its major instigators. 223 The religious lobby did protest vociferously against the regime's enactment of the Model Family Laws Ordinance in 1961 but I maintain that at no point was the prevailing structure of power the cause of conflict between the two sides. 224 Nasr (2001: 97) rightfully stresses the irony in this: 'The inability of Islam to keep the two halves of the country united had not diminished the appeal of religion either to politicians or to the people. Oddly enough, it had increased it. The precariousness of Pakistan's unity led Pakistanis to reaffirm their Islamic roots'. It is important however to recognize that it was the PPP regime's insistence on forcefully reasserting the Islamic essence of the nation, replete with slogans such as Massawat-e- Muhmmadi, that encouraged this renaissance from below. 225 During fieldwork I observed a common lament amongst the westernized, urban classes that society before Zia was a world apart from what it has become since. 226 Literally: 'System of the prophet' 135 regime established a mandate for itself to rule by suggesting that 'Pakistan, which was created in the name of Islam, will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam' (Pakistan Times, 1977, quoted in Richter, 1978: 421). Accordingly the martial law regime started initiating Islamists into government, and embarked on a more insidious project designed to change the very character of the state structure through deliberate . d f 1 . 227 In uctlOns 0 re IglOuS conservatIves. In the very first cabinet that was put together under the Zia regime, four ministers hailed from the JI. Hence under the guise of 'Islamisation', there was a new claimant to state power and the attendant opportunities for patronage that such power afforded. On the one hand this implies a new religious sensibility within the state structure that would compete with the hitherto secular character of most state functionaries, and importantly the high bureaucracy and the military officer COrpS?28 Arguably more important however was the expansion of the state's functions itself as 'Islamisation' meant a mandate for the state to encroach into the previously private domain of personal conduct (Nasr, 2001: 136-7). Hence as the Zia regime created new state institutions such as the Federal Shariat Court, Council of Islamic Ideology, and the like, it provided a direct opportunity for religious political forces to enter the echelons of power. 229 During fieldwork it became apparent just how pervasive the staffing of state institutions with individuals sympathetic to 'Islamisation' was?30 Crucially, beyond a certain point, the regime was keen to ensure that it did not privilege anyone Islamic party or constituency over any other; 'Islamisation would thus legitimise military rule and help restore state 227 It should be pointed out that even when Bhutto was still in power, General Zia had started to change the ethos of the Pakistani military following his promotion to Chief of Army Staff in 1976. This generation of military men is what Stephen Cohen (1998) has called the 'Pakistani generation'. 228 The growing affinity within the military's ranks towards religion was accompanied by the erosion of the insular and secular nature of the higher bureaucracy following Bhutto's civil service reforms of 1973. Importantly the impact at the level of the low bureaucracy was limited, at least in terms of direct penetration by activists or sympathizers of the religious parties. It was primarily urban professionals, or in other words the upper salariat - the main constituency of the JI - that entered the officer corps of both the military and the civil bureaucracy. For an example of great prescience, see Ahmad (1974). 229 See also Ahmed (1997: 106) who points out that 126,000 mosque functionaries were coopted into the state structure during the Zia years, while 3000 village ulema were hired as part-time school teachers. 230 For example, during work at the National Archives of Pakistan in Islamabad, I came across many officers who were simply unwilling to share officially declassified information that implicated the Zia regime in cynically using Islam for the purposes of curtailing dissent. This disinclination was not necessarily a function of official policy but reflected the personal biases of the concerned officers. 136 dominance without empowering anyone Islamic party so that it could pose a threat to the state' (Nasr, 2001: 138). The longer-run impact of this expansion of state patronage to include numerous religious formations has been considerable. Perhaps the most obvious of such impacts has been the proliferation of sectarian conflict and an attendant fragmentation within the state - particularly the military and its intelligence agencies - as different elements have favoured different tendencies in sectarian conflicts (Ahmed, 1997; Hussain, 2007).231 It is important to understand that the role of religious political formations was permanently altered during the Zia years. Even after the ulema parties and the JI started to distance themselves from the regime after 1981, they continued to be supportive of the larger 'Islamisation' agenda. Perhaps more crucially, even though the oligarchy's inherently secular project of reproducing its own power guided the Islamisation logic, the 'nativisation' of the state would not be reversed. In other words, the religious parties, as well as the rapidly increasingly number of religious groups that operated outside the formal political sphere, had become major players in the power-sharing arrangement whilst also acquiring much more power within the social formation as they were empowered to reward and punish working people as the arbiters of personal morality. This may seem difficult to reconcile with the fact that the religious parties remained conspicuously unsuccessful at the polls. Starting with the party-less elections of 1985, an analysis of all elections uptil and including the elections of 1997 would seem to suggest that the religious organizations remained marginal, winning a maximum of 15 and a minimum of 3 seats out of a national legislature comprising 207 seats (Shafqat, 2003).232 Indeed, such figures are often quoted to suggest that the religious parties do not enjoy public support. However, in considering such electoral outcomes it is crucial to understand the broader context. 231 It is widely believed that the military establishment was divided over the post-September 11 decision to sever ties with its erstwhile jihadi proteges. Many insiders are convinced that the spate of violence that has paralysed the country in recent times can be attributed at least in part to disgruntled elements within the establishment that maintain close links to jihadi groups. 232 The religious parties' best-ever showing at the ballot box was in October 2002 when anti-American emotions amongst the popular classes were running high on account of the invasion of Afghanistan. However even in this case the evidence suggests that the actual vote bank of the religious right did not increase substantially (Haqqani, 2005: 304). 137 First, in the post-Zia period, religious parties have had a major role in making and breaking coalition governments. In particular, the religious parties were part of the Islami larnhoori Ittehad (111) electoral coalition which represented the anti-PPP vote in 1988 and 1990. 233 Pasha (1992: 117) puts it like this: 'A crucial actor in the opposition, the religious right, despite the narrowness of its political constituency, remained an effective spoiler in the political process.' Perhaps more importantly, the religious idiom which had become so prominent in the last years of Bhutto' s rule and then under the Zia regime had become a permanent feature of the mainstream political sphere, and therefore the ability of the religious political formations to influence the larger discourse was considerable. In attempting to understand exactly what has changed it is important to recall the lead- up to the 1970 general election when there was a clear ideological divide between the radical socialist and nationalist programmes of the A wami League and the PPP, and the so-called 'Islam-pasand' programmes of the Islamic and other conservative parties. The former were not unduly disadvantaged by espousing political ideas that were not explicitly 'Islamic' and won the elections handsomely, in spite of the relatively clear support given to the 'Islam-pasand' parties by the establishment (Haqqani, 2005: 57- 9). Indeed, as late as 1975, prime minister Bhutto responded to a public slight on him by Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) chief Maulana Mufti Mahmud on the subject of his being a fond drinker by proclaiming at a huge public rally, 'Mai sharap zuroor pita hoon likin awam ka khoon nahin choosta' .234 By the 1990s, following Zia's 'Islamisation', the Islamic idiom had been internalized by all political actors and had become a much more central component of political discourse. No political party risks alienating itself by taking a confrontational stance in the manner of the PPP and Awami League in 1970. 233 The IJI is known to have been given explicit support by intelligence agencies so as to keep the PPP from winning the 1990 election. A former DG lSI admitted as much in a signed affidavit presented to the Supreme Court (Haqqani, 2005: 219). 234 Literally: 'I drink alcohol but at least I do not drink the people's blood'. 138 As I have already made clear, the religio-political movements have been the primary beneficiaries of the 'Islamisation' of politics and discourse more generally. Starting from the late 1970s, these parties' involvement with the covert operations of the state in Kashmir and Afghanistan meant that they often were far more privy to crucial matters of policy than even elected governments (Haqqani, 2005: 292-3). The inductions of members of religious organizations - or others who shared such sensibilities - into the state during the Zia period also ensured continued personal links of the religious parties to various fragments of the state. Such links may have become more tenuous under the Musharraf regime, and particularly since the geo- political shifts in the aftermath of September 11,2001, but they have by no means been severed (Hussain, 2007).235 I asserted in the previous chapter that the geo-strategic whims of American imperialism have been a significant factor in the growing influence of religious politics in Pakistan. In particular the fact that the Afghan war raged throughout the Zia decade greatly enhanced the profile of the religious right. In contrast to the current conjuncture, during the 1980s the Pakistani state and religio-political movements were overt allies because the Afghan war was widely depicted as a straight fight between the Islamic Ummah and 'godless' communism. As such therefore there was limited opposition to the state's pro-imperialist policy amongst the general pUblic. 236 This deep state-society consensus not only provided the Zia regime with much needed legitimacy but was another major factor in permanently altering the idiom of politics in Pakistan because of the almost permanent social space created for the religious right (cfNoman, 1988: 120-1: Nasr, 1994: 195). On the whole then, Pasha's observation would appear to be corroborated. It is important, however, to make clear that the Zia period did not mark a fundamental 235 In recent times the persistence of the so-called 'mullah-military alliance' has been borne out most obviously in the case of the Lal Masjid/Jamia Hafsa stand-off in the heart of the federal capital. Even though the state eventually used substantial force to clear out the occupied compound, the episode indicated the deep links between religio-political movements and elements within the state. See http://www.dawn.coml2007/07/18/top9.htm. 236 During fieldwork however, in informal conversations with informants, it became clear in retrospect that there is an awareness of the functional nature of the state's engagement in Afghanistan, and that this has considerably dampened the public enthusiasm for jihad. Having said this, the difference between the sensibilities of informants in Charsadda as compared to other fieldwork sites was substantial. 139 overhaul of the historical bloc, and in fact was a period of consolidation for the oligarchy and the propertied classes that had assumed power after the inception of the new state. 237 The above analysis suggests only that there was a substantive addition to the historical bloc in the sense that religious forces, or what Pasha has called 'vernacular interests' were inducted into the corridors of power. To the extent that this substantive addition in the bloc was part of the Zia regime's entirely functional project of preventing a resurgence of organic, popular organisation, it was based on the ability of religious forces to, at one and the same time, coopt the politics of resistance and propagate the politics of common sense. 238 Islamic or secular society? As suggested above, migrants and the ulema had great influence over the manner in which Islam was projected in the public sphere. While this influence ensured the emergence and consolidation of a national security paradigm which was couched in the language of Islam, it did not overwhelm the distinct cultural foundations of rural society. It was only in the Bhutto period that the religious political formations started to make major inroads into the social formation at large, although the focus was still on urban areas. For example, the Islami lam'iat-e-Tulabah (UT), nominally the JI's student wing, presented a major challenge to the regime, winning numerous elections on university campuses against leftist incumbents (Nasr, 2001: 93_6).239 Islam quickly became the ideological lightning-rod to which anti-Bhutto activists were drawn and students were at the forefront of the growing opposition (Nasr, 1994: 170-87). Following the collapse of the Bhutto regime, the UT became a major recipient of state patronage on account of the fact that it shared mutual interests with the regime insofar as it was committed to breaking the power of left-oriented student unions that remained a major threat to the military junta. The UT was empowered to use force to intimidate and harass opponents, and over time, has been the major contributing factor to the dramatic change in the culture of university campuses (Shafqat, 1997: 196- 237 As has already been outlined in earlier chapters considerable changes had taken place in the constitution of each member of the historical bloc, their relationships with one another, and the overall balance of social forces. 238 Rashid (1985: 90) articulates this best: '[The Zia regime's] use ofIslam seek[ed] not to mobilize but disarm the greatest number' . 239 As such radicalization of students started under Ayub but until the 1970s, as will be discussed at length in Chapter 9, the more influential student unions were controlled by the left. 140 8).240 Student involvement in politics was formally banned by the regime in 1984, and this ban remains intact. During fieldwork, I visited the three major university campuses in Pakistan, namely, Karachi University, Punjab University (Lahore) and Quaid-e-Azam University (Islamabad). The IJT's power on the Punjab University campus remains unparalleled, and is thus the only possible outlet for student activism. Meanwhile on the other two campuses, the longer-term impacts of the Zia period remain palpable. 241 Even where the IJT is not obviously active, parochial sentiments - both religious and ethnic - guide student activities. For the majority of students, politics is off-limits as it is generally considered an undesirable activity.242 Similarly during the Zia regime there was a purge of dissenting intelligentsia, particularly those based in public sector universities, mostly under the guise of Martial Law Regulation 51. The 1981 university ordinance allowed the government a direct say in appointments, and was used to induct a whole new slate of 'Islam-pasand' educators (Noman, 1988: 133). Another major bastion of populism was the trade union movement, and here too religious forces started to make major inroads under the Zia regime. Once again the strategy was based as much on challenging the historical dominance of the left within the industrial working class as it was on actually propagating Islam as ideology. As a general rule, economic equality or redistribution has never been a major concern of the religious parties, and the JI for example has undergone a serious internal debate and struggle which has seen it move from being a restricted and insular ideological organization to a more populist one in tune with the demands of working people (Nasr, 1994). However during fieldwork it was obvious that trade unions associated with the religious parties, even where they emphasise the 'class question' propagate an 'Islamic solution' which indicates both the cynical instrumentalisation of religion and the lack of commitment to genuine class struggle. As such, alongside the banning of 240 Younger lamaat-e-Islami cadres that participated in the Afghan jihad inducted guns and violence onto university campuses (lCG, 2002: 12). 241 At the beginning of each academic year, IJT activists set up a stall on each of the campuses, distributing literature and information about their activities, whilst also helping new students around the campus. No other student organization can boast of such activities. 242 The roots of this popular perception will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 9. 141 many trade unions, the Zia regime created space for the right to assume influence and thereby undermine the unity of the industrial working class that existed even into the first two years of military rule. Accordingly, in all the major public sector organizations, trade unions affiliated with the JI emerged in the 1980s. 243 The discourse on worker's rights and freedoms has taken on an explicitly Islamic idiom even where Islamic groups and parties are not active. The penetration of student and trade unions reflected the regime's - and the right's- strategy of weakening the bases of independent power exercised by counter- hegemonic forces, and particularly those that had been at the forefront of the politics of resistance throughout the decade preceding the 1977 coup. This strategy has no doubt been entirely successful as there has been no regeneration of these organic bases of politics in the two decades following the end of Zia' s martial law . 244 However, the impact of the Zia period insofar as it represents a substantive departure from the past extends far beyond the 'Islamisation' of student and trade union activities. In my estimation the political and cultural repression that took place under the guise of Islamisation had far-ranging impacts. Most obvious was the dramatic shrinking of space for cultural expression. Music, for example, was said to be un-Islamic, while places where popular culture previously flourished, such as cinemas, open-air theatres, parks and the like, were eliminated slowly but surely. Undoubtedly the most acute impact was felt by women, whose bodies were made the focus of the state-sponsored transformation of public culture (cf Weiss, 1994). Religious minorities too no doubt felt the burden of being non-Muslims in a state that was hell-bent on infusing Islam into every nook and cranny of social life. It is crucial to bear in mind that the entire project of lslamisation was premised on the inculcation of fear within the popular classes, and particularly fear of being branded 'un-Islamic'. On the one hand this fear was inculcated through the enactment of legislation such as the Hudood Ordinances, but can be traced back to the process that 243 Examples include the PREM Union in Pakistan Railways and the Staff Employees Union in WAPDA. 244 Meanwhile religio-political movements have been beneficiaries of positive discrimination at least in part because '[t]he authorities in Pakistan are hard-pressed to contend with organisations that operate in the name of Islam and claim to be defending its interests: police action against [them] is seen as harassment of the true servants of the faith' (Nasr, 2005: 96). 142 began towards the end of the Bhutto period, during which, as mentioned above, the state arrogated to itself the mandate to interfere in the personal domain. Crucial to understanding this phenomenon of Islamisation is the complicity of the urban elite. 245 Hasan (2002a) has illustrated the manner in which cultural space was steadily decreased during the Zia regime, the result of which has been a deepening alienation of the elite from the larger society. This is manifest primarily in the lack of shared cultural spaces and the creation of elite 'ghettoes' in posh residential zones in big cities. The fact that this highly secular elite acquiesced to Zia' s Islamisation reflected its desire to be rid of the populist politics that had characterized the Bhutto period and an attendant willingness to accept the warped cultural reconfiguration of society in the interests of eliminating the politics of resistance. Ultimately of course the elite lifestyle has remained unchanged, although limited to the 'ghettoes' in which the elite reside. 246 This should not be taken to mean that the popular classes' were any more inclined to accept the transformation of public culture by the Zia regime. In fact the transformation of the very concept of public space through the 1980s did not at all reflect the needs or aspirations of the popular classes. Many so-called 'un-Islamic' practices - at least insofar as this labeling has become commonplace since 1977 - continue unabated in the wider society and particularly amongst the popular classes. However, because of the supposed norms of behaviour that characterize 'Islamic' society, the predominant trend in public is to adhere to the Ziaist model of religious observance?47 This duality in private and public life is widespread; for example restrictions on women in the public sphere are widely accepted to be necessary yet 245 The term elite is problematic - in this case it refers simply to the relatively educated and secular minded elements that typically hail from one class/group or the other within the historical bloc. 246 Ironically, in the post-Zia era this same elite has become the most vocal opponent of 'religious fundamentalism', but this change in posture is motivated by the same logic of self-interest. In other words as an obscurantist Islam has steadily encroached on public life, and the threat of populism has diminished, the focus has reverted to a cultural critique of Islamism. 247 It would be facile to suggest that the increase in religious orthodoxy is entirely a response to the perceived need to adhere to state-imposed sanctions. To a certain extent it is legitimate here to invoke the Weberian notion that Puritanism is coeval with the deepening of capitalism; as will be discussed at length in the next chapter, the intermediate classes have been amongst the most devoted followers of the religious parties which reflects the close relationship between capitalist modernization (within a specific cultural milieu) and the rise of religious orthodoxy. 143 watching explicitly sexual representations of women on TV is not considered an aberration. 248 This inference was corroborated at virtually all of the urban fieldwork sites although less so in rural areas. In particular, almost all members of the subordinate classes invoked the lack of Islam as the major explanation for social ills and problems. When probed further about the specific problems that they faced in their own lives/homes, respondents inevitably mentioned unemployment, inflation and the lack of basic amenities such as health and education. They remained convinced that these problems would be solved through the imposition of Sharia 't, because Islam is perceived to be mukammal zabta hayat. 249 When informants were asked exactly how 'Shariatisation' constituted a meaningful response to their everyday problems, they admitted that there may not be a link at all. They further acknowledged that the religio-political movements - or their particular brand of politics - did not necessarily offer a coherent alternative to the unsatisfactory state of affairs at present, but that they also saw no other option. 25o The inference that can be drawn from this anecdotal example is that the distinctive feature of the Zia period was the elimination of a meaningful politics of class and its replacement by a religious political idiom which literally boxed working people into accepting a worldview whereby the only solutions to social injustice were religious ones. Naturally then religio-political movements acquired more and more influence whereas secular political organisations that demanded class solutions to class problems were subjected to intense state repression. 248 Nelson (2008) has also touched upon this duality by showing that rural Punjabis are keen to be seen as committed to the Islamic law of inheritance. yet in their engagements with politicians regularly attempt to bypass the same law. For a more general account of this dynamic, see Pasha (1992: 124): '[The] basic paradoxes between the dictates of accumulation and the compulsions of establishing a moral order may well produce a bizarre mixture of self-righteousness and hypocrisy.' 249 Literally: a complete code for how to live one's life. The JI's literature presents an ethical system (ikhlaqi); a political system (syasi); a societal system (maashrati); an economic system (iqtasadi); and a spiritual system (rohani) as the various dimensions of the Islamic code. 250 There was a considerable difference across region and locale. For example, there was much more inclination towards the sharia't as a guide to political life in Charsadda, almost none in Badin, and only rhetorically in rural Okara. In most urban areas including amongst female students on university campuses and housewives, the imperative of sharia'tisation was most pressing. 144 In trying to understand the various dimensions of this phenomenon, it is important again to reiterate the differences between rural and urban areas. Naturally the impact of Islamisation was much more acute in urban areas, particularly because it was the burgeoning mass political culture based in the cities and small towns that the military junta wanted to arrest. While Kurin (1985) suggests that the impact of Islamisation on rural areas of Punjab has been limited, there is little question that in the two decades since the end of the Zia dictatorship, with the increasing exposure of rural areas to urban influences, both through Gulf migrants and popular culture more generally, puritan versions of Islam are increasingly more common in the rural social formation. Insofar as particularly intolerant notions of religious orthodoxy have made inroads into the wider society, there is a great deal of variation across different regions. The north and central regions of Punjab as well as many parts of the NWFP have been sending migrants to the Arab Middle East for three decades, one of the more conspicuous results of which has been a tendency towards orthodoxy along the lines of Wahabbi Islam. Small-town Punjab, large parts of the NWFP and Pakhtun- speaking areas of Balochistan are also the major recruiting grounds for jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, which suggests that while there has been an impetus generated by migrations and other societal forces, the state's role in promoting orthodoxy remains centra1. 251 If there is one group which has a deeper historical link to religious orthodoxy and militancy it is the Pakhtuns, particularly those of the tribal areas (cf Ahmed, 1986).252 Amongst the ethnic Baloch, 'the most salient collective function of the faith seems to be as a mortar, temporarily applied to chinks in the political edifice during crisis situations' (Pastner, 1996; p. 177). On the whole, 'Islamisation' was a crucial component of the politics of common sense because any form of genuine resistance was typically suppressed under the pretext that it was un-Islamic. So for example the land reform agenda that remained very 251 It was in these regions that madrassahhs sprung up in dramatic fashion following the end of the Bhutto period. During the Zia regime the government provided unprecedented support to seminaries, giving them zakat funds, employment opportunities after their education, and other such measures (Nasr, 2001: 142-3). While it would be erroneous to attribute the proliferation ofjihadi tendencies solely to madrassahhs, there is no doubt a close correlation between the rise in militancy and parochial madrassahh education. For more on this topic see Hussain (2007). 252 For a discussion of the process though which secular Pakhtun nationalism has come to be challenged by political Islam as the dominant political idiom in Pakhtun areas, see laffrelot (2002). 145 prominent through the end of the Bhutto period was almost completely banished from the public realm in 1981 when the Zia-created Federal Shariat Court ruled that land reform was un-Islamic. The religio-political movements then proceeded to popularise this ruling, preaching that those demanding redistribution of land were actually defying divine injunction. The fact that land reforms are 'un-Islamic' remains the biggest impediment to reviving a political movement for redistribution of land. As mentioned in earlier chapters, the politics of common sense is a combination of coercion and consent; once it became untenable for the subordinate classes to challenge the state and propertied classes for fear of being deemed 'un-Islamic', their resort to patronage politics was almost inevitable. Having said this, it is important not to understate the cynical duality in public and private life in the name of Islam - as subsequent chapters show, the subordinate classes remain agents capable of transcending the fear and cynicism associated with the politics of common sense. However, as discussed below, not only has Islam functioned as a de-mobilisational tool, religio-political movements have also coopted the populist mantle from secular forces. The maulvp53 and the culture of politics In trying to understand the nature and forms of religious orthodoxy that exist across the social formation, and more specifically the politics to which this orthodox tendency has given rise, the role of the maulvi must be discussed at some length. Importantly, in the prototypical village unit that has been associated with the Muslim regions of the colonial and post-colonial subcontinent, the maulvi was considered a kammi, or member of a non-agricultural caste with little claim to the productive output of the community, and for all intents and purposes, a political non-entity (cf Ahmad, 1977; Ahmed, 1986).254 The maulvi was respected as an important part of the village community and was looked after accordingly, but did not occupy anything near the kind of political influence or clout that has become associated with the ulema 253 Here maulvi refers to any of the functionaries of religious institutions, although primarily, the khatib im.am (prayer leader) and qari of . . . Indeed dunng fIeldwork amongst patwarzs and tehstldars 1ll Okara It was found that the typIcal girdawri (revenue record) lists down the maulvi as a kammi. 146 parties in post-partition Pakistan. 255 In contrast, the pir of the area was the symbol of spiritual and political authority (cf Lyon, 2002: 205-219). As suggested above, religious orthodoxy has become more pronounced in parts of the rural social formation over the past three decades, primarily on account of the increased penetration of the state into the hitherto private sphere. However, this has not necessarily increased the power of the maulvi in the prototypical village, at least in villages that I studied, and particularly in Okara and Badin. 256 During periods when a genuine politics of resistance comes to the fore, the maulvi is particularly conspicuous by his anonymity and on occasion will openly denounce those who appear to dissent against the ideology of the state. The pir - on account of his power as intermediary between the popular classes and the state rather than anything else - remains the primary symbol of spiritual authority. Religious sanction remains important, but this sanction is not exercised by the maulvi. As a general rule politics is still largely faction-based and guided by the logic of patronage, although political forms and practices have evolved in accordance with the emergence of new contenders for power. To the extent that the maulvi participates in politics, he is guided by the established logic of seeking out patrons, or in a very few cases, himself acting as a patron for weaker members of the village community. The sociological differences between the prototypical village and the small town are considerable. The small town is a product of the enormous social changes that have taken place in the modernizing belts of the country. It has emerged for the most part in and around major agricultural regions, as a centre for the secondary and tertiary production activities associated with the agrarian economy. This phenomenon will be 255 The oral narratives regarding maulvis in Badin and Okara are testament to the popular consensus over the maulvi's social and political position. Among the many latifas (popular tales) that are commonplace in and around the village environment, a surprisingly large number revolve around the maulvi's morality. In particular, the recurring theme is the maulvi's inherent moral fallibility; ordinary members of society are not considered any less morally upright than the maulvi. The state's sponsorship of religiosity since the late 1970s has actually challenged this popular perception by according to the maulvi an elevated moral position in the social formation and the attendant right to strike fear into people's hearts by questioning their morality. 256 It is true however that in Charsadda, the local maulvi's political power has increased considerably, on account of direct state sponsorship of jihad and the attendant material and institutional support provided to religious groups patronized. Yet Charsadda is still not a major stronghold of the religio- political movements, and remains the political heartland of secular Pakhtun nationalism. In other parts of NWFP and to a lesser extent in Pakhtun-dominated parts of Balochistan, the religious impact has been much more acute. 147 discussed at greater length in the following chapter, however, for the purposes of the present discussion it suffices to say that the small town lends itself to a very different role for the maulvi, and therefore for religious politics, than in the prototypical village. The economic, political and cultural institutions that exist in Okara and Charsadda cities are somewhat representative of the broader trend?57 In particular, the maulvi typically has autonomous sources of income and direct links to politically influential national or regional political groupings and is therefore able to articulate an independent, and often militant, political voice. For example it was observed that the majority of mosques and madrassahhs in both Okara and Charsadda cities were affiliated - often informally - to bigger political parties such as the Jamia't-e-Ulama- e-Islam and the Jamaa't-e-Islami. In Okara the militant Sipaha Sahaba also supports a handful of mosques. In addition, the maulvi often enjoys the direct patronage of the emergent intermediate classes - the most regular source of volunteer donations for virtually all mosques and madrassahhs in both cities are local shopkeepers and traders. 258 The role of the maulvi in the big cities is also fundamentally dissimilar to that of the maulvi in the prototypical village. As in the case of the small town maulvi, the big city maulvi enjoys autonomous sources of material and political support whether through affiliation with one of the mainstream religious political parties or through well developed networks of patronage that extend well beyond the country's borders. 259 Importantly these networks have expanded dramatically over the past thirty years and have given rise to a culture of politics that is based on strict discipline and the inculcation of fear amongst the subordinate classes. Crucially, these networks are dependent on state patronage. 257 As Harriss-White (2003) asserts very clearly in the case of small-town India, and as will be corroborated in the Pakistani case in the next chapter, this does not mean that institutions such as caste, biraderi and the like are not operative, but just that they are articulated in a very different manner than they are in the prototypical insular village unit. 258 However this does not mean that these donations comprise the largest source of funding to the mosques and madrassahhs - institutionalized funding is common although very rarely wiII any masjid khatib or madrassahh caretaker disclose their sources. In the couple of cases where any information was disclosed, informants indicated that they received considerable funds from Saudi Arabia (in both cases the mosque was affiliated with the Ahl-e-Hadith school). 259 Nasr (2002) painstakingly shows how the Iranian revolution triggered a series of reactions that saw both the central government and then Saudi Arabia funding Sunni militancy to offset the Iranian support to Shi'a movements in Pakistan. 148 Importantly, even though the maulvi in urban areas has different sources of patronage, the fact remains that the faction-based model of politics remains unchanged. It should be clear that the position of the maulvi within the vertical patronage chain is very different across urban and rural locales; the maulvi in urban areas simply uses the networks to which he has access to gain greater proximity to state power, all the while spewing out rhetoric about the need to challenge the state. The networks in small towns and the larger cities revolve around the physical institution of the mosque, and the parallel institution of the madrassahh. As suggested earlier, an incredible amount of cultural and political space was afforded to these institutions during the Zia period, coupled with the state's repression of cultural and political voices considered to be a threat to the historical bloc. Perhaps the most obvious symbol of the growing power of religious political formations is the loudspeaker through which sermons are heard well beyond the boundaries of the mosque, and through which working people are incited to political action or cowered into silence. 26o As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the religious political formations were historically concentrated in the Muhajir cities, and relied heavily on mass protests to increase their profile. Since the late 1970s, they have not only expanded their social base well beyond the Muhajir cities, but have also greatly enhanced their mobilisational infrastructure. 261 The religious parties' have replaced the radical populism of the 1960s and 1970s at least partially by relying on similar organizing methods, at least in terms of their cadre's shared sociological roots with the popular classes in communities within which they have established their core support. 262 This is a crucial factor which was invoked as central to the maulvi's growing political stature in Okara and Charsadda, and to a limited extent in Badin also. Specifically, regardless of the attitudes that may 260 The Musharraf government announced that it would be clamping down on the use of loudspeakers in mosques, but little has actually been done in this regard. See http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/08/ed.htm#3 261 Ironically, parties such as the 11 have actually lost much of their political clout in their traditional stronghold of Karachi. However, they have expanded into small towns in Punjab and the Pakhtun areas of NWFP and Balochistan bordering Afghanistan (Nasr, 1994: 90-4). 262 Ahmed (1986: 79) makes the interesting point that the populist 'mullah' 'watched and learned' from Bhutto during the 1970s and emerged as a political force only during and after this period. 149 prevail within the popular classes about maulvi's, there is a clear recognition that many of the activists of religious parties with which people come into contact are themselves from amongst the subordinate classes. This accords to the maulvi a certain legitimacy as he polemicises about the need to challenge the incumbent dominant groups. As will be pointed out in subsequent chapters, the cadre of political activists that were the engine for the politics of resistance in the late 1960s and 1970s emerged from within the popular classes, themselves politicized by the immense social change that took place during the Ayub period. As student unions in particular have been immobilized, secular political organisations have not been able to rehabilitate the organic relation between the political activist and the subordinate classes. On the other hand, the religio-political movements maintain a comprehensive infrastructure within students, young professionals and the intermediate classes that ensures that the organic link between their politics and the people is very much intact. It is important to assert again here however that this shared sociological background and the slogan of an 'anti-elite' politics does not translate into a meaningful politics of class. Instead the major pillar of the religio-political movements political discourse is a devastating cultural lambasting of western society and its 'Ladeeniat,263 which represents an effort to identify with the lifestyle of the subordinate classes whilst condemning the 'secular, westernised' elite that is depicted as the bane of Pakistan's social ills (cf Rouse, 1992). In effect, this is a continuation of the 'nativisation' logic alluded to earlier in the sense that it takes advantage of the fact that secular radicalism - including its intellectual resources - is now an alien concept to much of the social formation. The radical intelligentsia on the political left, to the extent that one exists, is socially alienated from the subordinate classes. Meanwhile the liberal intelligentsia has arguably always been elitist in its lifestyle, and, as Hasan pointed out, definitely since the late 1970s. As a result therefore, the only intellectual and political influences to which the subordinate classes are exposed come primarily from the religio-political movements. The cultural critique of 'secular westernism' is a clever ploy to maintain 263 This literally translates into irreligiosity and is typically equated with secularism. 150 the intellectual and political monopoly of the right while leaving the socio-economic structure intact. The white collar lower-middle class forms the major support of the religious parties in small towns and larger cities and is essentially conservative both culturally and politically.264 Then there is the prototypical madrassahh student that typically hails from a rural background and is drawn to the madrassahh in some cases because of need and in others because this appears to parents to be the most viable option for education. More generally, as Nasr (2001: 15) points out, the religious parties cultivate the allegiance of 'the intellectual "counter-elite", shopkeepers and small merchants tied to the petite bourgeoisie; and the unemployed youth and the poor'. The idiom of religious politics has become increasingly appealing to these disparate constituencies at an ideological level. Moreover the religious organizations are easily accessible and represent a means of social mobility - both politically and otherwise - because they are closely linked to the state and/or international networks, and therefore to their resources. 265 Importantly however, there appears to be a difference in the extent to which the idiom of the religio-political movements is taken seriously by the three major social groups that constitute their core support. The intermediate classes tend to be much more 'street smart' in the sense that they, like the religious parties themselves, employ populist rhetoric with no intention of challenging the incumbent power structure, hoping simply to acquire greater access to the state themselves. On the other hand, the 'counter-elite' and the very poor tend to be far more committed to the vision of an alternative Islamic order. While the 'counter-elite' do not necessarily suffer for this commitment, it is the very poor that can be seen as the major losers of the cynical use of religion as a means of addressing what is fundamentally a question of class. 264 Here the lower-middle class may include elements from the intermediate classes that will be discussed in the next chapter. However fieldwork indicated that this class overlaps to a large degree with Alavi's lower salariat, typically suffers from a sense of rootlessness, and is attracted to the moralistic discourse of the maulvi. Zaman (1998: 709) makes the compelling argument that 'the emergence of sectarian organizations has responded to the search of many people - including, but not only, returning labour migrants from abroad, for an urban religious identity, which would accompany, and perhaps facilitate, their quest for a middle-class status'. 265 For a more general perspective on the cadres and constituents of religio-politicaI movements, see Ahmad (2006: 189). 151 So, for instance, while issues such as poverty and illiteracy are part of the religio- political movements' rhetorical repertoire, the focus of their politics - both in and out of power - remains explicitly 'Islamic' causes. The very poor are easily mobilised because of their acute socio-economic need, but very rarely is it the case that the religio-political movements undertake sustained campaigns to actually address class exploitation. On the whole the religious culture of politics is also promoted by self-described 'non- political' religious organizations such as the Tablihghi Jamaa't (TJ). The TJ has developed a huge network of followers, not only in Pakistan but around the world, and has a disproportionately high number of relatively well-to-do professionals in its network of devotees. It has indubitably contributed to the politicization of religion in Pakistan alongwith the more overt efforts of the religious parties (Metcalf, 2001; Mamdani, 2005: 134-5). While its lack of a formal structure precludes any attempt to quantify its impact, it can be surmised that TJ devotees also contribute money to 'Islamic' causes. 266 Importantly, 'the mullah in a Muslim society has no proselytizing function' (Ahmed, 1986: 86). In other words, the very concept of a religio-political movement in which the maulvi effectively plays the role of political organizer does not have a formal Islamic mandate. The maulvi in principle is supposed to simply fulfil functions such as the teaching of the quran, managing the masjid and calling and leading prayers. The maulvi as political actor is an exclusive product of the past two decades. As such it is a phenomenon that can be explained by the machinations of dominant social forces inasmuch as the state, imperialism, and the forces of the religious right were able to come together at a particular conjuncture in Pakistan's history and literally create a brand of politics that suited their needs. 267 The peculiar dialectic of socio- 266 Madrassahhs receive a startling amount of money through private donations from individuals and more institutionalized sources as well. ICG (2002: 14) claims that this amount approximates US$1.5 billion a year whereas Hussain (2007: 86) suggests that 94% of all charitable donations made by Pakistanis go to religious institutions. 267 That having been said, over the past three decades scores of militant religio-political movements have exploded into the political mainstream across the Muslim world. All of them claim to draw their inspiration from scriptural sources. They are, however, very modem in their logic and practice and mold their ideology to the political conditions within which they operate. Many of them, particularly in Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan were supported by their respective states and US imperialism at least partially to undermine secular nationalist forces (Ahmad, 2006; Mamdani, 2005). 152 economic change and cultural specificities ensured that this brand of politics forged new social spaces in which to proliferate. The politics of resistance or the politics of common sense? All told, the religious right has tried to project itself as a populist political force since the 1970s, and has to a significant degree succeeded in expanding the bases of its support, although not without considerable support from the state and external forces. Given the already considerable centrality of religion to social life, it is perhaps unsurprising that an explicit political project based on the hegemonic power of religion has had such wide-ranging cultural and political impacts. In this regard, not only has the religious right adopted the populist organizing methods of leftist and nationalist forces, it has widely coopted their slogans as well. It was pointed out at the beginning of the chapter that the UP ulema under the Raj demonstrated - to some extent and at varying times - a commitment to anti- imperialist struggle. To some extent this trend was revived by the lUI when it emerged as a mainstream political force towards the end of the 1960s. Indeed the lUI formed coalition governments with the secular, nationalist anti-imperialist National Awami Party (NAP) after the 1970 elections and for a long time ridiculed the 11 as an agent of American imperialism (cf Pirzada, 2000). However, all religio-political groups came together under the guise of the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) and consolidated their alliance with the state and imperialism during the Afghanjihad. By the end of the Zia period, with the politics of resistance largely crushed, and the PPP having reneged on its populist ideology, the religious forces projected themselves as the genuine representatives of the people, replete with the exclusively cultural critique of western modernity that is the defining feature of political Islamism (even though the latter is itself an entirely modem political construct). Anti-imperialism became the bedrock of religious politics, and resonated with the Pakhtun population in particular, disillusioned with the functional nature of American engagement in the region. Importantly the end of the Afghan war marked a distinct change in the rhetoric of the religio-political movements away from anti-communism to anti-imperialism, although conveniently both were identified with western secularism. Over time the right's claim to be the bastion of resistance to imperialism, and to a lesser extent, 153 domestic tyrants, has intensified, helped by the total lack of an alternative political force to challenge it. Indeed, respondents at all fieldwork sites, even if they did not support the religious parties themselves, greatly resented the role of the United States, and begrudgingly acknowledged that only the religious parties effectively articulated this sentiment. 268 A cursory look at the literature of religio-political movements indicates a rather superficial shift in focus towards the 'anti-imperialist' dimension. As already suggested, the emphasis of the religio-political movements has always been on the personal realm, implying the need for an Islamic state to regulate personal activity.269 In the 1980s, there was the added focus on sectarian issues, a plethora of religio- political movements competing with one another to prove their anti-Shi'a or anti- Sunni credentials as the case may be. There was, intriguingly, only a limited emphasis on the anti-communist dimension of religio-political action (cf Ahmed, 1997). While the emphasis on 'Zionist conspiracy' has always been pronounced, especially amongst Sunni sectarian organizations polemicising against Iran, it has only been in the very recent past that the popular sentiment has targeted 'Amriki Samraj'.270 The lamaa't-e-Islami in particular has attempted to depict itself as the vanguard of anti-imperialist resistance perhaps to contest the image of it pandering to imperialist interests and the military throughout the 1980s. Since the late 1990s, its monthly newsletter AI-Dawa't and a series of pamphlets very articulately posit the 'imperialist conspiracy' to destroy Islam, emphasizing as ever, a cultural critique of the 'secular western' elements within Pakistan itself. 271 As suggested above, the lamaa't has 268 Importantly however, a large number of respondents at all research sites, including in Charsadda, expressed serious skepticism about the extent to which the religious parties were posturing as opposed to seriously challenging the US and its allies in Pakistan. This again points to the fact that the religio- political movements continue to be relatively successful because of the vacuum created during the Zia ~ e a r s . 69 Ahmed (1997: 105) writes: 'Among the articles and write-ups on current affairs in the seven publications sponsored by the Jamaat-e-Islami, JUI, JUP, and JUAH during October 1984-November 1987, 33 percent of them were on issues pertaining to personal morality and only 3 percent on problems of socio-economic injustices in Pakistani society.' 270 Literally: American imperialism. 271 For example in Millat ko zilat ka samna kyoun? (Why is the Islamic nation facing humiliation?), American imperialism is identified as the root cause of Muslim suffering, and this imperialist domination is depicted as primarily cultural insofar as 'Muslim' values are being eroded by American immorality. The only difference between the present literature and that prior to the 1990s is that the secular west is now equated to American imperialism whereas in the past it was either a blanket term or implied 'godless' communism. 154 attempted to adopt a more populist political posture by identifying with subordinate class issues, but for the most part, the anti-imperialist propaganda tends to focus more on cultural and moral aspects. Meanwhile the lamia't-e-Ulema-e-Islam' s major newsletter, AI-Haqq, remains focused on its anti-Shi'a rhetoric alongside condemnation of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. This can be compared to a few years ago when there was almost an exclusive focus on the anti-Shi'a dimension. In any case, the lUI clearly favours a less intellectualized discourse than the JI, and is focused on courting Pakhtuns along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The lUI has cultivated long-term links with the Taliban (it is widely believed that much of the Taliban's top leadership, including Mullah Omar, has received training at the lamia Haqqania in Akora Khattak, the lUI's most prominent madrassahh). The lUI's more pervasive support in the Pakhtun border areas was reflected in the 2002 election in which it won more national assembly seats than the JI, mostly in constituencies bordering Afghanistan. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, a pattern has existed since the early years of the country's existence whereby the religious right spearheaded the often frenzied public dissent in cities in the name of defending Islam. This state of affairs has intensified over the past three decades and the 'defence of Islam' motif is the dominant expression of 'street power,?72 In many cases, issues are quite trivial. In recent times for example there have been protests organized against the removal of the religion column from the passport and the alleged manipulation of the educational curriculum by Aga Khanis. Media projection and the urban-centric nature of the mainstream political discourse at large ensures that such protests stand out within the social formation, largely because no other political force explicitly espouses such concerns. That having been said, it is important to consider just how much popular support the religious parties actually do enjoy and whether in fact their 'Islamist politics of resistance' is not actually more accurately described as a constitutive part of the politics of common sense. On the one hand the religious parties have seen an increase 272 The emergence of a massive street movement led by lawyers in March 2007 which espoused secular concerns marks a significant break with the prevailing trend. 155 in their profile in recent times because of the global discourse of 'anti-terrorism', which has apparently made Huntington's 'clash of civilisations' into a self-fulfilling prophecy. To be sure, Muslims around the world believe that their community is being targeted and this has, in the absence of other clearly anti-imperialist politics, has allowed the religious right in countries like Pakistan greater political and social space than at any other time in the recent past (cf Akhtar, 2006a). At the same time however, this chapter has outlined how the increased social and political space for the right is a product of the machinations of the state and imperialism since the 1970s. In practical terms, beyond the epic invocations of Muslim unity, the religious right has not challenged the system of power that prevails in Pakistan, and has, in fact, reinforced it in some very basic ways. Particularly in the small towns of Punjab, the right has been a full participant in factional and patronage- based politics, relying on the use of parochial identities and the promise of access to the state. 273 As mentioned earlier, in Okara there is a close link between the intermediate classes and active religio-political movements, both tending to represent themselves as 'oppositional' forces while all the time attempting only to gain access to the state. Their engagements with the subordinate classes are little more than attempts to expand their network of clients by providing preferential access to the thana, katcheri and so on. In Charsadda there is more of an emphasis amongst the religio-political movements on the fact that they represent the common man in opposition to the khans (landed notables) of the area. This is borne out in practice by the fact that the other two major political formations, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan People's Party - Sherpao (PPP-S) tend to be representative of incumbent landed families. However, in the final analysis, the religio-political movements essentially offer to the subordinate classes an alternative means to access the state rather than a programme for challenging the politics of common sense. 273 The most widely quoted example of the rise of the religio-political movements in small-town Punjab is that of the Sipaha Sahaba in Jhang which has garnered support amongst the Sunni intermediate classes in opposition to Shi'a landed notables (cfNasr, 2002; Zaman 1998). 156 More generally, even though religious forces in the NWFP enjoy a comparative advantage because of the more deeply rooted traditions of religio-political movements, links to the state have been crucial in establishing a political constituency. The example of the six-party religious alliance that was in government between 2002 and 2007, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) is important in this regard. State power was used to reward stalwarts of the alliance, as well as the constituencies that the MMA viewed as being central to its electoral victory.274 Among the favours issued by the government to its constituents were the widespread induction of individuals into state employment, issuing of road and other construction contracts and even the import of duty free vehicles. The MMA government, regardless of its pretensions, made no meaningful attempt to restructure political and economic institutions in the province, and the implementation of an 'Islamic' social order was limited to the banning of music in public transport vehicles and the removal of billboards depicting women.275 Indeed, the experience of the religio-political movements in government has eroded their own claim to being morally and culturally superior to the 'ladeeni elite' that is the target of their polemic. In the past, their image of being from within the people and opposed to the 'decadent lifestyles' of dominant social groups was preserved by the very fact that they remained largely distant from state power. Even during the Zia regime, the 11 was formally part of government for a relatively short period of time. During the MMA' s time in power, the image of the state as the repository of power and an 'amoral' distributor of patronage was reinforced and the religious parties became associated with the 'dirty' politics from which, as will be shown in the next two chapters, the subordinate classes have become deeply alienated. Yet the idiom of Islam remains at the forefront of Pakistani politics, and indeed is invoked by all and sundry as the ultimate fountainhead of good government. As has been suggested here, Islam has always been central to political discourse. However, with the emergence of the religious parties as the default vanguard of Islam since the late 1970s and the state's attendant formal and informal delegation of power to the 274 Since Charsadda remains one of the bastions of Pakhtun nationalist as opposed to religious parties, there has been less 'rewarding' oflocal constituents by MNAs, MPAs and the like. 275 There was an attempt to introduce the so-called 'Hasba Act' in 2006 which proposed a comprehensive program of 'Shariatisation' but the act was never passed and public debate over the Bill eventually dissipated. See http://www.dawn.coml2007/01/23/nat3.htm 157 maulvi (which has given the latter the right to dictate morality in the public and private spheres), the religio-political movements have acquired great power to shape the public discourse. As part of an expanded historical bloc, the religio-political movements have reinforced the notion that the state's official ideology is nothing less than the defence of Islam. Ultimately this state of affairs is a reflection of the hegemonic impulse that the religion card continues to have in Pakistan. As suggested earlier, within the wider social formation, the fear of appearing un-Islamic, or at least not suitably Islamic, is widespread and has been a major factor in institutionalizing the politics of common sense. If on the one hand the Zia regime increased 'vernacular interests' access to the state, on the other it also demobilized the very politicized subordinate classes by using the hegemonic power of religion and backing this up with the coercive force of the state apparatus. The' Arabisation' of many migrant villages, the effects of jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and an emergent cash economy in peri-urban and rural areas dominated by intermediate classes with a commitment to Islamist politics have been the parallel societal impulses to the state-led project. At this point it is worth bearing in mind that this strategy has not effectively eliminated the politics of resistance (as will be discussed in Chapter 9), even if it has given rise to a parallel claimant to a people-centred politics that features defiance of 'imperialism' and 'tyranny'. If and when the subordinate classes have challenged state, corporate or propertied class power, there has been a direct attempt to coopt any potential radicalism, more often than not under the guise of adopting a more righteous, 'Islamic' approach. On the one hand this has meant attempting to mobilize and recruit for jihad. On the other hand however, as discussed above, there has been a penetration of the student and trade union movements. The fact that the parties of the religious right are now the most 'popUlist' political option available to the popular classes ensures that they are at the forefront of every major political mobilization, although in almost no case has the right attempted to truly challenge status quo. In the final analysis, the important theoretical conclusion to emerge from the discussion in this chapter has to do with the state's penetration into the social formation at an intensely personal level and importantly in a sphere that was 158 previously unregulated. In the Ziaist project, the religio-political movements played a crucial role because they became the newest intermediary between the popular classes and the state, sometimes displacing traditional intermediaries but more often than not, taking over the limited but growing political space occupied by counter-hegemonic forces. Notwithstanding the ongoing and potential fallouts of the post-Bhutto project, the oligarchy and other members of the historical bloc have successfully employed Islam to undermine the politics of resistance while at the same time featuring as a crucial component of the politics of common sense. 159 Chapter 8 The Intermediate Classes: Deepening of capitalism Alavi's major blindspot was in limiting his analysis to dominant social forces and the state oligarchy. On the one hand the obvious response to this oversight is to analyze the politics of the subordinate classes which is the subject of the next chapter. However, on account of the tremendous changes that have taken place across the social formation in the past 40 years, a new social force, namely the 'intermediate classes', has emerged and demands separate attention. In his later writings, Alavi acknowledges the role of what he calls 'mandi merchants' in the anti-Bhutto PNA movement, and also expounds on their links with the landed class (Alavi, 1990). However his exposition is very limited; in particular he does not consider what in my understanding is the defining role of the intermediate classes, namely their emergence as arguably the most crucial cog of the politics of common sense. Intensely ruthless and upwardly mobile, the intermediate classes have succeeded in coopting large segments of the subordinate classes into vertical patronage chains that culminate in the state. For the most part this thesis has been argued that the state, and more broadly, the historical bloc - as a set of institutional and class interests - still remains the repository of power in a society which is characterized by pervasive relationships of patronage. Hasan argues that 'the manner in which the Pakistan state is structured and governed, the manner in which its fiscal system operates, and developed in conceived, managed and implemented, does not reflect the changed demographic, social, cultural and economic realities (Hasan, 2002b: 7). In Chapter 3 I engaged with Cheema's claim that the state changed qualitatively in the 1980s and became 'weaker' in comparison to the 1960s (Cheema, 2003). Addleton (1992) argues in a similar vein that the gulf migrations of the 1970s and 1980s seriously undermined the state's ability to centralize economic decision-making. Cheema and Addleton improve upon Hasan's insights insofar as they acknowledge that the state's cohesiveness and administrative authority has been compromised by the deepening of capitalism within the social formation, and more specifically by the rapid emergence of an unorganizedlinformal economy that is decentralized and 160 operates largely outside the ambit of the formal state structure. On the face of it, this would seem to be a fairly robust argument. Indeed, in many parts of the post-colonial world, capitalist expansion has been of an entirely different order than in the industrial societies of the west and has been coeval with a breakdown of the formal state. 276 However, this thesis argues that, though the empirics of capital accumulation in the unorganized sector as posited by Cheema, Hasan and Addleton are largely indisputable, the politics of the process has been such that the state has not been weakened, but has in fact negotiated change in such a manner as to consolidate its power. In other words, given that my concern is with the actual exercise of power, what Cheema and Addleton refer to as the fragmentation and weakening of the state has featured the institutionalization of a patronage-heavy politics that has insulated the oligarchy and dominant classes from counter-hegemonic challenges. This chapter seeks to take this point of view further by discussing at length the rise of the intermediate classes, whom, as will be seen, are based primarily in the unorganized/informal economy, and who have been a major force in all substantive political realignments since the late 1960s. The intermediate classes are internally differentiated across urban and rural; organized and unorganized; and wage labour and self-employed categories. My use of the term draws on the empirical work of Harriss-White (2002) in India, but there would appear to be a parallel between the intermediate classes and what Zaidi (2005a), Hasan (2002b) and others have very vaguely described as the middle classes that have gradually acquired political and economic power from the period starting with the Green Revolution of the 1960. This chapter will flesh out the argument proposed previously in Chapter 5 that the intermediate classes have been a major constitutive force in fashioning the politics of common sense under the Zia regime and subsequently.277 At this juncture it is important to make a distinction between 'popular' and 'subordinate' classes. Throughout the thesis I have implied a fairly subtle difference between these two ideal-types; the popular classes comprise both the intermediate 276 For a discussion on such processes in Africa see Bayart et. al (1999) on crirninalization of the state. 277 However it is important to bear in mind that because of the variegated nature of the intermediate classes, it would be inaccurate to suggest that all fractions have been equally coopted by the state, the argument that Zaidi (2005b) forwards. 161 classes as well as the subordinate classes. My argument is that while the popular classes were at the forefront of the politics of resistance through the Bhutto period, an increasingly complex - and international - division of labour created new opportunities for social mobility and thus precipitated the emergence and consolidation of the intermediate classes. Towards the end of the Bhutto period, the political alignments of the intermediate classes had changed substantively and their interests had become qualitatively different from that of the subordinate classes. Crucially, because the market relationship between the millions that have graduated into the ranks of the intermediate classes and the subordinate classes was articulated in a heavily personalized manner, the former became a crucial component of the vertical patronage politics that reemerged with renewed force during the Zia period. Typologies and histories The variously defined intermediate classes are a popular ideal-type in radical theorizing about the post-colonial state. As mentioned in the introductory chapter, the majority of theoretical treatises in the 1970s and 1980s viewed the post-colonial state as the preserve of the petty or bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This was the class that, as a rule, was not involved in the processes of production and from which emerged the functionaries of the state, professionals and managers (cf Johnson, 1985). As already pointed out in Chapter 3, Harnza Alavi attempted to account for one segment of this class which he considered an auxillary class and named the salariat. The shortcomings of the seminal neo-Marxist approaches to understanding the state have already been outlined here. In this chapter, while acknowledging the existence and continued importance of the segments of the intermediate classes that have historically played a significant role as post-colonial state managers, the emphasis is on the new elements within the intermediate classes, which are a product of the changing structure of the social formation due to the invasion of capital. Primarily these distinct sociological groups have emerged with the progressive mechanization of agriculture and development of agro-processing industries in the urbanizing areas around the agriculture plains of the Punjab (and to a considerably lesser extent Sindh). There is also the massive impact of the Gulf migrations that started in the early 1970s (cf Addleton, 1992). These developments have had considerable multiplier effects that 162 will be discussed here, many of which are represented by the commensurate expansion of the trader and small entrepreneur class in urban centres. As mentioned briefly in Chapter 5, there has also been a major structural shift in the economy towards the service sector. In terms of official figures, the sector accounts for more than half of GDP, and is where approximately 40% of the total labour force is based (GoP, 2007). However, arguably the most crucial feature of the new intermediate classes is their structural position outside formal accounting mechanisms, and ostensibly beyond the reach of the formal state. The figures on the extent of economic activity that takes place outside the formal economy are variable though at least 50% of output appears to be generated by the 'underground' economy (Kemal, 2003).278 In any case, in neighbouring India - which provides a reasonably good indicator of the state of affairs in Pakistan - upwards of 80% of economic activity is based in the unaccounted sector of the economy (Harriss-White, 2003: 4). The prevailing narrative about the 'new' intermediate classes starts with the Green Revolutions of the 1960s. However, it is worth taking seriously the point made by Addleton (1992) about the mobility of labour in the northwest of India even during the colonial period, a phenomenon explained largely by the social engineering experiments conducted by the Raj, particularly canal colonization in Punjab. At partition and immediately afterwards, migrations of unprecedented magnitude once again altered the face of the social formation, and it can be argued that the 'aggressively upwardly mobile migrant culture' had a major bearing on the emergent forms of politics and broader social norms (Hasan, 2002b: 8)?79 Thus while the Green Revolution may have accelerated socio-economic change and more specifically heralded the emergence of the intermediate classes as a major political and economic force within the social formation, it is important to recognize that this was to a large extent a cumulative process. 280 278 The information on the informal economy is generally sparse; most of the information is qualitative rather than quantitative. 279 See also Burki (1980) who claims that the modem, urban proclivities of migrants have had a tremendous impact on state and society. 280 As pointed out earlier, there is a need to distinguish between intermediate classes involved in different sectors of the economy; the more prominent of the pre-partition and immediate post-partition migrants may have been part of the salariat, however a fair number took over traditional business, moneylending and tertiary agrarian occupations from departing Hindu and Sikh migrants. 163 As has been documented by many scholars (cf Zaidi, 2005a; Sayeed, 1995), through the 1950s and 1960s, both socio-economic change from below and the manipulations of the state encouraged the rise of a middle class, based in and around the agrarian economy, that competed with the traditional propertied classes - and particularly the landed class - for economic and political clout. Toward the end of the 1960s period this middle class, particularly in the small towns of Punjab, emerged to playa major role in the popular movement that ended the Ayubian dictatorship. As such it was the popular classes that swept the PPP to power, but it can easily be argued that it was the emergent intermediate classes that were the most vocal element of the broad cross-section of forces that together constituted the vast popUlist wave (Akhtar and Mohmand, 2007)?81 The regime's downfall reflected the inherent contradictions that were produced by its own modernization policies and the fact that the prevailing 'political settlement' dominated by traditional matrices of patronage could not accommodate the popular classes that were clamouring for a greater share of the economic and political pie (Sayeed, 1995: 86_90).282 However, as has been hinted at in earlier chapters, upon assuming the reins of government, the PPP tended to reinforce the state-centric model of political accommodation rather than making a rupture that would build upon the politics of resistance and thus give rise to a fundamentally new socio-economic structure in which the principles of patronage and bureaucratic paternalism were no longer dominant. Thus the focus was on using state patronage to meet the fierce demands of the intermediate classes, whether through induction into state enterprises, nationalization or other similar means that reestablished the hegemony of state power rather than undercut it (cfNoman, 1988: 80; Sayeed, 1995: 94-5). It is important to distinguish between the politics of patronage that existed in the pre- Bhutto period with that which emerged under the PPP regime. The former can be 281 Burki and Baxter (1975) used election data to prove that the PPP vote in 1970 was the highest in the more urbanized parts of Punjab which had become the base of the new intermediate classes that were searching out new forms of politics to represent their aspirations for upward social mobility. 282 In this regard, Jones (2003: 205) writes: 'Bhutto's genius lay first in perceiving that the people's aspirations were nationalist, participatory, and economic, not revolutionary, and secondly in understanding the implications of their massive voting power'. 164 considered 'traditional' insofar as it reflected the social hierarchies of a predominantly rural social formation. In other words, patronage was distributed by the state via landed incumbents to economic dependents on the basis of ascriptive ties - the colonial model. With the rapid changes in the Indus Plains through the 1960s, a distinctly new dynamic of patronage emerged as relatively independent intermediate classes emerged to demand direct access to the state. It was this class that was at the forefront of the populist upsurge against Ayubian martial law and continued to press its demands under the PPP government. Crucially however, the PPP regime was able to coopt only the salariat segment within the intermediate classes 283 , while traders, merchants and those associated with secondary and tertiary production in the agricultural sector were never fully integrated into the 'overdeveloping' state machinery, a task that the Zia regime would make into a priority. 284 It was thus that this increasingly alienated element within the intermediate classes became the major lightning rod of anti-PPP sentiment, aligning itself with the PNA movement, providing it with funds, and also galvanizing other disparate groups in the social formation into the anti-Bhutto movement. The brave new world As has been asserted at various points in this thesis already, the Zia regime was confronted with the need to reconstruct a viable alliance of forces that were committed to oligarchic rule, and would both back state coercion and participate fully in establishing the hegemonic politics of common sense. Chapter 5 outlined the vertical patronage relationships that developed between the intermediate classes in the emergent informal (both manufacturing and service) economy and the state, manifest most obviously in the phenomenon of local body elections, but also progressively through provincial and national assembly elections as the intermediate classes graduated into the ranks of big industrialists. 285 283 Even this group was not coopted entirely, public school and college teachers in particular aligning themselves with the anti-Bhutto movement. 284 This was in spite of the relative bias shown by the PPP regime towards small-scale industry, and therefore, by extension, the trading and merchant classes (Zaidi, 2005a: 150). 285 Of course the intermediate classes also offered those below them in the patronage chain access to the 'everyday state' regardless of whether the former was directly inducted into government through elections. 165 Crucially for the purposes of this chapter, this patronage relation was one that started at the level of the subordinate classes and culminated in the state (through the individuals and factions that were able to access it through elections or otherwise). It was the intermediate classes that played the indispensable role of giving the oligarchy and propertied classes a link to the subordinate classes,. and a means of imposing the politics of common sense on top of and eventually displacing, the politics of resistance that had vied for hegemony in the preceding period. 286 The intermediate classes were able to play this role because they emerged from within the subordinate classes, and because the informal economy - which is where most of the subordinate classes are located - is characterized by highly personalized links. In a majority of cases encountered during fieldwork, those who became traders, merchants, contractors and the like were sons of tenants, industrial workers and self-employed street vendors. 287 Arguably the qualitatively most crucial dimension of this process was the Gulf migration which started during the Bhutto period, the impacts of which became clear during the Zia period. There is a clear consensus among writers on the subject that remittances from migrants have had a major bearing on the economy at large and considerably improved migrant families' economic and social status. 288 The basic explanation is a simple one: the earnings of migrants in the Gulf - at least in the initial years of the 1970s - was eight to ten times higher than at home and thus pushed migrant families into an higher income bracket, allowing them to break out of dependent economic relationships and acquire a new found economic and social freedom (Addleton, 1992: 23). 286 In some ways, the new intermediate classes were adopting the role played exclusively by the landed class in the predominantly rural social formation over which the British, and in the early years following the creation of Pakistan, the historical bloc ruled. Given the immense socio-economic changes that had given rise to new social forces and to a far more urbanized society more generally, it was inevitable that new intermediaries would emerge to complement and in some cases, to displace the old ones. 287 This is less true of the arhti in the agrarian economy. 288 It is impossible to get a sense of the actual magnitude of remittances because a large number of migrants use the so-called hundi system to send money home. Official remittances exceeded US$2 billion per annum for the first three years of the 1980s which was more than official aid receipts (Tsakok, 1986). In the ten years between 1977 and 1987 more than US$20 billion was remitted through official channels (Zaidi, 2005a: 503). 166 Naturally this economic and social freedom had significant impacts on political alignments. For example, the traditional kammi in a prototypical village unit that had acquired an income source outside the village was no longer confined to subordinate status to the zamindar, and could therefore seek out new political intermediaries to access the state?89 As pointed out in Chapters 4 and 5, what was termed the new rural middle class itself developed links with the state to compete with old landed intermediaries. To better understand the politics of this new middle class it is essential to identify the multiplier effects of remittance incomes. Addleton (1992), Zaidi (2005a) and Lefebvre (1999) among others point out that beneficiaries of remittances tend towards consumption rather than savings, although a large majority of them do make some basic investment in house construction. As a result, the construction industry boomed throughout the 1980s alongwith transport and communications. Meanwhile the majority of migrants sought to set up small businesses or invest further in already existing family enterprises, and while not all were able to do so, considerable impetus was provided to small-scale industry as a result. At least part of this impetus was demand-driven and export-oriented as light consumer durables had a market amongst migrants in the Middle East. On the one hand this relative and decentralized prosperity amongst a large number of families from the subordinate classes was a major cause of political stability under the Zia regime because the upward mobility following from the Gulf migrations ensured that there was little reason for beneficiaries to participate in agitation (cf Sayeed, 1995: 103).290 However there were more deep-seated consequences of the new sources of wealth. Consumerism and a penchant for showing off wealth increased markedly, especially insofar as the possession of expensive new goods was a means of 289 Lefebvre's (1999: 166-8) study of migration impacts in two villages of northern Punjab highlights that this new-found 'freedom' can also be a double-edged sword insofar as zamindars jealous of their hitherto unchallenged superiority react against kammis seen to be rebelling against the traditional social order. Amongst kammis that have not prospered in any meaningful way change invokes melancholic feelings for the traditional social order which is perceived to have guaranteed mutual security for zamindar and kammi alike. 290 Importantly, the geographical spread of the migrants had a heavy bearing on the nature of opposition during the Zia period. Most tellingly, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD), the most potent resistance movement during the Zia period remained confined to rural Sindh, which was not a beneficiary of the Gulf migrations. On the other hand, the NWFP and Punjab supplied the vast majority of migrants and accordingly only scattered expressions of resistance emerged in these regions. The Punjab example is particularly interesting as it was the same urbanizing regions of Punjab that constituted the heartland of populism in the preceding decade. 167 increasing 'izzat', or what could be called symbolic capital. At the same time the influx of money played a part in breaking down traditional family structures as it was not necessarily the case that a brother earning money from abroad (or another exogenous source) would share this equally with his other brothers (Lefebvre, 1999: 209_214).291 The process of atomization at the level of the family took place at a much more extensive level too. As indicated already, there was a fiercely aggressive and individualistic class of traders and merchants in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the agrarian economy that had made its presence felt in the PNA movement. The major expansion of the economy associated with the Gulf migrations added to the ranks of this class or at least precipitated linkages between the merchants and traders in small towns and bigger cities and the upwardly mobile small entrepreneur in a variety of sectors. 292 The economic ambitions of this qualitatively new sociological group were at least partially determined by its political access insofar as the success of the small enterprise required concessions from the state in terms of exemption from taxation and free or heavily subsidized use of utilities (Sayeed, 1995: 144). Ultimately these highly variegated emergent intermediate classes were, and continue to be almost exclusively concerned with developing patronage links at all levels - with the state, other groups within the patronage chain, etc. - so as to secure their interests. This highly ruthless and personalized politics is in keeping with the historical bloc's project in the post-Bhutto period. This is a process of 'nativisation' akin to that described in the previous chapter. Indeed, the intermediate classes share considerable interests with religious forces, both groups pushing themselves into an expanded historical bloc in a period when the state's preferred ideology and politics had to be reasserted firmly. It was far from a coincidence that the Zia regime patronized both the intermediate classes - as beneficiaries of the process of change that is associated with the Green Revolution, but dissatisfied with what the PPP regime offered - and the religious forces who 291 In my fieldwork in Okara and Charsadda villages, and even in the urban centres of Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, it was clear that migration continues to intensify material differences within the community and thereby contribute to the fragmentation of community ties. 292 Sayeed (1995: 139) writes: 'The important qualitative change that. .. the Bhutto interregnum brought about was to move small scale manufacturing out of exclusively agriculture servicing activities to the terrain of broader manufacturing in the larger urban agglomerations'. 168 remained the major opposition to the Bhutto government throughout. Alongside religious parties, it is the intermediate classes, particularly traders, who are the most militant defenders of Islam. 293 In the context of this thesis it is most crucial to grasp the subordinate class role in the political economy of informalisation. While the more important elements of subordinate class action will be discussed in the next chapter, a few important points can be made here. During fieldwork in numerous villages in Okara and Charsadda, I noted that in any given family in the village, there is at least one male member - and often more - that has migrated and acquired a reasonable amount of autonomous wealth. 294 Whether on account of competition or cooperation with this family member, others are also coopted into the vertical patronage logic within which the one migrant member is enmeshed. 295 At a broader level, as upwardly mobile individuals or families establish themselves in a small town or city, relatives, or members of the larger kinship group seek out the more affluent familylbiraderi members when in search of a job, financial help or access to the state. 296 Invoking a previous distinction made between the politics of patronage in the pre- Bhutto era and during the 1970s helps in reiterating the defining feature of the politics of common sense as established since the Zia period. If during the pre-Bhutto period the political alignments of the subordinate classes were determined largely by their access to traditional intermediaries such as the landed class, in the Bhutto period there emerged the promise of direct capture of the state, albeit coupled with the contradictory denial of this access if and when the regime felt it necessary. Thus in this period the politics of resistance and politics of patronage were, in a manner of speaking, in competition. The post-Bhutto period has reinforced the draconian image 293 Of the recent issues around which both traders and religious parties have mobilized extensively, the controversy surrounding the knighthood of Salman Rushdie stands out. This is because the mobilization was coeval with and in many eyes of detriment to the lawyer-led movement against the deposal of the Chief Justice which constituted a serious challenge to the military regime. 294 Migration was far less common in the case of the fishing communities in Badin. 295 This could be manifest in a variety of ways; for example other members could also want to migrate thereby seeking out means and contacts to do so; the migrant brother's successful enterprise could stimulate the desire to earn money to do likewise. 296 Okara. Charsadda, and Badin villagers looked up most to those from their village who had secured government employment in cities, or those who had set up a successful business as in both cases, these relatives could be - and often have been - a source of assistance. See also Lyon's (2002) discussion on 'Gujjarism' . 169 of the state and while there has been no reversion to the patronage logic of the pre- Bhutto period, a distinct politics of patronage - what I have called the politics of common sense - has emerged, almost completely eliminating the politics of resistance that competed for hegemony until 1977. The protagonists It has already been pointed out that the structure of the economy has changed dramatically over the past three decades, one of the results of which has been a shift in employment patterns so that the subordinate classes - for the most part - now live and work in the informal economy. For the most part, many of those involved in the provision of services do so outside the ambit of the formal economy, while a large and growing number of those still involved in agriculture are now landless wage labourers with little formal protection under the law. Similarly in the manufacturing sector, over 80% of workers are employed in small-scale enterprises, the majority of which are also in the informal economy (Sayeed, 1995: 139)?97 The government officially estimates that over 60% of workers are based in urban areas whereas close to 70% in rural areas are based in the informal economy (GoP, 2001: 21).298 What emerges from such figures, as well as the more specific accounts about the state of workers in the informal economy, is that the unique personalized market relationship between the subordinate and intermediate classes is highly exploitative and insofar as this is a patronage relation, the patron in this case is in may ways far more ruthless than, say, the traditional landlord. 299 It is worth reiterating here that all of the intermediate class actors to be discussed presently are 'new' actors insofar as they have emerged as major political and economic players in the post-Ayub period. For the purposes of this chapter what stands out about these actors is that they have helped insulate the historical bloc from counter-hegemonic challenges by dangling in front of the subordinate class actors 297 The working hours per week of workers in the informal sector are an indicator of the exploitative conditions: the selt'-employed work for 59 hours; family helpers for 61 hours, full time workers for 57 hours, casual workers for 64 hours and shagirds for 55 hours (Kemal and Mahmood, 1993: xi), 298 Khan et. al (2005) consider this an understatement as the government's accounting of the informal sector often ignores home-based workers, 299 Sayeed (1995: 142-3) makes the point that this new form of dependency extends even to consumption in that 'segmented' markets exist. In other words the subordinate classes purchase goods and services provided by the small-scale informal sector as they can not afford formal sector prices, 170 personalised means to access employment and public services. In other words it is through these intermediate class actors that the historical bloc 'touches' and effectively maintains its control over the subordinate classes. Crucially in each case it is clear that the intermediate classes derive their political influence from their access to the state, while their economic power owes itself to the deepening of capitalism. As I have asserted repeatedly, the dynamics of capital and the agency of the state are mutually interlinked. In the most comprehensive survey of urban informal enterprises (in the rather limited literature on the subject), Kemal and Mahmood (1998) demarcate four major economic sectors within which they undertake an investigation of 1500 units. The manufacturing sector is the largest, home to 50% of all informal enterprises, followed by the services sector with 20%, and the trade and transport sectors with 15% each.3oo The following section will discuss the sociological background and politics of a selected number of intermediate class actors both in urban and rural areas. I will start off with the arhti, arguably the central player in the politics of the rural cash economy. Arhti The arhti is the lynchpin of the small town agrarian sector, the biggest undocumented component of the national economy. Hasan (2002b) argues that the arhti has acquired great economic, political and more generally, social power in the Punjab and thereby spearheaded the 'unplanned revolution'. The arhti is effectively the middleman that dominates the process through which agricultural harvests reach agro-processing industries (that then produce the refined and often packaged product for domestic consumption or export overseas) as well as retailers. Arhtis therefore have a link to all staging grounds of the agrarian economy including the village, the wholesale market, the retail market, the transporters, mill owners and exporters. It is important to state at the outset that the arhti has been part of the rural market economy since the British period, and arguably even before this. Until partition however, the primary role of 'middleman' was played by the predominantly Hindu 300 The survey was conducted exclusively in big cities in all four provinces, and therefore cannot be considered representative of all urban locales. However, the typology used by Kemal and Mahmood can be usefully employed for the majority of urban contexts. 171 bania caste/class, which provided both moneylending and trading functions. 3D ! This dual role garnered great resentment for the bania amongst the peasantry and provided great impetus to the politicization of religious identities in the tumultuous last years of the Raj (cf Ansari, 2005). Importantly however, despite the bania's steadily increasing economic power, the peculiar social order that the British fashioned in the Indus Plains ensured for rural notables and state administrators a 'degree of entrenchment, of a continuum in the access of power, that those involved with trade, commerce and non-agricultural production were not able to contest' (Ali, 2001: 97). With the migration of the majority of Hindu business castes from the Pakistan areas within a few years of partition, the role of moneylender and trader was taken over by migrants, and to a lesser extent, by indigenous landed families (Alavi, 1990). Until the green revolution, the dynamics of power in the rural social formation remained largely intact, with the arhti emerging as an important but still dependent figure. Following the processes of modernization outlined above, the arhti has emerged as a major economic and political force, due to a combination of state patronage and economic modernization. In fieldwork in both Okara and Charsadda, it was established that the arhti is typically a small-time entrepreneur from the surrounding area and has become a middleman on the basis of his enterprise and political contacts. As small towns of Punjab became bigger centres of the wider agrarian economy in the period after the Green Revolution, local arhtis started to replace those from bigger markets in cities who had otherwise controlled trade and transport. 3D2 This was part of a larger emergent and highly complex network of middlemen which started at the level of the village, extended to the local mandi and onto the big city mandi. In Okara, it was clear that arhtis from Lahore had 'devolved' responsibility for the Okara mandi to local men. While it is true that the arhti more often than not hails from a non-agricultural caste, there are numerous arhtis that are associated with agricultural castes; in other words, caste background is becoming less relevant in determining one's occupation. A substantial 301 For the most authoritative study of the character of the Mughal and British rural political economy, and particularly the role of usury, see Habib (1995). 302 This process seems to be repeating itself in smaller urban settlements within Charsadda district, as local markets expand and become important centres of economic and political exchange in their own right. 172 number of the bigger arhtis in Okara hail from migrant families that took over vacant business occupations from departing Hindus and Sikhs whereas in Charsadda where there was far less in-migration, the more established arhtis hail from local landed families. 303 There are literally hundreds of arhtis in both the main Okara and Charsadda wholesale markets, most of them small-time dealers, with a handful clearly exercising extensive economic and political clout. It is these bigger arhtis that compete for control over the market and often have links to major politicians in the area, the majority of whom are either from old landed classes or have acquired land over time. 304 The relative power of different arhtis is determined by how long they have been active in the market, their links with the low bureaucracy (which is only vaguely dependent on castelbiraderi affiliations), and the size of their clientele. The first contact that the arhti has with the small farmer is as a moneylender. The process through which moneylending takes place indicates the growing complexity in market relations along personalized lines. In Okara, the small farmer often does not come into direct contact with the arhti, and in fact, interacts with yet another middleman who hails from the village. This middleman is typically a budding entrepreneur who has earned some money from external sources and is attempting to expand his capita1. 305 He is essentially the arhti by proxy in that he purchases the farmer's standing crop at a fixed rate (typically well below the open market rate) so that the farmer is able to make arrangements for his next sowing. Upon harvesting the 303 The situation in agrarian towns in Sindh is distinct in that the arhti is typically not a local, at least in the sense that he is not Sindi. In many cases, Punjabi or Muhajir arhtis may have been settled in the town for decades, but are outsiders insofar as they share little culturally with the local population. In this case the relationship between arhti and farmer is based to a much greater extent on impersonal economic coercion rather than historically evolved and personalised ties. 304 For example in Okara the minister of defence, Rao Sikander Iqbal, and his major political competitor, Mian Zaman, have both cultivated links with the more influential arhtis, and at election times, it is said that the wholesale market often resembles a huge polling booth. However, the evidence seems to suggest that arhtis on the losing side often end up switching their loyalties. In Charsadda, the two big political factions are those of Asfyandar Wali Khan and the current minister of interior, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao. Here however it appears as if arhtis stay true to their political commitments and do not engage in as much 'floor-crossing' as in Okara. However in both cases, in the event of dissatisfaction with a government policy or even a trivial conflict with the local administration, arhtis are at the forefront of agitation. 305 During fieldwork it was observed that this village middleman may hail from a non-agricultural or agricultural caste; in any case, as Hasan (2002b: 142-8) also manages to capture, the popular feeling is that the higher status of the agriculturalist in times past does not compensate for the fact that 'drivers, loom-operators, mechanics, shopkeepers .... earn more than agriculturalists and work less'. 173 village middleman then takes the crop to the mandi where he sells the produce onto the arhti at a rate again below the market price (but obviously at enough of a margin for both parties to benefit). In Charsadda, the nexus is less complex, which probably reflects the fact that the Peshawar Valley (of which Charsadda is a part) is on the whole less modernized than the fertile and highly-populated belt of central Punjab of which Okara is a part. This difference is also reflected in the attitude of the arhtilmiddleman to landless labourers. In Okara landless labourers are simply not given loans, ostensibly because they have no productive assets. In Charsadda however, where market ethics are tempered more by the logic of reciprocity, the labourer can eke out a loan through the intermediation of a slightly better off individual in the village, who more often than not is a part of the labourer's larger kinship group. A long and drawn out process of negotiation often ensues in which the middleman is often seen to be 'doing a favour' for the 'poor' loanee. This process was a constant at all research sites and is crucial to the politics of common sense as it contributes to the sense within the subordinate classes that association with the middleman is an advantage he enjoys over his contemporaries. This is despite the fact that the conditions of the loan are often highly exploitative - up to 25% interest per year and heavy penalties if the loan is not paid back in full within the stipulated period. In both cases, the addition of another middleman to the already complex process through which agricultural surplus is marketed is evidence of the ever intensifying monetization of the agrarian economy, the continuing graduation of members of the subordinate classes into the intermediate class, and the fact that the articulation of personalised links with the market does not add value to the production process or offer social protection but instead adds to the exploitation of the subordinate classes. Furthermore in the majority of cases the arhti does not come into contact with the small or landless farmer. The arhti in fact deliberately avoids participating in this whole exchange because first, his network of clients expands on the basis of such an arrangement; and second, he can intervene on behalf of the very weak when required so as to confirm his paternalistic role. 174 The arhti's most crucial function however is as regulator of the market, which, in large part, is where he derives his social power from. This is primarily because his ability to secure control over a particular area of the wholesale market is taken to be a good proxy of his links with the local police and administration. In other words, there is a direct link between the arhti's power and his links with the state - indeed, in many cases, it is this link which makes the subordinate classes want to establish their own ties with him. This power is manifest in the fact that subordinate classes wishing to access the market can do so only through any particular arhti to whom they are already affiliated, or as just suggested, the village middleman who himself is a client of the arhti - there is no chance of simply entering the market and selling their produce at an open market rate. If even the village middleman attempts to bypass the existing hierarchy and access the mandi directly, he is subject to the wrath of the police and other local officials. 306 Importantly in Okara there is an official license system that dictates which arhti is allocated which space within the market, presumably based on an impersonal logic that does not favour anyone particular arhti over the other. However, it is clear that, in practice, the allocation of space reflects the relative power of the arhtis. For example, licenses are issued to smaller arhtis by the local administration usually after one of the dominant arhtis has actually issued his 'approval'. In Charsadda the formal system does not appear to be as well-established, and therefore the operation of power in the market is more easily apparent. It is this spatial power of the arhti that actually shores up the dependency relationship with the subordinate classes in that there is a clear demarcation between the forces that are privy to the state and those that are not. The relationship between the artisanal castes and middlemen through which the former access the market is similarly personalised and exploitative but is less regulated spatially. This is because the traditional artisans such as carpenters, cobblers, and welders no longer operate within the confines of an insulated village unit and have long since moved into urban spaces to ply their trade (or in many cases, taken on a completely different occupation). However, access to the market, whether in terms of them being able to sell their 306 In Charsadda and Okara however, this very rarely happened. 175 labour, or products that have been commissioned to them, is still mediated by middlemen. In conclusion, there is a highly interesting distinction between the popular perception of the arhti amongst small and landless farmers in Okara as opposed to in Charsadda. In Okara farmers seem to harbour far more ill-will towards the arhti than in Charsadda. In the latter case, some farmers insisted that the arhti was doing them a favour by issuing them seeds, fertilizer or even hard cash before actually receiving anything himself. Thus in the particular case of the rural cash economy there would appear to be a spectrum along which one can analyse the perception of the relationship between the subordinate and intermediate classes in the eyes of the former; on the one hand there is the recognition of exploitation and the resulting indignation that comes with it, while on the other hand there is the feeling of gratitude and reciprocity that seems more in line with the prototypical patron-client relationship. These ideal-types broadly reflect the coercion vs. consent dialectic that characterizes the politics of common sense. Fishing contractorslbayparis The situation in the fisheries sector is very similar to that in the small-town agrarian economy. In this case however, there is only one major market based in Karachi which is where fish from a large part of the Sindhi coastal belt is transported. Access to this market therefore in large part determines the exercise of power between different agents within the sector. Contractors in the sector have been commonplace since the British period, but their influence has increased markedly since the 1960s on account of the increasing marketisation of the sector as well as the fact that there has been a quite monumental shift in the occupational status of many agriculturalists. As pointed out earlier, the Green Revolution led to the displacement of a large number of small and landless farmers from the traditional agrarian economy. Additionally, due to the increasing number of mega water projects upstream of the Indus River, agriculture downstream and particularly in the coastal regions has been seriously undermined. In fact sea intrusion has become a serious problem which has destroyed agriCUlture in delta and other areas in and around the coast (Hasan, 2002b: 176 130-2). The cumulative effect of this state of affairs has been a dramatic increase in subsistence fishing in an increasingly commercialized environment. 307 During fieldwork in the fishing villages collectively named 'Zero Goth' on the tip of the Badin coast, I observed that a significant majority of the families that are now involved in fishing to meet their basic livelihoods are not Mallahs, the traditional fishing caste. Most of them have adopted this occupation over the past 2-3 decades on account of the factors mentioned in the preceding paragraph. In most cases, the contractor through whom these families access the market has emerged from within the community, and as in the case of the middleman in the agrarian economy, distinguishes himself on account of his enterprise, or in other words because he has comprehended the politics of common sense and understands how to carve out a space for himself within the vast patronage network. The fishing contractor usually establishes links with a baypari (trader/middleman) in the main Karachi fish market, and proceeds to supply him with fish from the coastal villages to which he has established links. As in the agrarian economy, the contractor purchases catch from the villagers at a fraction of the market rate, transports it to Karachi either on his own account, or as is the case during the high-season, through transport arranged by the baypari, and the catch is sold at a profit for both the contractor and the baypari. However in this case the state is formally involved at a much more intricate level, which gives the system a quasi-legitimacy that is the major reason for its resilience. As mentioned above, the contract system has existed since the British period in limited form. Within a decade and a half of the inception of the new state, the system was formalized through the fisheries department which started auctioning rights to the various water bodies throughout the province, both inland and coastal. Importantly, the contract to a particular water body can only be issued to a bonafide fisherman who can prove his occupational history. A typical contract is auctioned for tens of lakhs of rupees which means that only an extremely wealthy 'fisherman' can possibly claim a contract. In short, the system privileges accumulation of capital rather than meeting 307 Hasan (2002b: 132) suggests that corporatisation of the sector has been championed by the Fisheries Department which was set up in the 1960s. 177 the subsistence rights of the fishing community. Contractors and bayparis typically acquire contracting rights through a local fisherman who is effectively coopted into 'selling' them his name. In practice, and quite predictably, the decision on who gets contracts and how is determined not through an 'open' process but on account of the contractors' links to the low bureaucracy, and the price of the contract is a gross underestimation of the actual profits to be made from the acquisition of rights to a particular body, which often run into tens of crores. In Badin, over the past few years, paramilitary border forces - the Rangers - have become involved in contract fishing in a big way. Because the Badin coast is part of the country's border, Rangers forces are stationed in and around villages such as Zero Goth and have abused their official power to become the lynchpins of the system. By putting to use the immense coercive power they wield over the local population, Rangers officials have established exclusive decision-making power over which contractors are allowed to access any particular water body, and coerce local fishermen into selling their catch at an even lower rate than was previously the norm. Intriguingly, the intrusion of an outside party such as Rangers has actually induced resistance on the part of the local fishing community, which will be discussed at length in the next chapter. For the purposes of this chapter, the Rangers example confirms that the politics of cornmon sense is a function of heavily personalised links between various agents. This personalization permits the exploitative contract system to persist as long as there is a belief within the subordinate classes that they will gamer a minimum benefit from it. In this case the personalised links are not 'ascriptive' insofar as the entire community - including the many families that do not originally hail from the Mallah caste - is undifferentiated, all engaged in the same occupation, almost completely isolated from other communities. More important is the familiarity between the fisherfolk and contractors which ensures continuity. The introduction of foreign elements can endanger the logic of cornmon sense politics. The situation in Karachi is different yet similar to that in coastal areas such as Badin. Within the fishing community itself there is great differentiation based on ownership 178 of boats, and extent of indebtedness to the baypari. 308 The vast majority of fishermen in the biggest fishing village in Karachi, Ibrahim Hyderi, are khalasis, or in other words, hired hands that strike up an arrangement with the owner of the vessel that they take out to sea to share inputs and outputs. Thus their livelihoods are directly mediated by boat owners, many of whom are related to their khalasis and have graduated into the ranks of boat owners over time. 309 The small-boat owners are also structurally tied into a relationship of dependency with the baypari through debt. In much the same way as the small farmer seeks the patronage of the rniddlemanlarhti to secure agricultural inputs, the small boat-owner typically requires loans to maintain his vessel, acquire feed, and hire labour. 310 Indebtedness compels the small boat- owner to sell his catch to the baypari at a rate below market price. This cycle then repeats itself season after season until and unless the small boat-owner is able to secure external income and free himself from the accumulated debt. Urban thekedar The thekedaar (sub contractor) is yet another counterpart of the arhti based in the urban economy. He is not involved in any productive activity, but simply benefits from the flexibilisation of labour and fragmentation of productive processes that are the defining features of the urban informal economy. The present analysis is based on participant-observation of thekedaars doing house construction in Islamabad, thekedaars involved in the manufacturing of surgical instruments in Sialkot, and thekedaars involved in the powerlooms industry in Faisalabad. The Islamabad thekedaar is a newly emerging entrepreneur; Islamabad is currently in the midst of a housing and construction boom due to the rapid expansion of the city as well as the dramatic increase in land prices in and around the city.311 The thekedaar in the 308 The three basic ideal-types I found in Ibrahim Hyderi, namely, khalasis, small and indebted boat- owners, and bigger boat-owners correspond to those identified by Hasan (2002b). Importantly however, there is always the possibility of overlap in the case of any fishermen/family. 309 As in the case of the agrarian economy of Charsadda or Okara, while the extended family does exist as a coherent unit, differentiation between members of the same family is commonplace, and it is often the case that the economically and politically better connected family member is a patron to his less well connected sibling. 310 In most cases however, the small boat-owner employs family labour. 311 Many of the thekedaars with whom I came into contact are also closely associated with real estate; they are either agents themselves or work closely with real estate agents. In other words, there is a symbiotic relationship between purchase/sale/renting of land and construction on this land. 179 relatively well established surgical instruments and powerlooms industries has more deep-rooted links with his clientele as well as the industry more generally.312 In all cases, the thekedaar's background can almost inevitably be traced back to the subordinate classes; as with all other segments of the intermediate classes that I have encountered, the urban thekedaar distinguishes himself through his enterprise, his understanding of the personalised 'logic' of the market, and his desire and ability to cultivate relationships with state functionaries and patrons in the industry in which he works. While it was pointed out in the cases of the arhti and baypari that there is a fairly large spectrum ranging from smalllless influential to big/more influential, there is far more differentiation in the case of the urban thekedaar. Most thekedaars once they have become wealthy or politically influential enough will expand into business and/or other industries/services ostensibly because the scale of the industries in question is small and scope for expansion limited. 313 In other words, the urban thekedaar operates within a much more dense network of competitors and potential clients, and is himself always in danger of being pushed 'back down' into the subordinate class position from which he emerged. This is particularly true of services as opposed to manufacturing, the latter sector being far more stable. So, for example, if the housing and construction bubble in Islamabad were to burst, many relatively recent graduates into the class of thekedaars might return to daily wage labour or search out formal employment if such an option exists. 314 It is important to state at the outset that sub-contracting is commonplace in the urban economy, in sectors as diverse as incense stick-making (agarbatti), prawn shelling, carpet weaving and bori (sack) stitching (Khan et. aI, 2005)?15 Sub contractors operate essentially by developing networks of labourers and artisans that they employ 312 I observed that the thekedaar often started off as a shagird (apprentice) associated with an ustad (teacher) in the trade in question, and eventually built up his own network of shagirds whilst also cultivating links with patrons above him. 313 This was discussed in the chapter on the indigenous bourgeoisie where it was pointed out the 'new' Punjabi bourgeoisie emerged from the small-scale sector and graduated into large scale industry/finance/services. 314 In the case of some thekedaars who are barely making a profit, supplementing their income through daily wage labour or even a government job is not unusual. On the other hand some of the more affluent thekedaars are those who are government employees operating as contractors on the side. Their links within the state are crucial to their success as thekedaars. 315 The study referred to here deals specifically with the phenomenon of home-based labour which is arguably the most vulnerable prey for sub-contractors. 180 on a task-wise basis depending on the job. Sub-contractors are usually given an 'in' into the industry by other sub-contractors and very rarely operate as part of a partnership, preferring to maintain their autonomy from every other individual or group with which they come into contact. This makes their position quite tenuous and tends to make them quite ruthless in their dealing with potential competitors as well as the workers/artisans that constitute their network of clients. In the housing and construction industry, the sub contractor comes into contact with a variety of wholesalers and artisans. 316 In some cases those hiring the sub contractor give him responsibility for everything involved in the construction/renovation, while in other cases, home owners or tenants that are undertaking renovations effectively act as sub contractors themselves by seeking out workers/materials for each separate task. 317 In any case, the industry itself is completely personalised, and is dominated by sub-contracting. This means that artisans and unskilled labourers are extremely vulnerable as they are almost all hired on daily wage rates by individuals rather than by legal entities under a written contract. In effect the only 'security' that they acquire is by becoming part of the clientele of their respective sub contractor, which guarantees work on a regular enough basis for them to survive. Similar to the cases of the arhti and the landless agricultural wage labourer, here too the 'workers view the provision of work as a favour extended to them by the subcontractors' (Khan et. al., 2005: 56)?18 Importantly, in this sector there is considerably less interaction with state functionaries than in other sectors that I have encountered. The most common contacts with the state are established to get around housing construction regulations. For example, zoning laws in Islamabad are such that residential units cannot be constructed in certain zones. However, there are numerous violations of these zoning laws which can be put down to the concerned state functionaries turning a blind eye. 316 For example, a typical housing contractor comes into contact with masons, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, menial labourers, marble cutters, painters, polishers and transporters. 317 Who is building the house!conducting the renovations is of crucial importance in determining the nature of the sub contracting arrangement. In the case of affluent propertied classes, there is typically one contractor that is hired to complete the whole job. In the case of the subordinate classes, this option is usually less affordable. 318 Of course there are plenty of labourers who fall out with their respective sub contractors due to non- payment of wages, poor working conditions, etc. etc. But these workers are then compelled to become a client of another sub contractor as this is the modus operandi of the sector. 181 In virtually all cases, the doing of a 'favour' for the concerned state official was a well accepted phenomenon, and considered part of the total cost of any construction job. In the instances where the thekedaar is also involved in the sale/rent of real estate, the state becomes much more prominent. 319 This is because the sale/purchase/rent of land involves the local patwari. In Islamabad in recent times, patwaris have literally become millionaires overnight on account of the extraordinary activity in the land market. In many cases, totally fraudulent transactions take place through the patwari, which means that those thekedaars/real estate agents with close links to the patwari are extremely powerful, and this is reflected in the size of their network of clients. On the other hand, the subordinate classes that are subject to this quite arbitrary power have almost no protection against it. The case of the thekedaar in the manufacturing industries of surgical instruments and powerlooms is characterized by far more stability in the sense that these industries have been operative for many decades and there is less dynamism in this market as compared to Islamabad's housing and construction market. Both of these industries are export-oriented and therefore the thekedaar's immediate patron is the exporter, the majority of whom have made their way up through this patronage chain?20 Crucially these industries have been subject to immense fragmentation over the past few decades, and particularly after the Bhutto period. For example, powerlooms were previously located within a larger textile factory in which many other value-added processes were combined. However, partially to break the power of organized labour and partially because of the structural changes within the textile industry itself, powerlooms are now housed separately from spinning, threading, packaging and other phases of production. Both industries are housed in small workshops set up in semi-residentiallsemi- industrial areas of the city. These small workshops accommodate hardware and house 319 Intriguingly a large number of such thekedaarslreal estate agents are rank and file activists of political parties who have developed large client networks as political activists. For example a PPP activist active in Katchi abadis (squatter settlements) in RawalpindilIslamabad for many years actually benefited when a number of Katchi abadis were bulldozed by the municipal authorities after which he effectively became the evictees' real estate agent as they attempted to find new accommodation. 320 See Nadvi (2003: 148) on the firms in the surgical instruments industry: 'Key production relationships for local firms include vertical ties with subcontractors and external buyers and loose horizontal links with other producers, particularly through the trade association.' 182 10 or less workers. 321 The working conditions are absolutely putrid, with children and adolescents comprising an extremely high proportion of the workforce. 322 A huge surplus pool of labour is available to those who run each individual workshop. Importantly, the thekedaar supplies labour to more than one workshop, and has established links with the owners of each workshop as well as the police and local administration. In the two industries that I studied, a thekedaar actually functioned as the collective bargaining agent (CBA) of the workers. In other words, the thekedaar was also acting in a parallel capacity as a trade unionist, ostensibly struggling for the rights of the workers. The evolution of trade unionism will be discussed in the next chapter, however, for the purposes of this chapter, I wish to assert that the workers are subject to immense abuse by the thekedaar based on the fact that the latter is not only responsible for providing his workers with employment, but is also the formal negotiator between the workers and the state. I observed distinct hesitation on the part of the workers to speak negatively of the thekedaar, ostensibly because they feared for their jobs, and because they saw no other means of protecting their meager rights but through their thekedaar?23 The thekedaar is however the crucial cog in the exploitation of labour that culminates in the wholesale export industrialist, and in which state functionaries playa crucial role. In the first instance, the thekedaar often rejects many of the finished implements, particularly in the case of surgical instruments. Since workers are paid on piece-meal rates, this translates into additional labour for the same wage. Second, in the case of accidents in which workers are injured while operating the looms or cutting a implement, which are actually quite common, the thekedaar takes care of their medical needs but then quite arbitrarily deducts a sum from their wage in lieu of the treatment. The thekedaar often does not pay the workers on time. As such, in the 321 The figure of 10 is crucial because registration of a trade union with the Labour Department is possible only if the enterprise employs at least 10 workers. Most workshops are not formally registered as manufacturing enterprises. 322 By my estimates the figure was around 60%. 323 When asked about what the thekedaar provided them, a long list was offered which included protection from police, access to the Labour Department which (selectively) allocates social security cards and the like, loans in the case of emergencies, and facilities for washing and cleaning their personal belongings. 183 event of any such abuse, the workers have no recourse, and it is a cruel irony that the thekedaar himself is supposed to be protecting workers rights. In principle the two CBA's that I came across have secured certain rights for the workers through registration with the Labour Department and the making of social security cards. However in practice many workers remain at the whim of the thekedaar and the Labour Department; thus many workers pay a 'fee' when claiming social security payments, some often have to pay a 'fee' simply to get a social security card made. In many cases I discovered that under pressure from the workshop owner, a particular worker's registration was cancelled, and that this often happened with the complicity of the thekedaar. Ultimately, it is in the thekedaar's, state functionaries' and workshop owner's interest to keep both industries functioning informally because this not only allows them to maintain their arbitrary power to extract surplus, but also prevents organization of workers. Importantly the large number of children and adolescents working in these industries is a contravention of child labour laws, and only by continuing to operate informally can the nexus of owner-thekedaar-state functionary survive. The surgical instruments and powerlooms industries simply mimic the vast majority of small-scale industry in Punjab and non-Punjabi industrial centres such as Karachi. Importantly, as was the case with the arhti, the subordinate classes' perception of the urban thekedaar too should be viewed as highly variable. For the most part, the relationship of the worker to the thekedaar in the informal manufacturing industries is far more impersonal than that of the farmer/landless labourer to the middleman/arhti in the rural cash economy, with the thekedaar in housing and construction somewhere in between. Nevertheless, ascriptive ties playa part in many exchanges, and particularly in the hiring patterns of the thekedaars (cf Nadvi, 2003).324 It is important to qualify this observation by pointing out that the invocation of shared histories along ethnic, caste or other lines is not enduring in the sense that a Pakhtun thekedaar hiring a Pakhtun worker does not necessarily imply special treatment nor does it act as a 324 For example, in Islamabad's informal marble industry, a large number of Pakhtun migrants are hired by Pakhtun owners, an arrangement which reflects the owners' preference for members of their own ethnic group who tend to be 'grateful' for the opportunity they have been provided. 184 guarantee of retention. Hiring patterns seem to represent the thekedaar's preference for workers from tried and tested backgrounds that also share a sense of community - however limited - with other workers. More generally, the thekedaar clearly acts as a patron for many workers. Ultimately of course, the subordinate classes can reject the patronage of the thekedaar only if they reject the politics of common sense in favour of a politics of resistance. In other words, so long as the worker perceives employment to be a function of his ability to remain part of the thekedaar's network rather than a right to which he is entitled and for which he must engage in struggle with other workers, the politics of common sense prevails. Transporters The transporter is in some ways the most mysterious of all the intermediate class categories that are being discussed here in the sense that his politics tends to the most 'hidden'. My fieldwork on transporters was conducted mostly in Karachi which is well known as the hub of the 'transport mafia', although it will be argued here that use of the term mafia needs to be understood not necessarily in terms of transporters' practices within the industry as much as the link that transporters seem to have to other illicit business. Transporters operate as distributors of patronage to those who sell their labour power in the industry and attempt to secure the patronage of state functionaries in much the same way as any of the other intermediate class groups discussed here. On this account then it is inaccurate to depict transporters as part of a mafia. In any case, most transporters represent their interests through established associations, even if the actual exchanges in which they are engaged are carried on outside the formal, legal realm. My focus here is specifically on dumper truck transporters that are affiliated with the All-Pakistan Federation of Transporters. Dumper trucks in Karachi are primarily involved in transporting construction materials such as cement and almost everyone associated with the dumper trucks, including owners, drivers, conductors and menial 185 labourers are Pakhtun?25 More specifically the industry tends to be dominated by migrants from Waziristan. It is a well known fact within Karachi that access to dumper trucks is restricted by the Waziristanis to their own people. Potential investors are discouraged, primarily by state functionaries that have links to the truck owners, if need be through the use of coercive force. This indicates the widespread influence that is wielded by truck owners. Waziristanis coming to Karachi flock to this particular industry as a means of finding employment, which reinforces insularity. There is also a network of Waziristani roadside hotels which are patronised by the dumper trucks. 326 The politics of common sense is very obvious in this case because of the very insular nature of the industry. So, for example, when the staff of a dumper truck is involved in a traffic accident leading to loss of life or severe injuries, he is whisked away to Waziristan to avoid criminal proceedings and is allowed to come back only when enough time has elapsed and it is considered safe to resume driving in the city. This contributes to a sense of gratitude amongst drivers, loaders and conductors who consider their employers to be well-meaning patrons even though the hours and conditions of work are very taxing. Importantly there is some evidence that this industry also acts as a front for considerable amounts of black money circulating through the smuggling of drugs and guns. Given the fact that the industry is dominated by Waziristanis 327 , that it is very insular, and that it enjoys considerable protection from state functionaries, it should not be surprising that transport is used as a means to convert black money into white. This seems to be a relatively common feature of the transport industry more generally, and it is in this sense that it seems valid to use the term 'mafia' to describe its operations. 325 The extent of ethnic insularity in this particular case exceeds that of most other segments of the industry. 326 This is a feature of all transporters throughout the country, including passenger transport on cross- country routes. 327 The smuggling of drugs and guns began in systematic fashion during the Afghan War of the 1980s in which Waziristan and its adjacent regions were a major staging ground of the Mujahideen. 186 The interests of the dumper truck industry are also represented by the Pakhtun Loya Jirga in Karachi, in which the Pakhtun-dominated Awami National Party (ANP) is a major player. The Loya Jirga is essentially the common front of Pakhtun (economic and political) interests in the city and is considered a highly influential political body?28 So, for example, after political violence in May 2007 in which a number of ANP activists lost their lives, the Loya Jirga issued an ultimatum to the provincial government of Sindh to compensate the victims and to hand over killers or face a spate of revenge killings. The ultimatum was apparently not met, however it was found out during fieldwork that other 'in-kind' compensation was made. In particular, it was established that the transporters - including the dumper trucks transporters - acquired concessions from the government with regard to a handful of routes that had recently been made inaccessible. Moreover the government apparently handed out compensation to a number of transporters that have suffered losses due to strikes and political violence in years past. Intriguingly the Pakhtun transporters were not the only beneficiaries of these concessions, even though they did constitute the majority. This leads to the next point which is that transporters as a general rule tend to be as functional in their political alignments as any of the other intermediate class groups discussed here. Even in the case of the dumper trucks transporters, their ethnic insularity does not preclude their aligning with parties or state functionaries that are not typically associated with Pakhtun interests if a particular situation demands it. As such this seems to be the one major segment of the intermediate classes which does not lend itself to upward mobility through the ranks of the subordinate classes in the sense that one can only become an owner if one has enough capital to do so, and simply acquiring one bus or truck is simply not sufficient to become a player in the industry. 328 Jirgas by definition are only constituted in times of crisis or events of similar magnitude. It is not a body that convenes regularly. 187 Urban shopkeeper/trader This particular group does not cultivate explicitly political links with the subordinate classes as do the others mentioned here, if only because the economic and political fortunes of the shopkeeper/trader depend less on establishing a network of clients, and more on upward linkages with the state. The state has often thought of this segment of the intermediate classes as an important ally, at least in the aftermath of modernization in the 1960s. Indeed, it is the shopkeeper/trader that tends to be the most politically vocal segment of the intermediate classes, and has often been at the forefront of popular agitation from the late 1960s onwards. A discussion of the shopkeeper/trader also suits my purposes because, more than any of the other intermediate class occupations that have been analysed here, shopkeeping is the most common means of upward mobility for the subordinate classes. In other words, it is in trade that the greatest opportunities for upward mobility exist. 329 My fieldwork in the electronics and yam markets in Karachi, amongst shopkeepers on Shalimar Link Road in Lahore and the textile merchants in Moti Bazaar in Rawalpindi indicated that there are three different levels of trade, starting at the highest tier with the wholesale traders who are also often exporters; followed by the retail traders (big shopkeepers) and then the small shopkeepers. I contend that the small shopkeepers are not in the intermediate class category. Yet the links between these three types of traders are significant. Similar to the genesis of all the intermediate classes, big shopkeepers and wholesale traders often emerge from the ranks of the small shopkeeper. In almost all cases traders rely only on family labour and are matched in terms of their ruthless commitment to profiteering only by the thekedaar. Therefore while kinship matters in terms of access to patrons and even customership, it has become less and less salient a factor over time. For example in the Karachi yam market which is an old and established centre of trade, traders tend to be drawn from three distinct ethnic/linguistic groups, namely the Gujarati-speaking Memons and Khojas, Chinoitis and Urdu-speaking Dehli-walas. The yam market operates largely on credit and there 329 As discussed above, the opportunities for upward mobility are also stark in highly dynamic sectors such as housing and construction, however, a member of the subordinate classes that comes into some money is most likely to invest in a small shop which brings him into contact with bigger retailers, wholesalers, importers/exporters, etc. etc. 188 is now a distinct disinclination to offer credit to members of the same kinship group because this implies greater difficulty in recovering loans. Thus while the patronage logic remains deeply entrenched, it is far less mediated by ascriptive ties than in the past. Crucially traders and shopkeepers are not taxed, and attempts to tax them have often met with severe resistance. 33o They rely on this implicit recognition by the state, and this explains their willingness to support whoever is in power, regardless of their previous loyalties. The only situation in which traders tum against the state is when unfavourable policies or initiatives are taken against them. One such example is the Lahore Qaumi Tajir Ittehad which is a broad-based front of traders and shopkeepers that resisted attempts by the Musharraf government to register and tax their businesses, and widely perceived the government to favour big business as opposed to 'small businessmen', under which category they themselves fit. Tellingly however, a member of the Qaumi Tajir Ittehad, Zahid Ali suggested that there are only two factors that influence the politics of traders, namely khauf (fear) and lalach (cynical interest/greed). This explains their highly functional political alignments in the sense that their opposition to government policies does not extend to any long-term hostility to the state per se. This is reflected in the fact that they ultimately rely on the informal patronage of state functionaries to prosper. Vendors and small shopkeepers complain that they actually end up paying more through the informal system than they might if they were formally registered and paid tax and utility bills. However, the majority of them are convinced of the futility of resisting the system or demanding formal legal cover because they believe that this would go against the interests of the larger retailers and wholesalers to whom they are linked through the supply chain, and who would then victimize the smaller shopkeepers together with state functionaries. This is a perfect example of the politics of common sense. 330 See http://www.dawn.comJ2003/02/0S/ed.htm#1 189 There is one final point to note about traders hinted at briefly earlier, namely their mobilisational capacity. Traders and shopkeepers often playa crucial role in political mobilizations in urban areas, and particularly mobilizations around Islam. This can be traced back to the PNA movement that overthrew Bhutto in which traders played a huge role. In that movement, traders were mobilizing against the government because of policies felt to be harmful to their interests, particularly the nationalization of agro- processing industries. However the mobilization was given a religious character and said to be organized to usher in the Nizam-e-Mustapha in the country. Ever since this time, traders have been at the forefront of all mobilizations that have been organized in the 'defence of Islam', alongside the religio-political movements. This has been true regardless of whether the economic interests of traders have mandated such mobilizations. It is therefore important to understand why traders are implicated in such reactionary movements. I have already shown that the intermediate classes have a symbiotic relationship with the religio-political movements given that it was these two constituencies that were heavily patronized by the Zia regime. As pointed out earlier, many of those who set up businesses and became part of the intermediate classes had been migrants to the Gulf, heavily influenced by the Wahhabi Islam of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. They therefore internalized much of the 'Islamisation' discourse of the Zia regime willingly and became major defenders of Islamic causes. Over time traders have not maintained loyalty to religio-political movements per se, and do not seem to have a commitment to any partisan ideology, typically towing the line of the sitting government. Nevertheless, their commitment to heroic campaigns to defend Islam has become part of their identity and is, in no uncertain terms, a resounding endorsement of state ideology. Arguably more important is the fact that traders are the face of an increasingly commercialized social formation, yet are still able to reconcile this commitment to capitalism with (apparently) deep religious beliefs. In fact religious beliefs do not seem to be an impediment to the highly cynical social exchanges that take place at all levels of the social formation, and traders are the best example of this. On the one hand this can be viewed as another manifestation of the 'dualism' mentioned in the previous chapter whereby outward allegiance to Islam is simply considered socially 190 expedient. Alternatively it could be argued in a somewhat Weberian fashion that a certain religious virtue can be associated with the individualist work ethic of capitalism. In any case, while the subordinate classes and even more affluent members of society that come into contact with traders do not necessarily harbour very positive sentiments towards them, there does not seem to be much protest over the cynical nature of their political engagements. After all, it is not only traders that seem to have internalized the politics of common sense. The face of change The intermediate classes are the face of a rapidly urbanizing social formation in which the market and its unique ethics are gradually acquiring dominance. However, instead of changing in a manner that moves society towards the impersonal, rational-legal Weberian ideal-type, capitalism in Pakistan, as in many parts of the post-colonial world, is heavily personalised, infused by a rationale that is anything but impersonal and legal in the formal sense. The state has been able to recognize the nature of Pakistani capitalism and maintain its centrality precisely because it continues to instrumentalise the personalised nature of social exchange. The cumulative effect of this personalization of the capitalist logic is the appearance to the subordinate classes that upward social mobility is genuinely achievable if one accedes to the patronage logic that is the defining feature of Pakistan's political economy?31 In actual fact, for everyone member of the subordinate classes that actually graduates into the ranks of the intermediate classes, there are many, many more that do not, and in most cases, are subject to more brutal forms of exploitation than in the recent past. Thus while my narrative about the politics of common sense has focused on the reassertion of the state's coercive power under Zia and a concurrent institutionalization of patronage, the most crucial element of this politics thirty years after the fall of Bhutto is the cynicism that is imparted to young people almost as virtue on the Gramscian terrain of civil society, starting in the home, in school, the mosque and finally the workplace. The emphasis is on individual mobility with an attendant disregard for collective concerns. Indeed, those who do defy the norm are ridiculed for wasting their time on 'noble' pursuits. Crucially this entire 331 Arguably just as many subordinate class members seek out the patronage of the intermediate classes because they simply have no other means of acquiring work. 191 worldview is morally mandated so long as one overtly displays a commitment to Islam. Insofar as historically rooted collective identities such as caste, biraderi and language remain important across the social formation, they are increasingly articulated in accordance with the imperatives of capital and the political manipulations of the historical bloc. It is under the backdrop of this thirty-year project in the making that expansive horizontal solidarities along class or other lines upon which the politics of resistance is founded have to come to the fore. 192 Chapter 9 The Subordinate Classes: Beyond common sense? If the intermediate classes are greatly variegated then the subordinate classes are even more so. As was demonstrated in the previous chapter, it is from within the subordinate classes that the intermediate classes have emerged, and this speaks to the highly dynamic and often ruthless political and economic contexts within which the subordinate classes live and work. It has been repeated many times already in this thesis that British colonialism marked the beginning of a dramatic transformation in the contours of social life in India, and more specifically in the Pakistan areas. This transformative project was spearheaded by the colonial state, and in the post-colonial period, the state has continued to playa central role. While Alavi's model of this state has offered much insight into the legacy of colonialism and the state forms it left behind, arguably the most gaping hole in his theoretical treatise is the lack of attention paid to the politics of the subordinate classes, or in other words, the working people upon whose exploitation the entire system of power rests. As discussed in the introductory chapter, neo-Marxists as well as post-structuralists of various denominations have attempted to augment the seminal analyses of the post- colonial condition by considering the political action of the subordinate classes. At some level all such efforts boil down to the crucial question of whether and to what extent the subordinate classes - or any other class - act as a class-for-itself. It has already been established that even the dominant classes in Pakistan often map their fundamental interests as a function of their access to the state which mayor may not correspond to the understanding of basic class interests in a traditional materialist schema. The previous two chapters have also concluded that a similar logic guides the political action of the religio-political movements and the intermediate classes. 332 Thus it is perhaps not surprising that the subordinate classes too have become enmeshed in what has been referred to here as the politics of common sense, or in other words a politics of patronage culminating in the state. However, the politics of common sense cannot be considered a simple continuity of historical modes of 332 However in the case of the latter the dictates of the market - regardless of the extent of political factors that determine access to it - are a far bigger factor than they are for any other class or institution that I have studied. 193 political engagement in the wider social formation that persisted through British rule and into the post-colonial period. Instead the politics of common sense must be seen as a direct result of the Alavian nexus of power reasserting itself and its attendant incorporation of new contenders for power into an expanded historical bloc in the post-Bhutto period. This entailed the articulation of historically rooted cultures of political engagement with evolving logics of the market, instrumentalisation of 'democratic' practices such as elections, and the forging of ideational innovations congruent with regional and global geo-politics. Under this backdrop, the present chapter is concerned with two related aspects of subordinate class action. First there is a need to understand the context within which the politics of common sense emerged which includes an analysis of what I have called the politics of resistance that heavily coloured Pakistan's political discourse from the mid-l 960s until the military coup that overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In this regard, I will consider the changes that took place in the understanding of politics and actual political engagements of the subordinate classes or what Jones (2003: 424) has called the shift from 'interior' to 'exterior' political associations. Second I wish to consider exactly how the politics of common sense has become exactly that; namely how and why has the practice of politics that was foisted onto the social formation by the state and its allies in the aftermath of the Bhutto period become the dominant form of politics. It was pointed out in Chapter 7 that one of the consequences of the politics of common sense has been that religio-political movements have become exclusively associated with a functional politics of resistance that does not actually challenge oligarchic rule. I am concerned with whether or not the subordinate classes have in fact been able to reconstitute a veritable politics of resistance that can compete with the politics of common sense. A note on 'clientelism' There is a minor point to address with regard to the use of the terms 'patronage' and 'clientelism' in the literature. Patronage implies that the patron clearly exercises unchallenged power over his dependents. Conversely the term clientelism suggests that the dependent is able to negotiate with the patron and secure greater benefits. Importantly, theorists of South Asian political economy such as Sayeed (1995) and 194 Khan (1998; 2000) have emphasized the relative power of 'clientelist coalitions' vis a vis the state and dominant classes. In particular Sayeed' s discussion of the evolving role of the intermediate classes and their ability to secure a greater share of the economic and political pie vis a vis popular mobilizations from the Ayub period onwards has been mentioned in the previous chapter. However, suggesting that the predominant logic of politics is a 'clientelist' one has serious implications which do not seem consistent with the narrative presented in this thesis. Insofar as clientelism implies that the intermediate classes are improving their bargaining position vis a vis classes and institutions higher up in the patronage chain, it seems to be relatively consistent with my analysis; in the previous chapter it was even argued that the intermediate classes have pushed themselves up into an expanded historical bloc or what has metaphorically been called the 'overdeveloping' state. Nevertheless there is no question that the politics of common sense that prevails across the social formation is patronage-based in that it is a politics that has been clearly molded by the state through institutions such as local body elections and in which the state remains the repository of power within the wider social formation. 333 More specifically, even if one is to argue - as to some extent has been argued in the previous chapter - that the intermediate classes constituted a major force in the populist upsurge of the 1960s and 1970s, and that over time the intermediate classes have successfully made greater claims on political and economic resources, the fact remains that the state and its propertied class partners recognized this evolving role of the intermediate classes, and successfully coopted them into the politics of common sense, thereby undermining the politics of resistance and effectively eliminating what appeared to be an emergent challenge to the oligarchic system of power itself. It has already been argued in this thesis that the apparent loss of coherence in the bureaucratic structure of the state has actually been instrumentalised so as to consolidate the power of the state. In much the same way, the mobilization of the 333 Sayeed (1995: 38) does recognize that a 'clientelist' coalition can include classes other than the intermediate class and that in Pakistan's recent history, such coalitions have included the subordinate classes only to be hijacked in favour of the dominant partner in the coalition. Nonetheless, he still employs the term clientelist to describe politics more generally. 195 intermediate classes has been harnessed by the Alavian nexus of power to institutionalize the politics of common sense. 334 The politics of resistance and reaction Having said that, one of the major premises of the argument presented here is that politics is inherently dynamic, and that even a hegemonic system of power, such as that which prevails in Pakistan today, is always vulnerable to counter-hegemonic challenges. Given a certain set of objective conditions, subjective factors have to conspire so as to facilitate the emergence of counter-hegemony. Nevertheless, this thesis rejects the notion that hegemony is foolproof, and that the subordinate classes fall prey to 'false consciousness'. Instead history indicates that the subordinate classes are willing and able to clearly distinguish between the politics of common sense and the politics of resistance, and will make commitments to either, or even both, depending on the circumstances within which they find themselves. 335 The politics of resistance erupted in the 1960s and continued on throughout the following decade. However from the time of the Zia dictatorship the politics of resistance, as it was articulated until the Bhutto period, has been quite effectively stamped out by the state. This reaction came about because of the danger that ideologies of class and ethno-nationalism, upon which the politics of resistance was constructed, posed to the historical bloc. In effect, the 1960s marked the emergence of class as a major identity in Pakistani politics. Sayeed (1980: 151) writes, '[D]uring the Ayub period the industrialisation of cities like Karachi, Lahore and Lyallpur had generated new urban forces. Cities were attracting peasants, landless labourers, and tenants from the surrounding countryside and the new industrial and urban climate had created new issues and aroused new expectations'. While industrial labour and increasingly militant student unions were the obvious carriers of the idiom of class 334 The manner in which Clapham (1982: 18) understands clientelism is much more consistent with my view: 'The importance of clientelism to the exercise of state power lies in the fact that, to a substantial degree, the structure of the state reproduces the conditions ........ inherently conducive to the development of c1ientelism.' 335 This understanding of the dynamic nature of subaltern consciousness and political action owes itself first and foremost to Gramsci (1971: 323-327): 'Philosophy in general does not in fact exist. Various philosophies of the world exist, and one always makes a choice between them'. The conceptions of E.P. Thompson (1978, 2005) and the more contextually relevant ideas presented by Mushtaq Khan (1998, 2000) also contribute to my understanding. 196 politics,336 there were stirrings in rural areas too as demands for land reform and other radical slogans mobilized tenants and small farmers along horizontal lines marking a break from hitherto vertical alignments around landlord-led factions (Herring, ] 983: 46-9). As I have already pointed out at various points, the other major force in the popular upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s were the intermediate classes associated with secondary and tertiary processes of production in the agrarian economy. The industrial working class, student radicals, the urban and rural poor, and the intermediate classes were all brought together by the PPP and Bhutto that became the symbol of the popular idiom of politics that prevailed at the time. As such Pakistani populism in the late 1960s and early 1970s can be cast in the classical mold of third world nationalism. The primary demand of the newly mobilised segments of a rapidly changing social formation was for a greater share of the economic pie for small capital and labour vis a vis big capital, but this was accompanied by a fierce anti-imperialism, and just as crucially a rejection of Indian hegemony in the South Asia region. 337 I mentioned in the previous chapter that the upwardly mobile intermediate classes interests soon diverged with the industrial working class and urban and rural poor largely because the intermediate classes were coopted as junior partners into the historical bloc. Students were weaned away from ideological politics while the industrial working class, and the urban and rural poor were coerced into acquiescing to the politics of common sense. However, the politics of common sense was not simply a return to a politics of patronage that had hitherto been the dominant mode of politics in Pakistan. In fact it marked a fundamental departure from the past. 336 The personal papers of Fatima Jinnah indicate the rapid emergence of student unions in the later 1950s and early 1960s: dozens of such unions wrote to Ms. Jinnah asking her to inaugurate their organizations. These included the National union of Students of Pakistan (formed 18 February 1958), Bantva Memon Students Union (formed 17 June 1958), Government Girls College Union Hyderabad (formed 7 October 1958), Dow Medical College Students Union, Jinnah College Students Union (formed November 1960), Government College of Commerce and Economics (formed November 1960) and Dawood College of Engineering and Technology (formed January 1964). See Fatima Jinnah papers FJ EM 345; FJ EM 347; FJ EM 355; FJ EM 359; FJ EM 361; FJ EM 363; FJ EM 37l. m The anti-India pillar of populism was of course its least progressive aspect. 197 Jones (2003) insists on using the 'modem' vs. 'parochial' binary to characterize the tension between the divergent forms of politics that existed before and after Ayubian modernization. This is helpful insofar as it indicates that the 1960s marked a shift away from what he calls the 'static universe of political absolutes' towards a more dynamic political order in which political engagements are made not on the basis of subservience to a traditionally dominant group but on the basis of an understanding that the material world can and ought to be changed. Thus given the idiom of change that was sweeping across large parts of the social formation, the popular classes aligned themselves with those parties and ideologies that promised them the benefits of change. However it is crucial that one avoids taking Jones' argument to its logical conclusion, which would be that the reemergence of a politics that appears to be based on the same ascriptive ties that characterized the 'parochial' necessarily means that there has been a reversion to the static universe of political absolutes that was said to have been left behind. Instead, it is my contention that the state had to acknowledge the emergence of a new, dynamic political universe in the 1960s and successfully attempted to institutionalize a logic of patronage within this new universe. This strategy was based on a recognition that the demands for inclusion from classes previously excluded from the accumulation of power and capital had to be accommodated rather than allow further radicalization of the politics of resistance and thereby risk a rupture of the entire oligarchic system. 338 Jones (2003: 205) is correct in recognizing that the popular movements of the late 1960s, while influenced greatly by revolutionary slogans, were ultimately 'nationalist, participatory, and economic' .339 In other words, neither was there a complete replacement of parochial politics nor was the mere emergence of class-based mobilization sufficient to precipitate structural overhaul. 'So while [the popular mobilization] made a dent in the old structures of the agrarian Punjab, breaking down 338 It has already been pointed out in Section 1 that the state relied on coercion as much as it did on cooption; the initial thrust of the Ziast strategy was on using force to suppress existing pockets of radicalism. The creation of a consensual political system followed from this reassertion of the state's coercive power. 339 It should be recalled that the anti-Ayub mobilizations started following the Tashkent declaration which was widely decried as a 'sell-out'. Bhutto rode this hyper-nationalist anti-Indian sentiment into power and throughout his time in government. 198 the biraderi (clan), caste, or tribal affiliation .... the dominance of rural notables was by no means at an end. Indeed, in Sind the PPP relied on the very biraderi and tribal ties that it was trying to rupture in many districts of the Punjab' (1 alaI, 1994: 162)?40 Be that as it may, the potential for a deepening of a culture of popular and democratic politics which might have been further radicalized did exist. However the Bhutto regime gradually moved away from its radical bases of support and became more and more reliant on the propertied classes as well as the coercive institutions of the state to combat radicalism within the social formation (cf Ahmad, 2000)?41 As pointed out in the previous chapter, it was during Bhutto's tenure that the distinction between the subordinate and intermediate classes started to come into focus, the state keen to coopt the latter which it viewed as being politically influential, and ready and willing to use force against the former which could only be placated by structural change?42 The emergence of class and the radicalization of ethno-nationalism meant that there also emerged new mass-based political cadres that spearheaded mobilizations (cf Sayeed, 1980). Importantly however the popUlist nature of the wave of politicization meant that the 'hundreds of people . .influenced by the mass movement ... had vague ideas of socialism' (Laghari, 1979: 158). Thus the cadres were mobilized and militant but were not sufficiently autonomous enough of the PPP government to withstand state repression by the 'people's government'. Indeed upon coming to power, militancy amongst industrial labour, particularly in Karachi, was ruthlessly crushed (cf Shaheed, 1983: 226-230). Arguably student unions were more ideologically committed to a revolutionary alternative, in particular the National Student Federation (NSF). During the mass 340 This also brings into view that no such process of politicization was taking place in large parts of the NWFP and Balochistan which had not experienced the upheaval associated with the green revolution and intensive capitalist modernization more generally. 341 It would appear that one of the major reasons for this clamping down on the organic and autonomous bases of people's power was that the 'left' both within the PPP and outside of it continued to exercise great influence at the grassroots level and upon assuming power, the PPP hierarchy tended towards consolidation rather than further radicalization as advocated by the left (cf Laghari, 1979). 342 This is not surprising as the level of mobilization of the subordinate classes increased manifold during the 1970s, primarily in urban areas and amongst the industrial working class. However, rural areas were similarly mobilized: '[T]he Bhutto regime became quite concerned about the implications of the hornets' nest it had stirred up by promising security and justice to the sharecroppers' (Herring, 1983: 116). 199 movement in the late 1960s, the PPP 'actually considered NSF its student wing' (Laghari, 1979: 169). However, relations soured as the NSF continued to articulate a radical position, insisting that elections in themselves would not undermine the structure of power that prevailed in the country. The NSF also vehemently condemned Bhutto's chauvinistic stance on east Pakistan and ethno-nationalism more generally. Over time the NSF was weakened by the growing power of the liT on student campuses (discussed in Chapter 7), as well as the formation of the People's Student Federation (PSF) which effectively functioned as the mouthpiece of the government, thereby marking the trend in student unionism away from autonomy and towards cooption by the state. A similar process of cooption took place within the other major bastion of the politics of resistance, the trade union movement. Once militancy was curbed by the unbridled use of state repression, the government created the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) and called Tripartite Conferences, building upon the institutional framework outlined in the Industrial Relations Ordinance passed by the Yahya Khan interim government in 1969. The institutional framework sought to undermine labour militancy by making strikes and lock-downs 'illegal', created the institution of the collective bargaining agent (CBA) as the sole representative of workers within an enterprise, and generally coopted labour leaders into administrative and legal entanglements (Shaheed, 1983). Essentially, this was the beginning of the relationship between the state and a labour aristocracy that has become no less of a middleman than the arhti and thekedaar. During the Zia period, the last remaining vestiges of labour militancy were permanently eliminated, and in the subsequent period, the trade union movement has virtually ceased to exist as an autonomous political force. 343 In fact, the vast majority of trade unions are now almost ideal vehicles of the politics of common sense. The example of thekedaar' s acting as CBAs in the manufacturing sectors of surgical instruments and powerlooms was discussed in the previous chapter. More generally, interactions with rank and file political activists and trade union leaders during 343 Indeed, in the private sector, largely because of the process of informalisation and fragmentation discussed in the previous chapter, trade unions have ceased to exist altogether. On the whole it is estimated that only 3% of the workforce is unionized. 200 fieldwork illuminated the unfortunate reality that a labour leader is now distinguished for his connections to influential political factions, his ability to secure individual patronage 344 for workers as opposed to work for collective betterment of the working class, and, quite paradoxically, for a lifestyle more consistent with an upwardly mobile member of the intermediate classes. The legacy Regardless of the chequered nature of the PPP interregnum, there is little doubt about the enormous impact that this period of politicization had on the polity. Innumerable individuals that were encountered during fieldwork, both in rural as well as urban areas, attribute their politicization to this period and particularly to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. 345 There is still an overwhelming sense amongst large segments of the subordinate classes, particularly in Badin but also amongst the small and landless peasantry in Okara, that there has only ever been one pro-people leader in Pakistan. 346 Only in a handful of instances is this popular memory based on actual material benefits accruing to the subordinate classes. For the most part, the Bhutto period is remembered fondly precisely because, as Jones suggests, a permanent transformation took place in the engagement of the subordinate classes within the wider political sphere, a transformation based primarily on the development of a consciousness of class and other horizontal solidarities that were opposed to the vertical alignments that had previously been the primary determinant of political engagement. This is corroborated by a cursory look at the popular media of the time. Compared with the tone and tenor of major newspapers from 1979 onwards, from around late 1967 until two years or so after the Zia coup, the focus of the print press in terms of the stories that were highlighted, the nature of the reporting, and the implicit or explicit politics represented was noticeably more substantive in terms of ideas, and 344 For example, a common task of a trade union leader is to get a relative of a worker hired by the management. 345 Upon further probing, it is inevitably found out that a large number of people were politicized during the late Ayub and Bhutto periods, but nevertheless their own oral histories revolve around the inspiration of Bhutto's person. 346 This speaks to the particular affection that Sindh harbours for Bhutto; many Sindhis still see Bhutto as the martyred Sindhi hero (shaheed). In practical terms it was during Bhutto's period that Sindhis were patronized by the state, particularly in terms of employment within the administrative apparatus and through the setting up of public industrial enterprises in rural parts of the province (cf Ahmed, 1998: 61-88). 201 reflected a mood of change. 347 An exhaustive look at the newspaper archives of DAWN, Pakistan Times, Nawa-i-Waqt and Jang during fieldwork illuminated many interesting differences. For example, the 1967-1977 period was one in which there was a global upsurge of populism/radicalism, and developments around the world found a lot of space in the print press. Reporting on third world movements and particularly regions where resistance was the norm - Indo-China, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Central America - was commonplace. In the post 1979 period, with the exception of the Palestinian cause - which is identified as an 'Islamic' one - such reporting is conspicuous by its absence?48 Reporting on labour and student activism was commonplace in the 67-77 period, and was distinctive because it emphasized the class power of workers and students, implying that change was a desirable societal goal. In contrast, not only has reporting on labour and students decreased markedly in the post-79 period, the limited reporting tends to depict labour and students as clients of powerful benefactors (whether the incumbents or those who are challenging for power). By the 1980s, the association of Islam with the concerns of labour had become explicit; a report on May Day rallies in a major English daily suggested that 'tributes were paid to Chicago workers and rights and privileges given to the wage earners by Islam were highlighted' .349 More generally there has been a quite remarkable, albeit gradual, shift in reporting patterns, particularly in the Urdu press, away from national level debates and concerns to localized ones. In particular, post -1979 reporting has focused more and more on the delivery of services by individuals, parties, or the state, again reflecting an emphasis on the restored patronage relation as the defining feature of the polity.35o The comparison with the 1967-77 period is acute; not only was the reporting in this period 347 Ostensibly it took at least a couple of years after the coup for the popular discourse to change as the of common sense. not taken in the early of the . . One may argue that thIS IS at least partIally because thIrd world radIcahsm has gradually subSIded. However, it is clear that the 1967-77 period was one in which the popular media reflected a political sentiment that pervaded the social formation. 349 The Pakistan Times, May 2, 1984. 350 Indeed the plethora of news items dedicated to statements or activities of individuals is striking. The vast majority of these individuals perhaps represent political organizations, yet their identification is less with their party and more with their person. 202 far less localized, there was also substantive commentary on competing political ideologies, in particular, socialism. 351 Following from this it is possible to start outlining some of the crucial distinctions between the politics of resistance and the politics of common sense. First the politics of resistance is associated with ideologies of change such as the system that the PPP packaged as 'Islamic socialism' .352 More specifically, the politics of resistance is based on mobilization along class and ethno-nationallines to challenge oligarchic rule and demand change in the composition and nature of the state. On the other hand the politics of common sense is based on the acceptance of oligarchic rule and an attempt to secure political and economic resources through direct or indirect access to the state. In short the politics of common sense means to acquiesce to the patronage-based rules of the game whereas the politics of resistance means a rejection of these patronage-based rules and the privileging of more expansive, horizontal solidarities. Wilder (1998) and later Waseem (2006) have documented how this shift from expansive, ideological politics to localized and functional politics has taken place since the 1970s. The process which both refer to as 'localisation', institutionalized in the first instance through local body elections, actually marks a shift in the thrust of popular politics away from confrontation with power towards implicit consent of the power structure. Importantly 'a voter or voting group ... may vote for a local tribal or biraderi leaders, giving the appearance that kinship ties are determining their behaviour. The actual reason, however, is likely to be that the candidate, as a local influential, is linked into the existing patronage network and is therefore able to deliver patronage to supporters' (Wilder, 1998: 194). As was discussed in Chapter 3, the centrality of the low bureaucracy to this process of 'localisation' cannot be understated. The fact that the subordinate classes have acceded to 'common sense' in that they accept the prevailing rules of social exchange 351 There were even full-page write-ups on Latin American revolutionaries such as Che Guevara (lang, July, 20, 1968). This is unthinkable in the present-day climate. 352 As discussed in previous chapters, the Islamist politics of resistance has propagated transformative concepts such as the Nizam-e-Mustapha, or in more recent times, global jihad. However, this thesis does not consider these variants to be genuinely committed to structural overhaul. For that matter, the PPP's Islamic socialism morphed into a form of statism that ultimately that did not dismantle the oligarchic power structure. 203 has much to do with the manner of their interactions with the low bureaucracy. If on the one hand this interaction is personalised, on the other it can very quickly spiral and become coercive and highly oppressive. In either case, it is fundamentally unequal and its persistence reflects only that the subordinate classes remain at the behest of the 'sarkar', and dominant social groups that the latter privileges. 353 The politics of common sense and the politics of resistance can therefore be seen as two ends of a broad spectrum in the post-1960s political sphere and the political action of the subordinate classes as dynamic and mutually interdependent on the alignments of the dominant classes, oligarchy, and intermediate classes. At some level this spectrum can be thought about as representing two contrasting visions of politics. The first vision is far more idealist and epic, reflected in the popular memory of the period which is associated with a sense of political 'awakening'. This vision privileges collective interests and emphasises change in the social structure to secure these interests. The second vision is highly pragmatic, even cynical, as it means resigning oneself to the existing reality and maneuvering within it. Importantly one of the overt features of this second vision is the 'vigorous popular condemnation of politics as such' (Verkaaik, 2004: 8). It is worth dwelling on this last point; this thesis has argued that the Ziaist project can be considered a successful one insofar as the politics of common sense became the dominant mode of political engagement across the social formation. There can be no better indicator of this success than the fact that a large number of people across the social formation - in my estimation the vast majority - consider politics to be a cynical game in which they want no part. One might be tempted to argue that two hundred years after the British attempted to create a 'non-political' model of administration in India, the post-Bhutto historical bloc is succeeding like its predecessors were unable to do. Of course, the success of the Ziaist project is in the very fact that the general public views itself as being outside the ambit of 'politics' and considers politics to be only 353 See Roy's (2004) very revealing discussion of the popular term sarkar in India, distinguishing sarkar (government) from the public, implying not only the omnipotence of the state, but at the same time emphasizing its paternalistic nature (mai baap). 204 the occasional realignments within the (continually expanding) historical bloc, as opposed to a means through which the prevailing system of power itself may be challenged. 354 While it is true that the imagery of a people's politics has been badly eroded, it is not at all true that society has been 'de-politicised' .355 In actual fact, the politics of common sense has engulfed the entire social formation and characterizes almost every relationship of social exchange. To this extent the system as it has been described is hegemonic, especially since Islamic injunction has largely become a tokenism invoked by all but having little to do with everyday social exchange. Yet as will be shown presently, the subordinate classes still retain the ability to engage in a politics that allows them to dissent within the confines of the oligarchic system while retaining the option of rejecting it entirely. An unspectacular politics of resistance 356 Scott's famous 'weapons of the weak' was a metaphor that underlined exactly how clients engage in everyday acts of resistance to seek greater benefits from the personalised relationship within which they find themselves. This idea has been extended by Michel de Certeau' s (1988) understanding of what he calls 'tactics' - those actions that allow the subordinate classes to secure small victories over their oppressors without challenging the larger system of power within which they are ensconced?57 It is important to consider this 'unspectacular politics ofresistance' for two related reasons. First, it is crucial to underline that the subordinate classes always have and will continue to engage in acts of resistance, even if such acts do not involve threatening the prevailing structure of power per se. It is indubitably true that the politics of resistance that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s - in the sense of a politics that threatened the survival of the oligarchic system - was suppressed by the state and 354 It is not uncommon to hear the phrase' Meray sath syasat na karo' which effectively means to say 'Do not try and con me'. The actual translation ofthe Urdu phrase is 'Don't do politics with me'. 355 This is a common lament of the Pakistani intelligentsia. Zaidi (2005b) has a more sophisticated understanding of the trajectory of politics in Pakistan in arguing that there is a very active tradition of politics but this does not necessarily mean a democratic politics per se. This was borne out during fieldwork - Pakistanis of all creeds tend to be very well updated on the latest political developments and are constantly engaged in chatter about various aspects of politics whether at home, in the workplace, or at a khoka (roadside tea stall). Yet the refrain that politics is the preserve of dominant social forces remains intact. 356 The use of the term unspectacular owes itself to an unpublished manuscript of a lecture delivered by SUdipta Kaviraj to the American Association of South Asian Studies in 2004. 357 More specifically, de Certeau suggests that the 'strategic' setting within which the subordinate classes adopt 'tactics' of resistance is in fact the wider economic and political context which is determined by dominant groups. 205 its allies. However, this does not mean that unspectacular acts of resistance were also eliminated. Second, there is a need to recognize that unspectacular act of resistance mayor may not conform to the logic of patronage which has been outlined in this thesis as being the founding stone of the politics of common sense. In other words, it is possible that unspectacular acts of resistance are simply instances - in the sense that was suggested earlier - of a client improving his or her bargaining position vis a vis the patron. However, and more crucially for my purposes, it is always possible that unspectacular acts of resistance - even if they do not necessarily represent major affronts to the status quo in and of themselves - challenge the logic of patronage upon which the politics of common sense is founded. In particular, the more significant acts of unspectacular resistance are those that privilege some form of expansive collective action as opposed to action towards individual gain?58 Insofar as this reinvigorates within the subordinate classes a belief that there does exist a politics that represents their interests and aspirations, this is a potentially invaluable component of counter- hegemony. Having said this, the everyday act of resistance should not and cannot be considered akin to the politics of resistance to which the historical bloc reacted following the Zia COUp?59 In particular, it is crucial to avoid the 'fetishising' of resistance that - as mentioned in the introductory chapter - is the hallmark of post-structuralist analyses. Everyday acts of resistance in and of themselves are little more than reflections of the fact that the subordinate classes are on the wrong end of the oppressed-oppressor relationship, although they do illustrate the fact that the oppressed are conscious of their position. As already pointed out above, it is important to consider the political action of the subordinate classes as dynamic and along a spectrum in which the politics of resistance and the politics of common sense represent the two ends. This allows the possibility of unspectacular acts of resistance continuing to persist even when the politics of common sense is dominant. 358 In this case, expansive collective action does not mean any form of majoritarianism on the basis of any parochial identity (such as caste, creed, religion, etc.). 359 Thus there are three separate categories of resistance that have been explored in this thesis, namely the (bonafide) politics of resistance, the Islamist (pseudo) politics of resistance, and the unspectacular politics of resistance. 206 Small and landless jarmers 360 It is reported that one of every two rural households in the country is now landless. However, if one adds to the category of landless those that own upto 2.5 acres - or in other words those who survive at barely subsistence levels - one accounts for more than 70% of Pakistan's rural households (Gazdar, 2003). Moreover, there has been a steady transformation of the agrarian structure in Pakistan such that traditional sharetenancy relationships have been almost completely replaced by wage labour. Additionally, very small landholders often have to supplement their income by working as labour on other farms (cf Zaidi, 2005a). Very small and landless farmers are therefore arguably the largest single component of the subordinate classes, notwithstanding the vague estimates of those employed as workers in the highly variegated urban informal sector. My fieldwork on what Gazdar calls the 'land-poor' was focused in Okara and Charsadda, both relatively rich, irrigated plain districts. In Okara, small landholders are the norm, the vast majority of whom are descendants of the original canal colonists that were given 25 acres of land in the second decade of the 20 th century.361 In Charsadda, large landholdings are more common, but there has been a steady process of fragmentation that has reduced land inequality to a limited extent. In both Okara and Charsadda, popular movements of small and landless farmers have raged at different times over the past 35 years. Okara The Okara villages I studied are broadly reflective of the ideal-type in the central irrigated plains of Punjab in that the primary social distinction is between agricultural and non-agricultural castes (zamindars and kammis). As discussed in the introductory chapter and then again in Chapter 4, the British undertook a major social engineering experiment in western Punjab on the basis of their perceptions about what constituted 360 Within the category of landless there are both wage labourers and sharecropping tenants. Both are distinct from the increasingly large number of the rural landless who are involved in non-agricultural occupations. 361 Okara was part of the Lower Bari Doab colony. All of the canal colonists were originally given short-term tenancies, but following riots in 1907 the policy of successive British, and following partition in 1947, Pakistani regimes, was to eventually give occupancy tenants proprietary rights to the land (cf Ali, 1988). 207 a stable social order, which, of course, was consistent with imperial objectives. While it has been conclusively shown in preceding chapters that this social order has changed qualitatively, fieldwork indicated that the divide between zamindars and kammis remains an important one?62 Having said this, some non-agriculturalists have been able to improve their social status by earning income from off-farm sources, but nonetheless, distinction between caste groups remains intact, and is preserved primarily by the practice of endogamy. On the face of it then, political action of small and landless farmers tends to be determined greatly by vertical identities, and primarily that of caste in the sense that factions led presumably by powerful members of one caste or the other - Arains and Rajputs are particularly conspicuous in Okara - are constituted largely of less affluent members of the same caste?63 However, this apparent equilibrium cannot be generalized in any meaningful way. In the first instance, during time spent in Okara villages it became clear that electoral alignments are not necessarily a microcosm of political alignments more generally. In other words, while it is common that caste affiliation becomes more prominent at election time - both local body and nationallprovincial- it is quite often the case that weaker caste members, particularly smallholding and landless households, cannot rely on the same patron for every problem they encounter. 364 In any case, Wilder's (1998) observation seems to be borne out in Okara, namely that what appears to be alignment only on the basis of caste - or for that matter other such ascriptive ties - is actually alignment with a patron that is able to effectively mediate between the client and the state in matters of service provision, dispute resolution and employment. This is proven by the fact that, for example, under the three-tiered local 362 In much the same way as is suggested by Gazdar (2003) in his study of villages in three Punjabi districts, namely Attock, Hafizabad and Faisalabad, I found that 'significant cases of mobility have occurred among the poorer segments of the traditional cultivators, while the traditional "non- cultivators" continue to face social and economic disadvantage'. In those cases, like ours, the Arain caste stands out as the primary example. 363 This corresponds to the factional model prevalent in Punjab villages outlined by Alavi (1971; 1972; 1973). 364 Indeed in many cases it was observed that small and landless farmers faced victimization - particularly in terms of capture of land and/or other resources such as cattle - by more powerful members of their own caste. In this case, the victimized party mayor may not tum to other members of the caste to mediate or intervene on their behalf. In this case, recourse to patrons outside the village with substantive political links of their own, including the arhti, traders, and transporters, remains a little utilized option which suggests the resilience of well established politico-cultural institutions. 208 government system currently in place, the elected councilors at the union council (i.e. the lowest) level, even where they are largely dependent on caste to secure support, ally themselves with individuals and factions not only on the basis of their caste affiliation but on the basis of their caste identities and their ability to distribute patronage. 365 In any case, there is no hard and fast rule vis a vis caste necessarily dictating political alignments, even though it can playa significant role. For the most part, the political choices of small and landless farmers reflect their understanding of the existing patronage-based system, in the sense that they tend to be risk-averse and affiliate themselves with patrons in a manner broadly consistent with the framework delineated by Khan (2000). This may mean, as was suggested in the previous chapter, aligning with patrons that are considered to be exploitative. 366 Importantly however, it is common for small and landless farmers to embroil themselves in matters of the thana and katcheri - or what the colonial administrator Darling called 'addiction to litigation' (Chaudhary, 1999: 26). For example, disputes over land between biraderi members - and even brothers - are widespread, often over a trivially small piece of land. Such disputes almost inevitably result in the two (or more) parties engaging the state. Without resorting to cultural essentialism to explain this 'addiction' it is clear that there does exist a long tradition within the Punjab of the subordinate classes invoking the legal and policing institutions of the state, often a counter-productive exercise in the sense that the litigant and the defendant both incur huge costs and are often subject to major time lags in the processing of the case. 367 However, as anthropological studies point out, the desire to protect izzat - which is often considered synonymous with reducing the enemy's izzat - explains many such actions that might otherwise be avoided (cf Chaudhary, 1999; Lyon, 2002; Nelson, 2008). In effect, the addiction to litigation is a crucial component of the politics of common 365 So for example, the district nazim of Okara is a Syed, but his faction of tehsil and union council level supporters includes Arains, Rajputs, Jats and other caste leaders. It is in the electoral realm that the intermediate classes also become much more prominent actors in the political universe of the small and landless farmer. 366 This refers specifically to possible intermediaries aside from traditional landed and caste notables including arhtis and other members of the intermediate classes. 367 Importantly, both in Okara and Charsadda, lawyers hired in such cases admit to the fact their role is rather like that of a parasitic middleman and reflects the fact that the formal legal code remains cumbersome and in the worst case, illegible to the subordinate classes. 209 sense insofar as those who are often victims of state excess themselves invoke the state, thereby granting its legal and policing functions legitimacy. As such, those in the Okara villages that remember the heady politicization of the late 1960s and 1970s point out that the 'addiction to litigation' was considerably lessened as mobilization along class lines overrode pre-existing vertical political alignments. More recently, during a mobilization of 19 villages of state-owned land in Okara against the imposition of new tenure system, not only was there considerable unity forged across zamindar and kammi castes against the military administration that was considered a common oppressor but there was also a dramatic decline in litigation by farmers against one another. 368 Importantly, once the mobilization successfully warded off what the residents of the villages perceived to be an attempt to evict them, not only did traditional caste divisions re-emerge, there was also a gradual increase in land-related and other disputes which meant a resumption of the subordinate classes' engagement with the state as dependent clients. Crucially, the political action of small and landless farmers in Okara from the mobilizations of the 1960s and 1970s to those that took place between 2000 and 2004 can be explained systematically. The first mobilizations reflected the dramatic change in the political universe that Jones talks about due to which small and landless farmers recognized the possibility of actually pressing for a fundamental reconfiguration of the relationship between themselves, the historic intermediaries and the state. This politicization ensured that even after the end of the populist period, small and landless farmers would align politically with the faction most likely to provide benefits of some kind rather than simply pledge allegiance to caste, biraderi or any other ascriptive relation. Thus the politics of common sense may have been established, and was hegemonic insofar as the alternatives for small and landless farmers to mobilize on horizontal and expansive lines were limited. 369 However, not only was there regular recourse to 368 For a detailed analysis of this mobilization, its genesis and its outcome see Akhtar (2006b). 369 This is a crucial point - as pointed out on numerous occasions already, the politics of common sense is based as much on repression of oppositional politics as it is on institutionalizing a culture of patronage. 210 unspectacular acts of resistance 37o , the prospect of class-based action remained intact. 371 The fact that there was no major example of the politics of resistance in the intervening period speaks to the success of the state and dominant classes in preventing the reemergence of class-based organizations within small and landless farmers and the attendant inculcation within them of the 'justifiable perception that class action to change society is unlikely to succeed unless a very significant degree of class unity was to emerge' (Khan, 2000: 578). As time passed then, the politics of common sense became more and more entrenched. Nevertheless, largely in response to the threat of eviction, a collective consciousness that transcended the fragmentary nature of the politics of common sense did not take long to crystallize. This politics of resistance was expansive, bridging the divide across caste and religion 372 , emphasizing ideas of freedom and self-determination as opposed to functionally stressing economic gain, and ultimately challenged the mandate of the state to dictate the 'greater national interest'. That this relatively prolonged flirtation with the politics of resistance once again gave way to the politics of common sense after the threat of eviction was dispelled speaks to the fact that the wider political environment was repressive and indeed to the highly dynamic nature of subordinate class action. Importantly, the Islamist politics of resistance was conspicuous by its absence in this particular case, even though it was one of the most prominent popular movements in the recent past. In the initial period following the emergence of the movement, the Kissan Board - a wing of the 11 - engaged with the rebelling farmers, but once it became clear that the movement was radicalizing rapidly, and in particular that it was moving towards a head-on collision with the military, the Kissan Board very quickly departed the scene. 370 Among such acts recounted to the author are collective absconding from rentlharvest payments and social boycott of local influentials. 371 My interviews with farmers involved in the recent mobilizations suggest that the popular memory of the period of politicization in the late 1960s and 1970s was a great motivating factor. 372 In Okara, as in much of Punjab, Christians are low-caste menials and remain more alienated than Muslim Iwmmis. During the mobilization between 2000-4, the Christian-Muslim divide, although latent, was dramatically bridged. 211 Charsadda Charsadda is different from Okara in two fundamental ways. First, landholdings are distributed much more unevenly, and second, the state is far less deeply entrenched into everyday social exchange. To begin with, historically rooted social hierarchies in Pakhtun society, while displaying similarities to those in the Punjab and Sindh, are also considerably different. The tribal social order was famously described by Lindholm (1981) as being more akin to Arab patterns of social organization than it was to that of the Indus or Gangetic plains of the subcontinent. The substantive differences derive from the code of Pakhtunwali which stresses revenge, refuge and the offering of hospitality. However, among the important similiarities is the fact that endogamous Pakhtun tribes are often occupationally identified. In other words landholding tribes are distinguished from non-landholding tribes, although importantly it is not always the case that the same tribe will historically be associated with the same occupational status in two different locales. 373 In Charsadda, the main landholding tribe is the Muhammadzai, and both the larger and smaller landowners hail primarily from it. The significant landless population which has historically worked as sharecropping tenants and more recently wage labour on Muhammadzai land is from the Mohmand tribe. Importantly this social order is also a relatively recent product of colonial rule and the creation of a hydraulic society. When large-scale irrigation systems were set up in the Peshawar Valley, tribes such as the Muhammadzai were endowed with proprietary rights under the new British legal code (Rittenburg, 1988).374 To till the lands, the British encouraged migration from the adjacent Mohmand tribal agency. The majority of Mohmand farmers in Charsadda even today maintain homes in the mountain range that separates the tribal agency from the settled Charsadda district. 373 Importantly, there is also always a distinction between members of the tribe in terms ofland ownership; some members of landowning tribes may even be landless on account of typical factors such as fragmentation of holdings over the span of generations. More generally, Pakhtun tribes distinguish themselves from non-Pakhtuns such as the Gujjars, and this faultline still remains intact in districts such as Mansehra. However, in Charsadda, differentiation within Pakhtuns started to become more significant with the commercialization of agriculture under the British. 374 It is important to remember that the NWFP was not accorded the status of a separate administrative province until 1928. Till this time the settled Peshawar Valley was part of British Punjab which meant that the infamous Punjab Alienation of Land Act 1901 applied to it. In other words the formal distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural castes was enforced here as it was in the Punjab. 212 In Charsadda then the primary contradiction is between landowning Muhammadzais and the landless Mohmands. 375 There is a long history of conflict between the landed and landless classes in the areas. In fact Charsadda is the heartland of the historic Hashtanagar peasant movement that emerged in 1970. 376 This movement pitted the landless (both tenant farmers and labourers) against the large landowners whose farms the former tilled. In this conflict the small landowners played an ambivalent yet crucial role, vascillating between support for the landless farmers along horizontal, class lines and support for the large landowners on vertical, tribal lines. The Hashtanagar movement was arguably the biggest peasant movement in the country during the late 1960s and 1970s, and generated substantial support from radical political groups across the country.377 It was therefore one of the more obvious symbols of the politics of resistance, not least because some of the landowners who were targeted in the movement were prominent state functionaries and politicians. 378 The movement was largely successful in not only ending the system of begar or what was effectively a system of semi-serfdom but also in allowing tenants to permanently occupy land and transform the power relations within the valley. For the most part the land occupation has remained intact in spite of regular attempts by the state and landlords to retake the land as well as numerous decisions of the superior courts against the tenants. Importantly the Hashtanagar movement was spearheaded by the Mazdoor Kissan Party (Workers and Peasants Party) which attempted, with some success, to extend the scope of the movement beyond the immediate economistic objective of capturing land to a broader conception of revolutionizing state and society. Thus there is a considerable difference in the evolved attitudes and understanding of the state among 375 In addition all agriculturalists, and small and landless farmers in particular, are also coming into increasing contradiction with the intermediate classes. 376 Hashtanagar refers to an area that spans three districts, namely Mardan, Peshawar and Charsadda. For more information on the Hashtanagar movement, see Laghari (1979: 213-222). 377 One of the slogans commonly heard at rallies across the country when the Hashtanagar movement was at its peak went: 'Tera nagar, mera nagar, Hashtanagar, Hashtanagar'. Literally: Your nagar, my nagar, Hashtanagar, Hashtanagar. 378 Among those whose land was occupied by the tenants were Sartaj Aziz, later to become Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance under Nawaz Sharif, as well as the Inspector General of Police under Bhutto, Shafiullah Khan. 213 the small and landless farmers in Charsadda as opposed to in Okara, the former clearly maintaining a more confrontational and principled stance over time. Nevertheless, in the years following the success of the Hashtanagar movement, the politics of common sense has made inroads into the local social formation as it has done across the country. First and foremost, there are the social changes engendered by commercialization of agriculture which has exposed small and landless farmers to the rigours of capital (and the intermediate classes), providing some of them opportunities for upward social mobility while subjecting the vast majority to the atomistic logic of the market. 379 Furthermore, the historical modes of engagement within the tribal social order have continued to compete with the collective consciousness generated by the struggles of the early 1970s. Tribal affiliation remains central to social life. Thus small farmers from the Muhammadzai tribe remain ambivalent towards the Mohmands, even though their class interests clearly converge more than with those of the landed Muhammadzais. This ambivalence is reflected in the fact that small farmers are sometimes complicit with the state in attempts to evict Mohmands from occupied lands. Having said that, there is evidence of conflict and competition within the Mohmands as well, largely because some Mohmands have secured opportunities for upward social mobility through outside employment (often with the state).380 This means that tribal affiliation is just as likely to be eroded as it is to remain central to social exchange. Be that as it may, it is clear that the symbiotic relationship between tribe and class in Hashtanagar was a major factor in the emergence of a politics of resistance in the area and the fact that the politics of common sense has penetrated less deeply than in, say, Okara. This also brings into focus the historical role of the state in Charsadda. More generally within the Pakhtun areas the state has been invoked less than in colonial and 379 Migration of working-age males is not uncommon in Charsadda - almost every family with which I came into contact had at least one male member of the household working either in Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Karachi or in one of the Gulf states. 380 It was observed that in cases where landless Mohmands have been able to purchase land through money earned elsewhere, they have distanced themselves somewhat from their kinsmen during periods of confrontation. 214 post-colonial Punjab, primarily because of the resilience of Pakhtunwali?81 Thus the state has been far less a factor in the popular imagination and accordingly it has not secured as hegemonic a status as it has done in Punjab or Sindh. 382 Indeed it has been in the Pakhtun areas of Pakistan that both the colonial and post-colonial states have historically experienced the most opposition (cf Ahmed, 1986). That having been said the thana and katcheri culture does exist and the subordinate classes typically suffer the brunt of this culture. More generally, there has been increased engagement with the state over time, at least partially because the state remains the major source of livelihood outside agriculture. Thus many from within the subordinate classes have become part of the low bureaucracy and alongside migration and the marketisation of the agrarian economy, this largely explains the encroachment of the politics of common sense into the local social formation. Crucially, the politics of resistance comes to the fore during the periodic attempts by the state and displaced landlords to clear occupied lands. In this way, the logic of subordinate class action is similar to that of Okara, namely that when the state's clearly oppressive face is exposed and the more insidious mechanism of garnering consent is relegated to the background, the subordinate classes' natural instinct is to resist, which necessarily engenders a challenge to internal social hierarchies as well. In this case too, there has not been an Islamist politics of resistance of note. While the religio-political movements have much more of a presence in Charsadda than any of the other fieldwork sites, they have never been more than marginally involved in the struggle of Hashtanagar farmers. Their rhetoric is limited to suggestions that peace and justice will prevail under an 'Islamic' state, while in practice they tend to stay clear of any major class conflicts such as that of Hashtangar farmers. In any case, since 2002, the religio-political movements have been in government and therefore directly opposed to the land-occupying farmers. 381 In any case, it was a deliberate policy of the colonial state - and by extension its post-colonial successor - to allow the Pakhtuns relative autonomy in their internal affairs so long as they abided by the larger defence imperatives of the Raj. This policy was more explicit in the non-settled areas but its overtones nevertheless resonated in the settled districts as well. 382 In Charsadda, the state is thought of in far less imposing terms than in Okara or Badin. Indeed the term sarkar is not used, most people using the standard Arabic term, hukoomat. 215 Subsistence fisheifolk The dramatically magnified political action of subsistence fishing communities over the past three or four decades has largely been a function of the corporatisation of fisheries as a whole. As discussed in the previous chapter, although contractors did exist prior to the 1960s, the subsistence needs of fishing communities were far less vulnerable to the vagaries of the market, while the number of communities dependent on small-scale fishing was also relatively small. This effectively meant only limited contact with the state, particularly on the Badin coast, and relative cultural autonomy as well. Importantly, there was no 'traditionally' dominant group that lorded over smaller fisherfolk. Thus, the historical narrative of political action in the case of the fishing communities of Sindh has been somewhat different from agrarian communities in Punjab and NWFP. Having said this, the politicization of the 1970s on the fishing communities was similar to that of small and landless farmers across the country. On the one hand this can be explained by the affection felt by Sindhi fisherfolk for their Sindhi hero, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a sentiment that extended across the Sindhi social formation. More specific to fisherfolk was the announcement made by the PPP government that it was abolishing the contract system in fisheries and introducing a licensing mechanism in which priority would be given to those with historically established rights to Sindh's water bodies. This announcement did not materialize into an enforced policy, but it nevertheless mobilized coastal fishing communities into the mainstream political sphere. Largely because of the rather scattered nature of fishing goths (villages) there was no meaningful resistance to the increasingly ruthless imperatives of the market until quite recently. To the extent that a social hierarchy exists within the diverse clan groups that have corne to constitute fishing communities, this also acted as an impediment to resistance as it was infact the self-appointed or hereditary heads of clans that often became middlemen or established direct links with them. 383 In some ways, the 'shift' 383 It was pointed out in the previous chapter that the traditional fishing caste, the mallahs, no longer constitutes the majority of subsistence fishing communities. In some ways, those clans who have taken to fishing have adopted the social organization of the mallahs in the sense that there are no rigid social hierarchies within a prototypical fishing goth, and the primary distinction is between extended patrilineal lineage groups, or more commonly, nuclear families. 216 from interior to exterior political affiliations is more obvious in the case of the fisherfolk in the sense that prior to the 1960s there was very little political engagement beyond the goth. As far as the spectrum of political action of fishing communities is concerned, the current phase of resistance appears to represent a fundamental break from the politics of common sense which has evolved coevally with the commercialization of the sector. Crucially however, the impetus for the politics of resistance between 2003-6 derived from Karachi where fishing communities are spatially concentrated in large settlements such as Ibrahim Hyderi and where collective organizing efforts clearly have a greater political impact. In response to various market-driven threats to the livelihood of fishing communities, organized resistance in the form of civil disobedience and other forms of mass mobilization in Karachi encouraged similar forms of organization in Badin (and for that matter in Thatta, Sanghar and Hyderabad).384 In essence, the contract system was targeted as it was the single- biggest cause of both ecological degradation and exploitation of the fishing communinites. 385 Nonetheless it is important to point out that there is a real possibility that organized resistance would not have taken place but for the presence of Rangers forces within the contracting process, as discussed in the last chapter. One the one hand the Rangers are a relatively alien force in a heavily personalised system of extraction and the direct threat of state coercion necessarily meant greater exploitation and thus, resentment. Furthermore, the Rangers forces all happen to be non-Sindhi and primarily Punjabi at that: Sindhis have long protested against what they perceive to be the systematic resource and power grabbing antics of Punjabis and Urdu-speaking Muhajirs. Thus an exploitative yet familiar system of resource extraction which had become part of the local fishing communities' common sense became subject to 384 This mobilization was spearheaded by a locally organized outfit named Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum. Evidently the popularization of various 'rights' discourses by foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NOOs) facilitated the emergence of the PFF. However, the leadership of the PFF hails exclusively from within the fishing community and many within the leadership have been associated with radical ethno-nationalist political parties such as the Awami Tehrik and National Awami Party. 385 There were, and remain, other major issues around which the fisherfolk have mobilized, induding but not limited to corporate trawling, the use of destructive nets and the arrests of fisherfolk by Indian border authorities. 217 resistance on account of the impersonal and coercive element introduced into it. 386 The external impetus notwithstanding, this is yet another example of the dynamism of subordinate class action. Having said this, it is important to contextualize this particular manifestation of resistance. The ability of the coastal fishing communities to put an end to what was effectively organized extortion by state functionaries should not be overstated. The contract system still remains in place, even if in a less exploitative form than when the Rangers were privy to it. The general trend of commercialization has not been halted to any meaningful degree and the logic of patronage is still well entrenched. Nevertheless, as objective conditions become more oppressive, the prospect that resistance can be fomented is no longer a distant one, as proven by the example of struggle against the Rangers-dominated contract system. Katchi abadi dwellers 387 While there are no authoritative figures on the numbers of katchi abadi dwellers in Pakistan's urban areas, the approximate figure of 35% of all urban residents is often floated (cfHasan, 2002b). This amounts, at the very least, to something like 20-25 million people across the country. This enormous segment of the urban population is actually quite diverse sociologically in the sense that within katchi abadis one will find white-collar professionals including government employees and members of the intermediate classes alongwith wage labourers and domestic servants. Nonetheless the majority of katchi abadi dwellers are those who genuinely have no other arrangement for shelter and fall within the broad rubric of the subordinate classes. A short sketch of the nature of katchi abadi formation is crucial as it sheds more light on the informal processes through which the state retains power within the social formation. Katchi abadis are effectively the product of an informal housing market in which state functionaries, middlemen and the subordinate classes are agents. In the absence of affordable housing in cities for migrants from rural areas, and increasingly the rapidly growing low-income population within cities, middlemen and state 386 Importantly other social and political groups in the Badin area also supported the fisherfolk movement against the Rangers. 387 Katchi abadis is loosely translated as informal squatter settlements, the majority of which are located on government land. 218 functionaries invite those in need of shelter to set up their homes on unoccupied public land - obviously not as a matter of formal policy.388 The squatters do not free ride by any means - they pay for the land as well as unofficial sources of electricity and other basic amenities that are provided to them by state functionaries. Katchi abadi dwellers even 'buy' and 'sell' their plots, even though they have no formal title to the land. If and when the state requires the land on which katchi abadis are built, summary evictions take place. Thus katchi abadi dwellers constantly live without security of tenure which explains their engagements with the state. In particular, katchi abadi dwellers seek out patrons who provide favourable access to the state, and are often themselves ensconced in patron-client relationships with members of the low bureaucracy so as to secure legal recognition through regularization or at the very least to ward off eviction for the foreseeable future. 389 Importantly, katchi abadis are also a favourite of both military rulers and politicians, the former because the announcement of immediate conferment of proprietary rights to katchi abadi dwellers helps to generate popular legitimacy and the latter because katchi abadi dwellers tend to be amongst the most active voting constituencies in urban areas. In both cases, the form of political engagement is entirely patronage-based. However, as with all the other examples presented here, the politics of common sense is largely influenced by the politics of resistance that preceded it, and this is the major explanation for the sporadic resorts to resistance that continue to take place to this day. According to one of the founding members of the PPP and minister of finance until 1975, Mubashir Hasan, the mobilization of katchi abadi dwellers from the late 1960s through the PPP's time in power represented a genuine political movement for change, 388 In the immediate post-partition period, land was available in many parts of the city and thus many katchi abadis developed in and around city centers. In the current period land has become much more scarce and katchi abadis are now springing up on natural drains, physically depressed pieces ofland, and the outskirts of the city. 389 Many municipal and development authorities have katchi abadi cells, including the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in Islamabad. The Punjab government has a department dedicated to katchi abadis headed by a Director-General, while Sindh boasts the highest level of institutionalization in the form of the Sindh Katchi abadis Authority (SKAA). It is the members of these departments, alongwith functionaries of the encroachment cells that generate the most benefits from their interactions with katchi abadi dwellers. 219 encapsulated in the slogan 'Roti, Kapra aur Makan,.390 In other words the emphasis was on a holistic political programme in which the state was endowed with the responsibility to provide basic needs such as food, clothing and housing to the people. While the PPP government did honour its pledge to some extent, the state remained committed to the ideology and practice of national security rather than being transformed into a social welfare state. Thus, according to Mubashir Hasan, the tendency of successive governments after that of the PPP to engage in rhetoric of proprietary rights to katchi abadi dwellers, and the intense patronage-politics that this perceived 'state largesse' has given rise to, must be understood in the context of the politicization that took place through the 1970s in the sense that the political universe of katchi abadi dwellers was forever changed and this compelled the state to coopt the language of rights and entitlements. This also helps explain the fact that mobilization of katchi abadi dwellers to demand their rights rather than engage in the politics of common sense continues to take place - however sporadically - to this day.391 However, such episodes are typically isolated and do not reflect any meaningful shift back to a consistent politics of resistance. The politics of resistance amongst katchi abadi dwellers uptil three decades ago was founded upon the unity of class interests. However, not only has the composition of katchi abadis become much more varied - largely because of the uneven patterns of upward social mobility that have been discussed earlier - but the politics of patronage has effectively created divisions within katchi abadi dwellers along a host of lines?92 While the sporadic episodes of katchi abadi mobilization are yet another demonstration of the dynamic nature of the subordinate class action and the fact that counter-hegemonic ideas remain a threat to the historical bloc, their erratic nature also indicates that, for the time being, hegemony is not in danger of unraveling. 390 Literally: food, clothing and shelter. 391 Autonomous organizations of katchi abadi dwellers do exist, and it is through this medium that meaningful mobilizations take place. Examples include the All-Pakistan Alliance for Katchi abadis and Awami Rehaishi Tanzeem (People's Shelter Organisation). However, the fact that katchi abadi dwellers themselves tend not to transcend the discourse of 'legality' ultimately translates into a privileging of common sense politics. 392 Importantly, ascriptive ties appear to be less salient in katchi abadis than at other research sites. Patronage tends to be distributed not along the lines of any particular social identity but rather reflects historically developed links between factions within katchi abadis (organized along party and trade union lines for example) and politicians/state functionaries. There is one major faultline within katchi abadis however, namely religion. Menial caste Christians who typically take up cleaning jobs in government departments or elite homes live in katchi abadis in big numbers, and their highly depressed social status explains their regular search for powerful patrons. 220 The urban underclass As explicitly stated in the previous chapter, it is the urban informal workforce that is the most overtly exploited of all segments of the subordinate classes, and importantly, the primary explanation for this seems to be that it is within the urban informal sector that the most unbridled effects of Pakistani capitalism have been manifest. Other segments of the subordinate classes discussed above still have recourse to historically evolved networks of security, regardless of how much these networks have also been eroded by the universalizing tendency of capita1. 393 Urban informal sector workers however are effectively a 'new' social category in that flexibilisation and fragmentation, as the two major elements of the neo-liberal phase of accumulation that started in the mid-late 1970s, have given rise to entirely new forms of organization and exploitation (cf Harvey, 1992). As discussed in the previous chapter, this is reflected in the informal workshops of Sialkot and Faisalabad as well as the sub-contracting system more generally. Such working arrangements make organizing at the workplace very difficult. 394 I encountered one major example of resistance amidst this highly oppressive environment, namely amongst powerlooms operators in Faisalabad. The Labour Qaumi Movement was organized not by workers however, but by external actors who were related to the workers and came together to articulate their concerns. They engaged in a series of extremely visible protest actions, including sit-ins. This resulted in direct confrontation with the local administration and the arrests of a handful of the leadership. These tactics did gamer a response from powerloom owners in the form of slightly improved wages and registration with the Labour Department, however, the relationship between the leadership of the organization and the workers appeared very patronage-based, and there does not appear to be any major progress in either 393 The agricultural wage labourer is arguably just as vulnerable to the dictates of the market as the urban informal sector worker, but to a large degree the rural social formation is still less atomized than the city. 394 As discussed in the previous chapter, even registered trade unions in this sector tend to be proxies for contractors. 221 expanding the bases of the organization's support or towards a qualitatively different politics following the initial mobilization. 395 Importantly, the urban informal workforce does not have recourse to any popular memory of the politics of resistance as is the case with other segments of the subordinate classes. On the one hand, the organized trade union movement of the 1960s and 1970s was concentrated within the large public sector enterprises including Railways and the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). To the extent that workers of private industries experienced radicalization, the fragmentation of industry has put paid to any regeneration of such radicalism on the basis of collective memory and space. This is not to suggest that organization of the urban informal workforce is impossible, but to point out that both objective changes in the economic structure, as well as the decline of worker's organizations explain the situation today. In this sector there appears to be the most acute sense that intermediate class employers are 'doing a favour' for workers. In other words there is a unique dialectic in operation; on the one hand there is the impersonalism of the market and the fact that historically rooted social networks that could provide some security are not operative, or at least weak; on the other hand the personalised nature of the relationship between the worker and the thekedaar seems to inhibit resistance against the exploitative system, whether because the worker perceives the thekedaar to be 'gracing' him with a job or because he feels he cannot afford to antagonize his patron. This feeling is heightened by the immense surplus pool of labour which makes any informally hired employee's position highly tenuous. Finally, the fact that there is a high percentage of adolescents and even children working in the sector also militates against organization and the politics of resistance. A note on ethno-nationalism For the most part this thesis has depicted the politics of resistance of the 1960s and 1960s as one based on an ideology of class. However I have hinted all along that ethno-nationalism has also been a major faultline of resistance, and has arguably 395 Indeed, many of the LQM leadership contested local body elections in 2005 on the basis of their support of powerlooms workers. Having created a space for themselves within local politics following the initial mobilization, the leadership seems to be thriving on thana and katcheri politics. 222 persisted in some shape of form long after populism was crushed by the Zia regime. While it is impossible to comment exhaustively on the politics of ethno-nationalism both as a form of resistance and more generally, it is necessary to make some observations. In particular, given the prominence of the idiom of ethno-nationalism in Pakistani politics, it is important to consider exactly why this brand of politics has been so resilient and to what extent it remains a bastion of resistance. As has been documented by numerous theorists, the nationalist idiom in Pakistani politics derives from the peculiarities of state formation, including but not limited to the fact that power in the new state was wielded primarily by two ethnic groups (cf Alavi, 1991 a; Ahmed, 1998). By this argument the politics of ethno-nationalism effectively reflects the interests of the educated salariat and can be coopted if a significant enough segment of the salariat is inducted into the administrative apparatus and garners a share in power and resources more generally.396 The discussion in the Pakistani context is no doubt based on the modernist view of nationalism insofar as ethno-nationalism is directly correlated with the extent to which insular groups are considered to be committed to political mobilization to secure an adequate share in state power and the economy.397 This perspective is clearly inadequate in part because the immense differentiation that has taken place over the past few decades has ensured that ethno-national groups are no longer as distinct a political entity as they may have been in the past. For example, Karachi (as opposed to Peshawar) is home to the biggest Pakhtun population in Pakistan and, as was shown in the previous chapter, it is Pakhtuns that virtually control the burgeoning transport industry. Having said that, the Siraiki, Sindhi and Baloch ethno-national groups definitively remain excluded from power and resource sharing, which explains the persistence of their demands for inclusion. However, these movements are also fundamentally concerned with the question of demography in that the Baloch, Sindhis and Siraikis have all been reduced to the status of minorities in the territorial regions that they have historically inhabited. This 396 Indeed this is the argument forwarded by Ahmed (1998) to explain the de-radicalisation of the Pakhtun ethno-national movement since its anti-centre beginnings at partition. 397 The larger debate on modem ethno-nationalism revolves around two competing explanations for the phenomenon, namely the modernist and perennial views. See Smith (1998) and Anderson (1996) for the most incisive summaries of the larger debate. 223 speaks to their larger concern over rapidly eroding cultural autonomy, including the displacement of a historically rooted oral culture of poetry and story-telling which remains a feature of the Indus Plains?98 There is little doubt that Punjabis and Urdu- speakers are viewed with great mistrust by excluded ethno-national groups - and not only the salariat - because of both material and cultural domination. Thus the modernist perspective is insufficient in explaining the continuing salience of ethno- nationalism on Pakistan's political landscape. This once again raises the question of the extent to which the ideologies of national security and official Islam have been successfully inculcated across the social formation. More specifically, the state initially built its hegemonic project around a pliant social order in Punjab - following from its colonial predecessor - and has managed to sustain the configuration of power at least partially because Punjab continues to be the seat of political and economic power. On the other hand, the excluded ethno-national groups - which the Muhajirs of urban Sindh since the mid- 1980s have also claimed to be - have quite consistently disputed the state mandate, and continue to do so even now. Be that as it may, the politics of ethno-nationalism that was a pillar of resistance in the late 1960s and 1970s - to a significant extent because of its symbiotic relationship with the politics of class in Punjab - has suffered a distinct decline over time. On the one hand, insofar as ethno-national politics is a politics of identity, it has increasingly been forced to compete with other forms of identity politics, most obviously, Islam. A related point is that ethno-national forces were victimized under the Zia regime alongside the other major protagonists of the politics of resistance. 399 The National Awami Party (NAP) for example, a broad front of ethno-nationalists and leftists of various denomination and arguably Pakistan's most popular party before the rise of the PPP, was subject to fragmentation and in-fighting, at least partially because of 398 Interviews with Ahsan Wagha, Jami Chandio. The intense desire to protect cultural autonomy is also manifest in the fact that amongst all of Pakistan's ethno-national groups, the Sindhis alone have also maintained a vibrant press. 399 There was also the parallel process of cooption operative. Intriguingly, Zia pardoned Baloch nationalist leaders victimized during the Bhutto period, most of them choosing self-exile. On the other hand Sindhi nationalism underlay the fiercest challenge to the Zia regime under the auspices of the MRD that peaked in rural Sindh in 1983. This movement was crushed by a typically brutal display of state power. 224 state repression. 4OO Whereas the NAP represented virtually all of Pakistan's excluded ethno-national groups, since the 1980s, Sindhis, Siraikis, Pakhtuns and Baloch have all constituted separate political parties to articulate their politics. 401 Like the PPP, most of these smaller ethno-national parties have acceded to the politics of common sense, as was most evident in Charsadda, the historic stronghold of the NAP. 402 While in their public discourse the ethno-nationalist parties consistently argue for the need to restructure the unitary state, including the need for a new constitution, practically they seem to be most concerned with access to the existing state, which is the principal demand of their constituents. 403 In any case, it is worth bearing in mind that the fact that all these parties are regionalist rather than national also prevents them from being able to articulate a politics that combines the idiom of class and ethno-nationalism, as was the case with popular parties in the past. 404 Thus, while the idiom of ethno-nationalism remains prominent, as it likely will for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely to form the basis of an expansive politics of resistance. On the other hand a rejuvenation of the symbiotic relationship between class and excluded ethno-national groups is both necessary and sufficient to transcend the politics of common sense. Agency VS. structure In the final analysis, the political action of the subordinate classes must be thought about with reference to Marx's famous - some might say notorious - Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: 'In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will' (italics added). Without delving into entirely unhelpful debates about economic 400 Importantly the NAP had a presence in both wings whereas the PPP was exclusively based in the western wing of the country. 401 In the late 1990s, a front of many such parties named the Oppressed Nationalities Movement (PONM) was formed, but enjoys nothing like the widespread popularity that the NAP once did. 402 The NAP was the successor to the famous Khudai Khidmatgar movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan that represented the Pakhtun challenge to Pakistani nationalism in the chaotic last years of the Raj. Ghaffar Khan's grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan is the current head of the Awami National Party (ANP). 403 Having said this, the parallel dissenting discourse has never been successfully eliminated or coopted by the state. 404 In particular their strident anti-Punjab rhetoric precludes their building alliances with progressive political forces in Punjab. That having been said, ethno-nationalist demands, such as those for provincial autonomy have typically garnered support from progressive political forces (cf Laghari, 1979). 225 determinism, it must be clearly stated that social beings do not exist in an indeterminate context, or, for the purposes of this chapter, that the subordinate classes take political action given the structural forces that that they encounter. Thus there can be no indictment of the subordinate classes for consciously immersing themselves in the politics of common sense because they are not, as such, willingly ceding to social exchanges that are cynical and oppressive. They are instead recognizing the real constraints that they face, whether the threat of naked coercion, or the possibility of losing what little security they enjoy. This conception is consistent with Thompson's assertion that class is not a fixed objective category that magically appears and plays out its role while history proceeds as a teleological stage production. Instead class is a lived experience and the development of consciousness of class, or for that matter any other such expression of solidarity, must be understood in every separate context in its own right. Thus, even as the state and dominant classes impose structural violence upon the subordinate classes, if and when the subjective will to resist or revolt is generated, class becomes an operative category insofar as it becomes the primary identification for political action. It has been shown above that this subjective will was generated at a particular conjuncture, namely in the late 1960s both as a result of structural changes and the unique social experiences that evolved coevally with such changes. This period marked a definitive change in the political experience of the subordinate classes, and even though the specific challenge to oligarchic rule that emerged in the decade or so between 1967-77 was eliminated, this chapter has attempted to show that the threat of counter-hegemonic subordinate class action remains intact. In this regard it is worth bearing in mind the underlying theme that persists through all of the above-mentioned examples of subordinate class action, namely that class emerges as a shared experience typically in response to overt attacks by the state and dominant classes. Thus, in Gramscian terms, the use of coercive force alone actually undermines the hegemonic system. It is for this reason that the state and its allies have attempted to institutionalize the politics of common sense by robbing politics of its 226 potentially revolutionary meaning, whilst also inculcating a certain cynicism within the wider social formation, Islam acting as the ultimate demobilisational tool. 405 But this hegemonic project has also been directed by the objective structural changes that have continued to shape the evolving social order. The deepening of capitalism and the newer forms of organization and consumerism that it has given rise to have been crucial factors in facilitating the state-led project of demobilization. As pointed out in the Chapter 7, it is within this context that religious radicalism has become an alternative node of popular politics. However, this remains a poor substitute for a genuine counter-hegemonic politics of resistance, which, as will be shown in the concluding chapter, will potentially come to the fore both as a function of the subjective will of the subordinate classes and the deepening contradictions within the historical bloc. 405 It is crucial to avoid thinking of the state as being able to manipulate all social processes to its own benefit. The state too, as a political agent, remains subject to the logic of structural forces larger than it. 227 Conclusion The rumblings of counter-hegemony The narrative that has been presented in the preceding chapters has attempted to show that the dialectic of 'order' and 'change' that explained the impulses of the colonial state remains intact. Of course the significance of this assertion extends beyond the Pakistani case. In many other post-colonial contexts the state remains distant and coercive yet permeable and personalised and its impulses are very similar to that of the Pakistani state. While the trajectories of what I have called the politics of common sense and the politics of resistance must be thoroughly contextualised, the conceptual parallels in the Pakistani and other cases are considerable. 406 In conclusion, I will first provide a summary of the argument that has been put forward in the thesis, emphasising the theoretical and empirical additions made to the literature on the subject. In doing so I hope to highlight how this contribution can further radical scholarship on the state and social change. Accordingly I will postulate on the potential for the emergence of a counter-hegemonic challenge to the prevailing system of power in Pakistan, or in other words, the constitution of a new historical bloc. 407 I would like to reiterate here the importance of the heuristic method adopted throughout the thesis; it is crucial to understand the structure of power from within as well as how it is legitimised from below. As argued in the introductory chapter, these two levels of analysis should not be considered mutually exclusive; indeed structural change is only possible if and when a counter-hegemonic politics of resistance from below is coeval with internal contradictions within the historical bloc. When all is said and done I have attempted to illustrate that despite the immense changes that have taken place across the Pakistani formation, particularly from the 1960s onwards, the configuration of power in Pakistan remains centred around the 'steel frame' that was constructed by 406 In particular I would like to suggest that in the majority of Muslim-majority societies, Islam is a major pillar of the politics of common sense and the emergence of counter-hegemony is contingent on overcoming the real and perceived constraints posed by religious identity and institutions. 407 Here I return to Gramsci's conception of the historical bloc as a constellation of social forces at a particular conjuncture. 228 the British which has survived by propagating the imperative of order. 408 Thus it is not surprising that Alavi's theory of the post-colonial state remains at least descriptively appealing well over three decades after it was originally formulated. However this thesis has also claimed that the historical bloc - the dominant coalition of interests - has in fact changed; not only has the Alavian nexus of power undergone considerable internal evolution but there are new claimants to state power that Alavi did not incorporate in his original formulation. In effect it has been what I have called the overdeveloping quality of the state, or in other words the acceptance of the Alavian nexus of power - willing or otherwise - of the need to extend access to state power to new contenders, that has permitted it to remain dominant. This understanding necessarily implies a dynamic conception of structure, in contrast with the static conception that was posited by Alavi (and the majority of many neo- Marxist theorists of the state). In the first instance I have illustrated how the constitution of each of the members of the historical bloc has changed over time in the context of wider objective changes in the national and global political economy. The emphasis has been on understanding the impact of a rapidly changing capitalist economy, the evolution of cultural forms and an increasingly incoherent and fragmented state structure. Consequently I have gone beyond the traditional Marxist stress on the state as an agglomeration of dominant interest to look at the state's institutional dynamics, and the manner in which the ordinary Pakistani engages with it. It is here that I have attempted to add substantively to the seminal neo-Marxist literature on the post- colonial state inasmuch as I have sought to explain how an apparently ragged state structure suffering from a crisis of identity and often having to resort to coercion to sustain the historical bloc has managed to forge what I have called the 'politics of common sense', or in other words some semblance of passive consent for itself and its allies. 408 Needless to say the post-colonial state has employed different symbols than the colonial state in the construction of its mandate to order - for my purposes the most important symbol, particularly in the post-Bhutto period has been that of Islam. 229 This hegemonic project has been based on the ability of the military-bureaucratic oligarchy and dominant social classes to institutionalise a heavily personalised political economy, operationalised most obviously through localised electoral procedures but more generally by using the state's financial, political and administrative resources to generate consent (and employ coercive force when necessary, of course). The intermediate classes and religio-political forces have been crucial new players in fomenting hegemony insofar as they are the symbols of a new populism that does not constitute a challenge to the historical bloc, and instead have successfully coopted the subordinate classes into the sphere of common sense politics. It is important here to revisit briefly exactly how the two new members of the expanded historical bloc have played their historic role, in part so that the larger processes of social and political change that have taken place in Pakistan in recent decades can be highlighted. The intermediate classes are the symbol of modem Pakistani capitalism, and indeed have counterparts across the post-colonial world. They operate in environments outside the realm of formal economic accounting, rely heavily on personal contacts, and are typically anathema to legal contracts. Since the 1970s third world industries have fragmented and thee service sector has expanded dramatically, both phenomena contributing to the consolidation of the intermediate classes that emerged as a major economic force in the 1960s during the Green Revolution. The inability of the agricultural sector to meet the livelihood needs of a rapidly growing population and the decline of industry have further reinforced the power of the intermediate classes in the lives of the working poor. Crucially, the state, landed and industrialist classes hae remained major players in this evolving political economy despite their decreased role in actually charting the direction of the economy. Thus the original historical bloc and the intermediate classes shared interest in consolidating the politics of common sense. Religio-political forces have also emerged as a major force in Pakistan's political economy from the 1970s onwards. This has had much to do with regional geo-politics, and particularly with the start of the Afghan jihad. On the one hand religio-political movements have developed major economic stakes in the 'informal' economy but more importantly for the purposes of this thesis, the state and dominant social classes 230 have patronised religio-political movements as a means of countering radical populism. Specifically the state has provided a mandate for religio-political movements to intrude into the private sphere and thereby regulate cultural and political norms in a manner so as to undermine organic bases of politics that might constitute a challenge to the historical bloc. To reiterate, it has been necessary to reconstitute the hegemonic project in the post- Bhutto period in this manner to counter the tremendous politicisation of the subordinate classes that had taken place through the 1960s and 1 970s. Employing the anthropological method to the study of the state has permitted an understanding of how the subordinate classes have acceded to common sense politics yet still can articulate a politics of resistance if and when objective and subjective conditions conspire. In closing I will postulate whether or not a counter-hegemonic politics of resistance is indeed a possibility in the Pakistan of today. The structural imperative If one is to take the dialectic of order and change seriously, it remains the case that the structure of power in Pakistan remains subject to serious contradictory ruptures. It is true that the historical bloc has, till now, managed to avoid a major structural upheaval. However, at least a partial overhaul of the post-colonial system of power in Pakistan can be actualised it the politics of common sense can be transcended a new counter-hegemonic politics of resistance fomented. According to Alavi change is possible only 'if there is a revolutionary rupture and a dissolution of the peripheral capitalist state, along with peripheral capitalism itself' (Alavi, 1982; p. 306). In other words, the fate of the post-colonial state - and the Alavian nexus of power - is bound up with that of the capitalist world system within which the Pakistani social formation is ensconced. As suggested at numerous points throughout this thesis, this conception is problematic primarily because of its static nature. It assumes that the structure of peripheral capitalism has to be totally overhauled for meaningful shifts in the exercise of power to take place. This conception leads to a reification of the state and the dominant interests that it mediates between. As pointed out above there have been considerable changes in the balance of power between members of the historical bloc; on the whole, the state has changed 231 considerably since 1947, even though the structure of peripheral capitalism - insofar as this refers to the social formation's positioning within the larger capitalist world system - has not been overhauled. Indeed, my contention is that the post-colonial system of power - including the state- can be overhauled if objective and subjective conditions conspire. This does not mean that a new conjuncture will be autonomous of the capitalist world system per se but only that such a conjuncture is possible even without a rupture in the international system. Specifically, my contention is that the overdeveloping state, while successful in the post-Bhutto period in insulating the Alavian nexus of power from counter- hegemonic challenges by coopting the intermediate classes and religio-political movements, is ultimately incapable of accommodating all such pressures from below, and particularly demands from the subordinate classes for more comprehensive change. To take this idea further, the overdeveloping state is eventually likely to be subject to more demands than it can successfully absorb - in other words the expansion of the state's patronage function cannot extend beyond the physically possible. What this means to say is that fundamentally the politics of common sense is simply a means of evading the deepening contradiction between a society that is changing rapidly and accordingly making demands for changes in the structure of power and the state which, given its unwillingness to permit a comprehensive change in the exercise of power, has the option either to forcibly suppress demands from below, or to accommodate them within the existing structure of power. In the event, the oligarchy and other members of the historical bloc have relied on both coercion and consent to paper over the growing disjunction between society and the state. Quite ironically it has been the deepening of capitalism that has precipitated new challenges to the existing political order, a dynamic which Alavi failed to identify. Having said this, section 2 of this thesis has illustrated that the deepening contradiction between an obsolete state structure and a society with different impulses has yet to result in upheaval because of the absence of a politics of resistance that can provide a vision of change in lieu of the politics of common sense. Again to clarify: until the logic of patronage can be transcended, even challenges to political 232 incumbents are likely to be expressed as attempts to acquire state power and employ it for the benefit of the immediate occupants of seat of government rather than do away with the vertical logic of politics in favour of a comprehensive reallocation of political and economic resources. In the following pages it will be argued that the emergence of a counter-hegemonic politics of resistance is likely to centre on the rapidly erosion of the military's status as guardian of the state which is a function of its overbearing role in all spheres of sociallife. 409 As suggested earlier, the military's increasingly direct role in administration and its burgeoning economic interests have brought it into contact with the subordinate classes in a manner that has undermined its myth. Importantly, the military's expanding role is also a potential source of disharmony within the historical bloc itself, which has negotiated change in the social formation as a largely cohesive coalition of interests. In the post-Bhutto period the military may have acquired the role of mediator within the historical bloc but this does not mean that it has license to encroach on the domainslinterests of other members of the bloc, and to the extent that it does, it endangers the survival of the bloc itself. The military as class? In trying to conceptualise the possibility of change in the prevailing configuration of power from above and below, it is essential to first consider exactly how much the military has alienated itself from the wider society. In this regard, I will test the hypothesis that the military has effectively become a distinct social class. This investigation serves a distinctly theoretical purpose as well as an empirical one inasmuch as it facilitates a dialogue between Marxist and Weberian conceptions of class/status, while reiterating one of the primary theoretical assertions of this thesis, namely that the state power underlies, and in this case, possibly even produces class power. Given the clear evidence that the ideal-type of two polar classes in advanced industrial societies was an analytical over simplification, and that state personnel seemed to exercise power autonomously of dominant classes, Marxian theorists in the 409 Having said this, I believe that the consensus over the national security state is still intact, and this is likely to pennit the military to retain a major say in state affairs. 233 1950s and onwards attempted to account for the politics of social forces separated from the process of production, and particularly those in positions of authority. This led to the emergence of a spate of literature theorising concepts such as 'organisational assets' (Wright, 1985) and 'authority relations' (Dahrendorf, 1959), all of which represented attempts to move beyond the understanding of class in the orthodox Marxist tradition based exclusively on the relationship to the means of production. 410 It is my contention that these attempts - alongside those mentioned in the introductory chapter that were made by theorists of the post-colonial state - need to be augmented by reference to the Weberian conceptions of class and status. In particular what is relevant for my purposes is that in Weber's understanding of class/status, the focus is on explicit social differentiation, the fact that two persons hailing from a different class/status group both internalise this social identity and recognise the other as hailing from a different group within a very clearly delineated social hierarchy.4ll In contrast, class in the Marxian tradition can remain an objective position (class-for- itself) that is not manifest as a subjective agency (class-for-itself). More specifically for Weber 'status groups are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special styles of life' (Joyce, 2000: 39). Wesolowski (1979) appears to capture the dialectics of class, power and status best by discussing the symbiosis between 'prestige' and class position in respect to the relations of production. He allows sufficient space within his theoretical schema for the role of religion, nationalism, and even party ideology in conditioning the operation of class to suggest that this is the best attempt to reconcile the Marxist with Weberian conceptualisations. In thinking about the military in Pakistan, particularly its expanding economic role from the 1980s onwards, Siddiqa (2007: 108) suggests: 'The military is a separate class that cuts across all other classes. Its members belong to the landed-feudal class 410 Miliband (1977) also recognised the role of state personnel which pennitted him to considerably improve the 'crude instrumentalist' Marxist theory of the state. 411 Weber very clearly distinguishes between class and status group, a distinction that is not being glossed over here. However, it is beyond the scope of the present discussion to go into this difference which is discussed succinctly in relation to the Marxist conception of class in Wright (2002). 234 and the indigenous and metropolitan bourgeoisie' . At various points throughout this exposition Siddiqa vacillates between describing the military and the military fraternity as a class. There seems to be an attempt to outline both the symbiotic relationship that the military continues to enjoy with other dominant groups and its alienation from the wider social formation but the formulation is vague and obfuscates as much as it illuminates. In employing the schema outlined above, my evaluation of the military draws on three specific elements. On the one hand, there is the military's exercise of power, or its control over what have been described above as 'organisational assets'. Then there is the clear social distinctiveness of the military - in Weberian terms the military is a separate status group. It has its own housing colonies, schools, hospitals, recreational facilities, and the like. The most obvious symbol of this social separateness is the cantonment, which, for the most part are cleaner, better organised and characterised by a different social dynamic than non-cantonment areas. In addition, as suggested in the second chapter, both military men and civilians are coming to see the world more and more in terms of the divide between them.412 Finally, there is the military's increasing ownership of productive assets as outlined in Chapter 2, which implies its emergence as an exploitative class in the classical Marxist sense. By virtue of its dominance in the political, economic and wider social realm, the military stands defined as a dominant class. The Alavian nexus of power undermined? The implications of the short theoretical exercise conducted above are significant. In Chapter 2 it was argued that the military has acquired relative autonomy in its mediation of all other dominant interests within the historical bloc. However, the notion of the military as dominant class would suggest that it is qualitatively more powerful than a mediator. Indeed, the military top brass' brazenness in confronting criticism of its exclusionary practices in the political, economic and wider social realms is reaching unprecedented proportions: 412 This sentiment was captured by the retired judge who stood against General Musharraf in the 2007 presidential election. His polemic suggested that if he won he would subject military men to the facilities that ordinary civilians had at their disposal - this invoked the ire of military men while garnering a great deal of support within the wider civilian public. 235 The defence societies everywhere are the top societies of Pakistan ... now, why are we jealous of this? Why are we jealous if somebody gets a piece of land, a kanal of land, cheap when it was initially, and because of the good work done by the society, the price rises by 100 times and the man then earns some money. What is the problem? Why are we jealous of this? There's no problem at all. 413 The question that arises is whether or not this ever expanding role of the military threatens its accommodation with other members of the historical bloc, particularly the Alavian nexus of power. 414 It was posited in Chapter 3 for example that a not insignificant number of high bureaucrats are resentful of their marginalisation at the hands of serving and retired military men in a host of civilian departments. However as has been argued the high bureaucracy has been progressively weakened within the bloc and in my estimation the role of the three propertied classes remains more crucial to the survival of the 'politics of compromise' .415 As asserted towards the end of Chapter 2, the military enjoys the implicit consent of both the indigenous bourgeoisie and the landed class because the latter rely on access to the state - as the military does - to engage in accumulation (or in the case of the landed class, to protect existing assets). Because both of these two classes have benefited from the politics of common sense - both in terms of being beneficiaries of the patronage politics that prevails across the social formation and in the repression of a politics of resistance that might threaten their dominance - it is reasonable to suggest that they will not resist the military's growing power. 413 General Pervez Musharraf speaking at the launch of a Defence Housing Authority (DHA) desalination plant in 2004, quoted in Siddiqa (2007: 194). Having said this the military is clearly sensitive to public censure: The launch of Ayesha Siddiqa's book - which is the first documented account of the 'military economy' was greeted with a massive public relations exercise by the military to defame the author and reject her findings as concoctions. In an interview with a private TV channel, General Musharraf even went so far as to accuse Siddiqa of being involved in anti-state activities at the behest of India. 414 It can be argued that the newer members of the bloc - insofar as it has been argued here that the religio-political movements and the intermediate classes have acquired a share of state power - do not maintain the long-standing social and political ties to the military that the other members of the Alavian nexus of power do. While these newer entrants into the echelons of power may have other gripes with the military - for example, the more radical religio-political movements are increasingly at odds with the military due to the 'war on terror' - the more crucial question is whether the Alavian nexus of rower is vulnerable to internal discord. 15 To reiterate the bureaucracy remains central to the exercise of power without necessarily being privy to the perennial struggles over the nature of power sharing. 236 By the same token, it is not unreasonable to suggest that should the military encroach into the realms of the landed class and indigenous bourgeoisie, this would induce resistance by the latter. So, for example, if the military's accumulation takes place at the expense of an industrialist family, it can be expected that the latter will be express discontent in some form. However it has been argued earlier that neither the landed class nor the indigenous bourgeoisie acts as a coherent class-for-itself, and the preferred approach is to ally with factions with a claim to power. Thus it is unlikely that the military's growing economic ambitions alienate a significant enough segment of either of the propertied classes to precipitate a rupture. More pressing is the possibility that the military's exclusionary political ambitions lead to the alienation of traditional allies from the landed class and indigenous bourgeoisie. So for example, during the Musharraf tenure, both of the two major political parties representing the interests of the landed class and the indigenous bourgeoisie, the PML-N and the PPP, were effectively eliminated from the power- sharing arrangement. The PML-N and the PPP remained at the forefront of the opposition to the Musharraf regime, yet, there was no major rupture of the system because significant numbers of landed and industrialist politicians were coopted by the regime 416 as was the coalition of the religio-political parties, the MMA. However, the military is increasingly subject to serious public censure, a phenomenon without precedent in Pakistan's history. This censure relates to all spheres of the military's dominance, including criticism of its economic expansionism, its role in politics, and its social elitism. There is also considerable resentment against its support to the geo-strategic objectives of the United States - as was discussed in Chapter 7, anti-imperialist sentiment remains very potent in Pakistan. As such the PPP and PML-N alongwith smaller regional and nationalist parties have attempted to identify with the growing chorus against General Musharraf and the military.417 416 A large number of them defecting from the PML-N. The situation under Musharraf resembles that under Zia in that the alienation of major political parties did not signal the alienation of dominant classes per se. 417 The MMA too has projected itself as a vanguard of the anti-Musharraf movement but has clearly played a dubious role throughout the 8-year period of military rule, embodied most obviously in its offering of support to the 17 th amendment in the constitution in December 2003 which allowed the regime to apply a veneer of legal legitimacy to what was extra-constitutional rule. 237 While the merits of their political response can be debated, what the current conjuncture highlights is in fact that the political choices of the military's traditional allies may indeed be dictated - at least to some extent - by the tenor of public discourse. Indeed, as the image of the military as the guardian of the state falters - as it clearly is for all the reasons described above - it can be expected that landed and industrialist politicians will have to remake themselves as apparently principled opponents of oligarchic rule. 418 It was pointed out in earlier chapters that the Sharif family that heads the PML-N and religio-political movements such as the 11 are beneficiaries of the patronage of military regimes and have been traditional allies of the military for the best part of their political existence. Yet it is these same forces that are now clamouring to prove that they are committed to 'sending the military back to the barracks' .419 It may be argued that the military faced a similar crisis in December 1971, however on that occasion the military high command was primarily maligned for its military defeat, whereas on this occasion the military as an institution is under scrutiny for its overarching political role, its economic interests and its social elitism. Perhaps most importantly there appears to be a growing perception in Punjab that the military is no longer a 'sacred cow' .420 The posture of the metropolitan bourgeoisie in the current conjuncture - the role of which, as discussed in Chapter 6 needs to be problematised as two different impulses - has been considerably less apologetically pro-military, which is more or less 418 This calls attention to the fact that politicians themselves have a very soiled image within the public for being unprincipled looters of public wealth; however the military's image is now in free-fall for similar reasons and, quite improbably, many politicians now want to distinguish themselves from the military because the perception of the latter's pilfering is now garnering much more attention. 419 Javed Hashmi of the PML-N stands out as an example of a politician made by the military who has now become an anti-military stalwart. Hashmi was an activist with the IJT during the early Zia period distinguishing himself by his virulent anti-PPP polemic. He made his way up through the local body elections, made money through business enterprises, and then became a minister following non-party elections in 1985. Hashmi remained with the PML during the 1988-99, acquiring ministerial positions in both of the PML governments that ruled through the period. Under the Musharraf regime, Hashmi was imprisoned for a little under 4 years for 'defaming the armed forces' and has publicly apologised for his past association with military rule. 420 It has already been stated that the military's image of saviour has persisted primarily in Punjab as opposed to Sindh and Balochistan. During interviews with Sindhi and Baloch nationalist politicians - who it can be said do represent the prevalent opinions within their respective regions, the army was repeatedly described as a 'Punjabi-dominated' force of oppression (Interviews with Akbar Bugti, Rasul Bakhsh Palejo). 238 consistent with its posture throughout Pakistan's history. However, notwithstanding the support that metropolitan states, and particularly the United States, continue to offer to the military, largely in pursuit of their own geo-political objectives, it is important to bear in mind that external forces are unlikely to prevent a rupture in the oligarchic system if political conditions were such as to produce such a rupture. Indeed, the US is likely to appear committed to 'democratisation' if the pressures for such a process emerge from below. 421 To reiterate then: what is being postulated here is that the historical bloc may be subject to discord not because the interests of its various components have necessarily become incompatible but because the three propertied classes which remain the bulwark of the oligarchic system perceive that they need to, to use a metaphor, jump from a sinking ship. This potential state of affairs can be contrasted with the clear support that the Alavian nexus of power offered to the military in 1977 when landlords, industrialists and metropolitan states perceived a genuine threat to the existence of oligarchic rule and resolved to eliminate the politics of resistance under the unquestioned leadership of the military. In contrast, at the present time the indigenous propertied classes may believe that they can take advantage of the widespread criticism of the military to negotiate a greater share of power, without undermining the oligarchic system itself A new politics of resistance? Ultimately then, a rupture in the oligarchic system is only possible if and when a new politics of resistance comes to the fore. As suggested here, this is intimately tied to the question of the military's overbearing role within the social formation, but at the same time will be made possible only if an alternative political force is created that can represent the subordinate classes' aspirations for change. First, it is important to detail why the military's image amongst the subordinate classes has plunged as a precursor to understanding if this will give rise to a new politics of resistance. Two of the case studies discussed in the previous chapter involved the military in the role of 'anti-people' usurper of resources. In the case of the Okara movement of 421 There seems to be a correlation between State Department overtures to accelerating the democratisation process in Pakistan and the street protests that erupted in March 2007. 239 landless farmers and Sindhi fisherfolk, the emergence of resistance was a direct result of the military's attempts to establish control over the natural resources upon which farmers and the fisherfolk rely for their livelihoods. In districts of Sindh such as Sanghar and Nawabshah, retired military officers - the majority of them Punjabi - have been systematically allotted land the result of which is a shift in the demography of the districts and a growing resentment of the 'Punjabi army'. During fieldwork I also observed that hitherto non-arable land in Jhang, Layyah and Khushab that stands to be irrigated by mega water projects such as the Greater ThaI Canal and Kacchhi Canal is being allotted to retired military officers. In Balochistan a low-level insurgency has erupted since March 2005 in response to the military's plan to build new cantonments in Sui, Kohlu and Gwadar. Even in the federal capital Islamabad, the construction of a new General Headquarters has required eviction operations against villagers that has resulted in widespread bitterness. Such episodes - and many more like them - have been instrumental in turning the tide of public opinion against the military. As mentioned earlier, there is a widespread perception that Pakistan has almost become an apartheid state with one set of laws and facilities for the military and another for those not associated with it. Another major factor in the growing public chorus has been the perception that the military is an American stooge in the 'war on terror', which has spilled over onto Pakistani soil and is therefore resulting in ever more acute polarisation. 422 In any case, what is clear is that the military's increased contact with the subordinate classes is likely to deepen as this is a necessary consequence of its expanding economic empire. It can be argued that the military's decline in popularity also has something to do with the 'incumbency factor' of it having directly controlled the reins of government for many years. By this line of argument, during the next period of 'civilianisation of military rule', criticism of the military will decrease substantially and politicians will once again become the major object of public scrutiny. In my estimation such an analysis is valid only to a limited extent. While it is true that the military receding from the immediate political spotlight is likely to reduce criticism of it, its continuing encroachments into the economic sphere will necessarily bring it into 422 This can be contrasted to the Zia years when the Pakistani military's complicity with another American-sponsored war in Afghanistan actually enjoyed considerable popular support. 240 conflict with the subordinate classes that rely on the very resources that the military wants to capture. Returning to the 'incumbency factor', it was noted during fieldwork that a large number of people across the social formation are thoroughly disillusioned about the fact that there is no viable alternative amongst the mainstream political parties to replace the military, or at least no alternative that would offer a meaningfully different political future to the country. As such this can be taken to suggest that the 'distance' or 'contempt' that the subordinate classes harbour for politics has deepened. However, what it also suggests is that the military no longer offers recourse from what is widely perceived to be a 'corrupt' political system. In other words, where until the recent past the military was considered to be a saviour that would intervene periodically to clean the country up, it is now considered no better than the politicians that it has historically maligned. As such therefore, a new politics of resistance must be preceded by a regeneration of a culture of politics itself. Importantly, even the instances of resistance outlined in the previous chapter were referred to by many of the protagonists themselves as 'non- political' undertakings. There was an insistence amongst fisherfolk, landless farmers and slum dwellers alike that the struggle for their 'rights' should not be construed as an attempt to achieve 'political' objectives. In other words, there is not only a disassociation of everyday questions of social justice with politics but a disinclination to be perceived as being involved in 'politics' itself. As it has been described here, the politics of common sense has been predicated upon the military spearheading a project whereby the logic of patronage has been institutionalised, while the idea of politics has been demeaned. Necessarily then the idea of a politics of change - or as it has been described here, resistance - has been almost completely eliminated from the collective public consciousness. The dialectic of Islam and the military has been crucial to this project: The military-state relation conceptualises a dialectical relationship between Islam, Pakistan and the military. Without Islam, Pakistan would not have been able to come into existence; without Pakistan the military 241 would not be able to exist; and without the military, Islam and Pakistan would be threatened' (Husain, 1979: 133). It is true that the veneer of legitimacy provided by Islam to the cynical politics of common sense remains intact. However, with the military's fall from grace, and the multiplying contradictions posed by the imbalance between subordinate classes increasingly desperate for change and a state that cannot accommodate them, the space for a new politics to emerge is being rapidly enhanced. The existing political formations are unwilling and/or unable to offer a new politics to the subordinate classes, largely because they remain committed to the interests of the landed class and the indigenous bourgeoisie, or alternatively have made their way into the historical bloc by espousing an ideology of political Islam that was consistent with the geo- political currents of the post-Bhutto period. 423 New political formations that bring together the flashes of resistance I have discussed and the many more that will emerge in the coming years around a coherent politics of change that breaks with the logic of patronage dominant across the social formation are the answer to the disillusionment of the subordinate classes. Inevitably, given how deeply rooted the politics of common sense has become, this will take time. This new politics will have to compete with the Islamist politics of resistance which also continues to lay claim to representing a vision of change. If and when this new politics emerges, the 60 year old project of domination can finally be challenged and a structural transformation can come to pass. 423 Importantly I contend that the religio-political movements, particularly those involved in formal politics such as the 11 and lUI are not willing to challenge the existing system even now following the shift in discourse over 'jihad' after September 11. As discussed in Chapter 7, a distinction can be drawn between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary religio-political movements; some of the latter are clearly appear to be in confrontation with the state. 242 zamindar kammis abadkars qaum thana biraderi zat arhti thekedaar sarkar katcheri izzat begar panchayats ulema sifarish rishwat patwari tehsildar zaildar numberdar mandi madrassah pir GLOSSARY Agricultural castes enfranchised by the British Raj Non-agricultural castes that undertake menial labour, including cobblers, barbers, cleaners and agricultural workers Settlers on previously desert land that was made arable by perennial irrigation schemes; immigrants from other areas who were promised ownership rights Commonly used to refer to occupational caste, although it can have racial and ethnic connotations as well Police station Commonly used to refer to a patrilineal lineage A variant of qaum and used less regularly The agricultural wholesaler Contractor or sub-contractor Colloquial term used for the state/government Courts Loosely translated as honour A system of corvee labour Local (usual village-level) consensus bodies to dispence justice Learned men, cleric is not an exact translation The doing of favours Money or other favours granted for 'illegal' practice District collector The local magistrate A colonial-period state functionary associated with land settlement Village head as instituted by the colonial regime; now defunct in many places Market Religious seminary Religious saint, often big landlord also 243 References Abrams, Philip (1988) On the difficulty of understanding the state. Journal of Historical Sociology 1: 58-89. Addleton, Jonathan (1992) Undermining the Centre: The Gulf Migration and Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ahmad, Aijaz (1985) "Class, Nation, and State: Intermediate Classes in Peripheral Societies." In Middle Classes in Dependent Countries, edited by Dale Johnson. Beverly Hills: Rutgers University Press. Ahmad, Aijaz (2000) "Democracy and Dictatorship in Pakistan." In Lineages of the Present: Ideological and Political Genealogies of Contemporary South Asia. London: Verso. Ahmad, Eqbal (1974) Signposts to a Police State. Journal of Contemporary Asia 4: 123-46. Ahmad, Eqbal (1980) Post-colonial system of power. Arab Studies Quarterly 4: 350- 363. Ahmad, Eqbal (2006) "Roots of the Religious Right." In The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad, edited by C. Bengelsdorf, M. Cerullo and Y. Chandrani. New York: Columbia University Press. Ahmad, Iftikhar (1973) Caste and social stratification among the Muslims in India. Delhi: Sage. Ahmad, Mumtaz (1998) "Revivalism, Islamization, Sectarianism and Violence in Pakistan." In Pakistan 1997, edited by C. Baxter and C. Kennedy. Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers. Ahmad, Saghir (1977) Class and Power in a Punjabi Village. New York: Monthly Review Press. Ahmed, Feroz (1998), Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ahmed, Akbar S. (1986) Pakistan Society: Islam, Ethnicity and Leadership in South Asia. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ahmed, Manzoor (2003) "Pakistan: Aporia of its Kind." In Pakistan: The Contours of State and Society, edited by Soofia Mumtaz, Jean-Luc Racine and Imran Ali. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ajay, G. (1998) Reconstructing Marxism: The Thompsonian Framework. Social Scientist 27: 9-16. 244 Akhtar, Aasim Sajjad (2006a) Le Pakistan, Etat de la ligne de front. Atlas Alternatif, Paris: Le Temps des Cerises. Akhtar, Aasim Sajjad (2006b) The State as Landlord in Pakistani Punjab: Peasant Struggles on the Okara Military Farms. Journal of Peasant Studies 33: 479-501. Akhtar, Aasim Sajjad, Asha Amirali & Muhammad Ali Raza (2006) Reading between the lines: The mullah-military alliance in Pakistan. Contemporary South Asia 15: 383- 397. Akhtar, Aasim Sajjad and Shandana Mohmand (2007) The Legacy of the Quaid-e- Awam: Bhutto and Collective Memory. Paper presented at the Beyond Independence: South Asia, 1947-1977 Conference. London: Royal Hollaway. Alavi, Harnza (1971) The Politics of Dependence: A Village in West Punjab. South Asian Review 4: 272-95. Alavi, Hamza (1972) Kinship in West Punjab Villages. Contributions to Indian Sociology 6: 98-112. Alavi, Harnza (1972) The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Left Review 74: 59-81. Alavi, Hamza (1973) Peasant Classes and Primordial Loyalties. Journal of Peasant Studies 1: 78-94. Alavi, Hamza (1980) India: Transition from Feudalism to Colonial Capitalism. Journal of Contemporary Asia 10: 423-446. Alavi, Hamza (1982) "State and Class under Peripheral Capitalism." In Introduction to the Sociology of Developing Societies, edited by Hamza Alavi and Teodor Shanin. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Alavi, Harnza (1983a) "Class and State in Pakistan." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hasan Gardezi and J amil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Alavi, Harnza (1983b) "Elite Farmer Strategy and Regional Disparities in Agricultural Development." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hasan Gardezi and Jamil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Alavi, Hamza (1987) "Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology." In State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan, edited by Hamza Alavi and Fred Halliday. New York: Monthly Review Press. Alavi, Hamza (1990) "Authoritarianism and Legitimation of State Power in Pakistan." In The post-colonial state in Asia: dialectics of politics and culture, edited by S.K. Mitra. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Alavi, Hamza (1991a) Nationhood and communal violence in Pakistan. Journal of Contemporary Asia 21: 345-367. 245 Alavi, Hamza (1991 b) "The Origin and Significance of the Pak-US Military Alliance." In Indianforeign Policy, edited by Satish Kumar. New Delhi: Manohar. Alavi, Hamza (1999) "The Two Biraderis: Kinship in Rural West Punjab." In Muslim Communities of South Asia: Culture, Society and Power, edited by T.N. Madan. Delhi: Manohar. Alavi, Hamza, R. Stevens and P. Bertocci (1976) Rural Development in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press Alavi, Hamza, P.L. Bums, G.R. Knight, P.B. Mayer and Doug McEachern (1982) Capitalism and Colonial Production. London: Croom Helm. Ali, Imran (1988) Punjab under Imperialism. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ali, Imran (2001) "Business and Power in Pakistan." In Power and Civil Society in Pakistan, edited by Anita Weiss and Zulfikar Gilani. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ali, Imran (2003) "Past and present: the making of the state in Pakistan." In Pakistan: The contours of state and society, edited by Soofia Mumtaz, Imran Ali and Jean-Luc Racine. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ali, Tariq (1970) Military Rule or People's Power. London: Verso Books. Ali, Tariq (1983) Can Pakistan Survive: The Death of a State. London: Verso Books. Amjad, Rashid (1982), Private Industrial Investment in Pakistan, 1960-1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Ansari, Sarah (1992) Sufi saints and state power: the pirs of Sind, 1843-1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ansari, Sarah (2005) Life after partition: migration, community and strife in Sindh, 1947-1962. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Arnold, David (1984) Gramsci and Peasant Subalternity in India Journal of Peasant Studies 11: 155-177. Arrighi, Giovanni (2005) Hegemony Unravelling - I New Left Review 32: 23-80. Ayubi, Nazih (1991) Political Islam: religion and politics in the Arab world. London: Routledge. Ayubi, Nazih (1995) Over-stating the Arab state: politics and society in the Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris. 246 Bardhan, Pranab (1998) The political economy of development in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Barrow, Clyde W. (2002) "The Miliband-Poulantzas Debate: An Intellectual History." In Paradigm Lost: State Theory Reconsidered, edited by S. Aronowitz and P. Bratsis. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Bayart, Jean-Fran<;ois (1993) The state in Africa: the politics of the belly. New York: Longman. Jean-Fran<;ois Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Beatrice Hibou (1999) The criminalization of the state in Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Bilquees, Faiz (2006) Civil Servants' Salary Structure PIDE Working Papers 4. PIDE: Islamabad. Blom, Amelie (2005)"Qui a Ie baton, a Ie buffle": Le corporatisme economique de l'armee pakistanaise Questions de Reserche 16. Paris: Centre d'etudes et de recherches internationals. Blundo, Giorgo (1996) Everyday corruption and the state: citizens and public officials in Africa. London: Zed Books. Bourdieu, Pierre et al. (1999) The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Polity Press. Braibanti, Ralph (1966) Research on the bureaucracy of Pakistan: a critique of sources, conditions, and issues. Durham: Duke University Press. Brass, Tom (2000) "Moral Economists, Subalterns, New Social Movements and the (Re-) Emergence of a (Post-) Modernised (Middle) Peasant." In Mapping subaltern studies and the postcolonial, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi. London: Verso Books. Brecher Irving and S.A. Abbas (1972) Foreign aid and industrial development in Pakistan. London: Cambridge University Press Breman, Jan (1996) Footlose labour: working in India's internal economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brewer, Anthony (1990) Marxist theories of Imperialism: a critical survey. London: Routledge. Burki, Shahid Javed (1969) Twenty Years of the Civil Service of Pakistan: A Reevaluation Asian Survey 9: 239-54. Burki, Shahid Javed and Craig Baxter (1975) Socio-Economic Indicators of the People's Party Vote in the Punjab: A Study at the Tehsil Level. Journal of Asian Studies 34: 222-244. 247 Burki, Shahid Javed (1976) "The Development of Pakistan's Agriculture." In Rural Development in Bangladesh and Pakistan, edited by Hamza Alavi, R. Stevens and P. Bertocci. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Burki, Shahid Javed (1980) Pakistan Under Bhutto 1971-1977. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Burki, Shahid Javed (1988) Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988. Asian Survey 28: 126-49. Burki, Shahid Javed (1994) "The State and the Political Economy of Redistribution in Pakistan." In The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Caroe, Olaf (1951) Wells of Power: The Oil Fields of Southwestern Asia. Westport: Greenwood Press. Chadda, Maya (2000) Building Democracy in South Asia: India, Nepal, Pakistan. Boulder: Lynne Reiner Publishers. Chakrabarty, Dipesh (1981) Communal Riots and Labour: Bengal's Jute Mill-Hands in the 1890s. Past and Present 91,1: 140-169. Chandra, Bipan (1999) Essays on Colonialism. New Delhi: Longman Orient. Chatterjee, Partha (2002) "On civil and political society in post-colonial democracies." In Civil Society: History and Possibilities, edited by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chaudhary, Mohammad Azad (1999) Justice in Practice: Legal Ethnography of a Pakistani Punjabi village. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Cheema, Ali (2003) "State and Capital in Pakistan: The Changing Politics of Accumulation." In Corporate Capitalism in Contemporary South Asia: Conventional Wisdoms and South Asian Realities, edited by Ananya Mukherjee Reed. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Cheema, Ali. and Shandana Mohmand (2003) Local Government Reforms in Pakistan: Legitimising Centralisation or a Driver for Pro-Poor Change. Working Paper, Lahore University of Management Sciences Cheema, Ali, Shandana Mohmand and Ali Asjad (2006) History, Land Settlement and Semi-Formal Local Governance Structures in Sargodha. Working paper. Lahore University of Management Sciences. Cheema, Pervaiz Iqbal (2003) The armed forces of Pakistan. London: Orion. Cheesman, David (1997) Landlord power and rural indebtedness in colonial Sind, 1865-1901. Richmond: Curzon. 248 Clapham, Christopher (1982) Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State. London: St. Martin's Press. Clapham, Christopher (1985) Third World Politics: an introduction. London: Croom Helm. Cloughley, Brian (1998) A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Cohen, Stephen P. (1998) The Pakistan Army. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Cohn, Bernard (1996) Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: the British in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dahrendorf, Ralf (1959) Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. London: Routledge. deCerteau, Michel (1988) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dewey, Clive (1988) Arrested Development in India: The Historical Dimension. London: Riverdale Dirks, Nicholas (2001) Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the making of India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Duncan, Emma (1989) Breaking the Cuifew: A Political Journey through Pakistan. London: Joseph. Eickelman, Dale. F. and James Piscatori (1996) Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Esposito, Bruce J. (1974) The Politics of Agrarian Reform in Pakistan. Asian Survey 14: 429-38. Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Rueschmeyer and Theda Skocpol (1985) Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flynn, Peter (1974) Class, c1iente1ism and coercion: some mechanisms of internal dependency and contro1.Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 12: 133- 156. Fuller, c.J. and J. Harriss (2001) "For an anthropology of the modern Indian State." In Everyday State and Society in modern India, edited by C.J. Fuller and Veronique Benei. London: Hurst & Co. Gaborieau, Marc (2003) "Pakistan: aporia of its kind." In Pakistan: The contours of state and society, edited by Soofia Mumtaz, Imran Ali and Jean-Luc Racine. Karachi: Oxford University Press. 249 Gadi, Mushtaq (2003) "Re-colonising the Indus Basin Irrigation System." In The Politics of Managing Water, edited by Kaiser Bengali. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Gadi, Mushtaq, Khadim Hussain and Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (2001) Taking the poor for a ride: The Pakistan Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Islamabad: ActionAid. Gazdar, Haris (2003) The Land Question. Unpublished Paper. Karachi: The Collective for Social Science Research. Gellner, Ernst (1977) "Patrons and Clients." In Patrons and Clients, edited by Ernst Gellner and John Waterbury. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Gilmartin, David (1988) Empire and Islam: Punjab and the making of Pakistan. London: Tauris. Gilsenan, Michael (1977) "Against Patron-Client Relations." In Patrons and Clients, edited by Ernst Gellner and John Waterbury. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Government of Pakistan (2001) Home-based Workforce Survey. Islamabad Government of Pakistan (2007) Economic Survey 2005-6. Islamabad. Gramsci, Antonio (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Griffin, Keith (1965) Financing Development Plans in Pakistan. Pakistan Development Review 5: 610-620. Guha, Ranajit (1983) Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Guha, Ranajit (1997) Dominance without hegemony: history and power in colonial India. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gunes-Ayata, Ayse (1994) "Clientelism: Premodern, Modem, Postmodern." In Democracy, Clientelsim, and Civil Society, edited by Luis Roniger and Ayse Gunes- Ayata. Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers. Habib, Irfan (1995) Essays in Indian history. Delhi: Manohar. Haque, Nadeem and Mahmood Hassan Khan (1999) "The Economics Profession in Pakistan: A Historical Analysis." In 50 years of Pakistan's Economy: Traditional Topics and Contemporary Concerns, edited by Shahrukh Rafi Khan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Haqqani, Hussain (2005) Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 250 Harriss-White, Barbara (2003) India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harvey, David (1992) The Condition of Postmodemity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Boston: Blackwell Harvey, David (2003) The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Hasan, Arif (2002a) The Roots of Elite Alienation. Economic and Political Weekly November 2-9: 4550-4553. Hasan, Arif (2002b) The Unplanned Revolution: Observations on the Process of Socio-economic change in Pakistan. Karachi: City Press. Hashmi, Bilal (1983) "Dragon seed: Military in the State." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hassan Gardezi and Jamil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Heeger, Gerald A. (1977) Politics in the Post-Military State: Some Reflections on the Pakistani Experience. World Politics 29: 242-62. Herring, Ronald J. (1983) Land to the Tiller: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in South Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hoodbhoy, Pervez and A.H. Nayyar (1985) "Rewriting the history of Pakistan." In Islam, Politics and the State: The Pakistan Experience, edited by M. Asghar Khan. London: Zed Books. Huntington, Samuel (1968) Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press. Husain, Ishrat. April 16 2007. How critical is US assistance? DAWN. Hussain, Asaf (1979) Elite politics in an ideological state: the case of Pakistan. Folkestone: Dawson. Hussain, Zahid (2007) Frontline Pakistan: The struggle with militant Islam. London: I.B. Tauris. International Crisis Group (2002) Pakistan: Madrassas, Extremism and the Military. ICG Asia Report 36. Brussels. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2002) Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation. London: Zed Books. Jalal, Ayesha (1985) linnah: The Sole Spokesman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jalal, Ayesha (1990). The State of Martial Rule: the origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 251 Jalal, Ayesha (1994) "The State and Political Privilege in Pakistan." In The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Jalal, Ayesha (1995) Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: a comparative and historical perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jalal, Ayesha (1997) "Ideology and the Struggle for Democratic Institutions." In Old Roads, New Highways: Fifty Years of Pakistan, edited by Victoria Schofield. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Craig, Jeffrey and Jens Lerche (2001) "Dimensions of dominance: class and state in UP." In Everyday state and society in modern India, edited by Christopher Fuller and Veronique Benei. London: Hurst & Co. Johnson, Dale (1985) Middle Classes in Dependent Countries. Beverly Hills: Rutgers University Press. Jones, Philip E. (2003) The Pakistan People's Party: Rise to Power. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Joyce, Patrick (2005) Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaviraj, Sudipta (1989) "On Political Explanation in Marxism." In Perspectives on Capitalism: Marx, Keynes, Schumpeter and Weber, edited by K. Bharadwaj and S. Kaviraj. New Delhi: SAGE. Kaviraj, Sudipta (1994) "On the Construction of Colonial Power: structure, discourse, hegemony." In Contesting Colonial Hegemony: State & Society in Africa and India, edited by Dagmar Engels and Shula Marks. London: British Academic Press. Kaviraj, Sudipta (1997) "The Modem State in India." In Dynamics of State Formation: India and Europe compared, edited by S. Kaviraj and Martin Doornbos. New Delhi: Manohar. Kaviraj, Sudipta (2005a) On the enchantment of the state: Indian thought on the role of the state in the narrative of modernity. European journal of sociology 46: 263-296. Kaviraj, Sudipta (2005b) An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity. European Journal of Sociology 46: 497-526. Kemal, A.R. (1999) "Patterns and growth of Pakistan's Industrial Sector." In 50 Years of Pakistan's Economy: Traditional Topics and Contemporary Concerns, edited by Shahrukh Rafi Khan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Kemal, A. R. and Zafar Mahmood (1993) Labour Absorption in the Informal Sector and Economic Growth in Pakistan. Islamabad: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Kemal, A. R. and Zafar Mahmood (1998) The Urban Informal Sector of Pakistan: Some Stylized Facts. Islamabad: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. 252 Kennedy, Charles (1988) Bureaucracy in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Khan, Mahmood Hassan (1999) "Agricultural Development and changes in the Land Tenure and Land Revenue systems in Pakistan." In 50 Years of Pakistan's Economy: Traditional Topics and Contemporary Concerns, edited by Shahrukh Rafi Khan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Khan, Mahmood Hassan (2003) "Changes in the Agrarian Structure of Pakistan." In The Post-Colonial State and Social Transformation in India and Pakistan, edited by S.M. Naseem and Khalid Nadvi. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Khan, Mushtaq (1998) Patron-client networks and the economic effects of corruption in Asia. European Journal of Development Research 10: 15-39. Khan, Mushtaq (2000) "Class, Clientelism and Communal Politics in Bangladesh." In The Making of History: Essays Presented to bfan Habib, edited by K. N. Panikkar, T. J. Byres and U. Patnaik. New Delhi: Tulika. Khan, Mushtaq (2001) "The new political economy of corruption." In Development Policy in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond the Post-Washington Consensus, edited by Ben Fine, Costas Lapavitsas and Jonathan Pincus. London: Routledge. Khan, Shahrukh Rafi, Saba Gul Khattak and Sajid Kazmi (2005) Hazardous Home- Based Sub-Contracted Work: A Study of Multiple Tiered Exploitation. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Khan, Shahrukh Rafi, Foqia Sadiq Khan and Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (2007) Initiating Devolution: Ignoring the power structure. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Khory, Kavita (1997) "The Ideology of the Nation-State and Nationalism." In State, Society and Democratic Change in Pakistan, edited by Rasul Bakhsh Rais. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Kizilbash, Masood H. April 16, 2007. Sale of national assets. DAWN. Kochanek, Stanley (1983) Interest Groups and Development: Business and Politics in Pakistan. New York: Oxford University Press. Kochanek, Stanley (1995) "Ethnic Conflict and the Politicization of Business." In Pakistan 1995, edited by Charles Kennedy and Rasul Bakhsh Rais. Colorado: Westview Press. Kurin, Richard (1985) Islamisation in Pakistan: A View from the Countryside. Asian Survey 25: 115-128. Kux, Dennis (2001) The United States and Pakistan 1947-2000: disenchanted allies. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. 253 LaPorte Jr., Robert (1975), Power and Privilege: Influence and Decision-making in Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lefebvre, Alain (1999) Kinship, honour and money in rural Pakistan: subsistence economy and the effects of international migration. Richmond: Curzon. Leghari, Iqbal (1979) The Socialist Movement in Pakistan: An Historical Survey, 1940-1974. unpublished PhD thesis, Montreal: Laval University. Lenin, V.1. (1943) State and Revolution. New York: International. Leys, Colin (1976) The 'Overdeveloped' Post Colonial State: A Re-evaluation. Review of African Political Economy 3: 39-48. Lindholm, Charles (1982) Generosity and jealousy: the Swat Pukhtun of northern Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press Linz, Juan (1973) "Opposition to and under an authoritarian regime: the case of Spain." In Regimes and Oppositions, edited by Robert A. Dahl. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lohalekar, Devidas B. (1991) U.S. arms to Pakistan: a study in alliance relationship. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House. Low, D.A. (1988) The Political Inheritance of Pakistan. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Lowy, Michael and Eder Sader (1985) The Militarisation of the State in Latin America. Latin American Perspectives 12: 978-993. Lyon, Stephen (2002) Power and Patronage in Pakistan. PhD thesis. University of Kent Canterbury. Maddison, Angus (1971) Class Structure and Economic Growth: India and Pakistan since the Mughals. London: Allen and Unwin. Mahmood, Sohail (1980) Bureaucracy in Pakistan: An Historical Analysis. Lahore: Progressive Publishers. Malik, Iftikhar (1997) State and civil society in Pakistan: politics of authority, ideology and ethnicity. New York: St. Martin's Press. Mamdani, Mahmood (1976) Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. London: Heinemann Educational. Mamdani, Mahmood (2005) Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror. Lahore: Vanguard Books. McGrath, Allen (1998) The Destruction of Pakistan's Democracy. Karachi: Oxford University Press. 254 Medard, Jean-Francois (1982) "The underdeveloped state in tropical Africa: Political c1ientelism or neo-patrimonialism." In Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State, edited by Christopher Clapham. London: St. Martin's Press. Mellema, R. L (1961) The Basic Democracies System in Pakistan. Asian Survey 1, 6: 10-15 Metcalf, Barbara (2001) Piety, Persuasion and Politics: Deoband' s model of Islamic Activism. New York: Social Science Research Council; available at: http://www .ssrc.org/sept 11 /essays/metcalf.htmwebsite? Migdal, Joel and Klaus Schlichte (2005) "Rethinking the state." In The dynamics of states: the formation and crises of state domination, edited by Klaus Schlichte. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Miliband, Ralph (1977) Marxism and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, Timothy (1991) The Limits of the State: Beyond statist approaches and their critics. American Political Science Review 85: 77-96. Moore, Raymond J. (1969) The Use of the Army in Nation-Building: The case of Pakistan. Asian Survey 9: 447-456. Nadvi, Khalid (1990) Employment Creation in Urban Micro-Enterprises in the Manufacturing Sector in Pakistan. Bangkok: ILO/ ARTEP. Nadvi, Khalid (2003) "Social Networks in Urban Punjab: A Case Study of the Sialkot Surgical Instrument Cluster." In The Post-Colonial State and Social Transformation in India and Pakistan, edited by S.M. Naseem and Khalid Nadvi. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Nasr, S.V.R. (1994) Vanguard of Islamic Revolution: lama'at-e-Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nasr, S.V.R. (2001) Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the making of state power. New York: Oxford University Press. Nasr, S.V.R. (2002) "Islam, the State, and the rise of sectarian militancy in Pakistan." In Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. London: Zed Books. Nayak, Pandav (1988) Pakistan: Political Economy of a Developing State. New Delhi: Patriot Publishers. Neale, Walter C. (1969) "Land is to Rule." In Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History, edited by Robert Eric Frykenberg. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 255 Nelson, Matthew J. (2008) In the Shadow of Shari/a: Islam, Islamic Law, and Democracy in Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press. Noman, Omar (1988) Pakistan: Political and Economic History since 1947. London: Kegan Paul International. Noman, Omar (2001) "An uncivil society: The role of shadow privatization, conflict and ideology in the governance of Pakistan." In Power and Civil Society in Pakistan, edited by Zulfikar Gilani and Anita Weiss. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Panitch, Leo (1994) Globalisation and the State. Socialist Register, London: Merlin Press. Papanek, Gustav. F. (1968) Pakistan's Development: Social Goals and Private Incentives. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Parry, Benita (2002) "Liberation Theory: Variations on themes of Marxism and modernity." In Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies, edited by Crystal Bartolovich and Neil Lazarus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pasha, Mustafa Kamal (1992) "Islamisation, Civil Society, and the Politics of Transition in Pakistan." In Religion and Political Conflict in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, edited by Douglas Allen. Westport: Greenwood Press. Pasha, Mustafa Kamal (1997) "The "Hyper-Extended" State: Civil Society and Democracy." In State, Society and Democratic Change in Pakistan, edited by Rasul Bakhsh Rais. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Pasha, Mustafa Kamal (1998) Colonial Political Economy: Recruitment and Underdevelopment in the Punjab. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Carol McC. Levin Pastner (1996) "Introduction" In Marginality and modernity: ethnicity and change in post-colonial Balochistan, edited by Paul Titus. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Perlmutter, Amos (1977) The Military and Politics in Modern Times. New Haven: Yale University Press. Pirzada, Sayyid A.S. (2000) The politics of the lamiat Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan, 1971- 1977. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Poulantzas, Nicolas (1980) State, Power, Socialism. London: Verso. Qadeer, Muhammad (2000) Ruralopolises: The Spatial Organisation and Residential Land-Economy of High-Density Rural Regions. Urban Studies 37: 1025-1044. Raza, Rafi (1997) ZulJikar Ali Bhutto and Pakistan, 1967-77. Karachi: Oxford University Press. 256 Rashid, Abbas (1985) "Pakistan: The Ideological Dimension." In Islam, Politics and the State: the Pakistan Experience, edited by M. Asghar Khan. London: Zed Books. Rashid, Jamil (1983) "Pakistan in the Debt Trap." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hassan Gardezi and J amil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Rehman, Shahid-ur (1998) Who owns Pakistan?: Fluctuating Fortunes of Business Mughals. Islamabad: Aelia Communications Richter, William L. (1978) Persistent Praetorianism: Pakistan's Third Military Regime. Pacific Affairs 51: 406-426. Rittenberg, Stephen Alan (1988) Ethnicity, nationalism, and the Pakhtuns: the Independence Movement in India's North-West Frontier Province. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Rizvi, Hasan-Askari (1984) The Military and Politics in Pakistan. Lahore: Sang-e- Meel. Rizvi, Hasan-Askari (2000) Military, State and Society in Pakistan. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Rizvi, Hasan-Askari (2001) "The Military." In Power and Civil Society in Pakistan, edited by Zulfikar Gilani and Anita Weiss. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rosen, George (1985) Western economists and Eastern societies: agents of change in South Asia, 1950-1970. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rouse, Shahnaz (1983) "Systematic injustices and inequalities: "Maalik" and "Raaiya" in a Punjab village." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hassan Gardezi and J amil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Rouse, Shahnaz (1992) "Discourses on Gender in Pakistan: Convergence and Contradiction." In Religion and Political Conflict in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, edited by Douglas Allen. Westport: Greenwood Press. Roy, Arundhati. August 16,2004. Public power in the age of empire. Lecture delivered to 99th Annual Meeting of American Sociological Association. San Francisco. Saberwal, Satish (1986) Roots of Crisis. Delhi: Oxford University Press. San Juan Jr., E. (2002) "Postcolonialism and the problematic of uneven development." In Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies, edited by Crystal Bartolovich and Neil Lazarus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sarkar, Sumit (2000) "Orientalism revisited: Saidian frameworks in the writing of modem Indian history." In Mapping subaltern studies and the postcolonial, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi. London: Verso. 257 Sarkar, Sumit (2002) "The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies. " In Reading Subaltern Studies: Critical History, Contested Meaning and the Globalisation of South Asia, edited by David Ludden. Delhi: Permanent Black Saul, John (1974). The State in Post-Colonial Societies-Tanzania. The Socialist Register. London: Merlin Press. Sayeed, Asad U. (1995) Political Alignments, the State and Industrial Policy in Pakistan: A Comparison of Peiformance in the 1960s and 1980s. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge. Sayeed, Khalid B. (1968) Pakistan: the formative phase 1857-1948. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Sayeed, Khalid B. (1980) Politics in Pakistan: nature and direction of change. New York: Praeger. Scott, James (1985) Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Shafqat, Saeed (1997) Civil-military relations in Pakistan: From Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Benazir Bhutto. Boulder: Westview Press Shafqat, Saeed (2003) "Democracy and Political Participation in Pakistan." In Pakistan: The Contours of State and Society, edited by Soofia Mumtaz, Jean-Luc Racine and Imran Ali. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Shaheed, Zafar (1983) "The role of the Government in the Development of the Labour Movement." In Pakistan: The Unstable State, edited by Hassan Gardezi and Jamil Rashid. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Sharma, Aradhana and Akhil Gupta (2006) The Anthropology of the State: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Shivji, Issa G (1976) Class Struggles in Tanzania. London: Heinemann Educational. Siddiqa, Ayesha (2007) Military Inc: The Politics of Military Economy in Pakistan. London: Pluto Press. Siddiqi, A.R. (1996) The military in Pakistan: image and reality. Karachi: Vanguard Books. Smith, Anthony (2001) Nationalism: theory, ideology, history. Malden: Polity Press. Sobhan, Rehman (2003) "State and governance as factors in development." In The post-colonial state and social transformation in India and Pakistan, edited by S.M. Naseem and K. Nadvi. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Steinmetz, George (1999) State/Culture: State Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 258 Talbot, Ian (2002) "Does the army make Pakistan's foreign policy." In Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. London: Zed Books. Tan Tai Yong (2005) The garrison state: military, government and society in colonial Punjab, 1849-1947. London: SAGE. Thomas Clive (1984) The Rise of the Authoritarian State in Peripheral Societies. London: Heineman. Thompson, E.P. (1978) The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press. Thompson, E.P. (2005) "English working class." In Class, edited by Patrick Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tsakok, Isabelle (1986) "The Export of Manpower from Pakistan to the Middle East." In Pakistan's Development Priorities: Choices for the Future, edited by Shahid Javed Burki and Robert LaPorte Jr. Karachi: Oxford University Press Verkaaik, Oskar (2001) "The Captive State: Corruption, Intelligence Agencies, and Ethnicity in Pakistan." In States of imagination: ethnographic explorations of the postcolonial state, edited by Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat. Durham: Duke University Press. Verkaaik, Oskar (2004) Migrants and militants: fun and urban violence in Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wacquant, Loic J.D. (1985) Heuristic models in Marxian theory. Social Forces 64: 17-40. Waseem, Mohammad (1994) Politics and the state in Pakistan. Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research. Waseem, Mohammad (2002) "The dialectic of domestic policy and foreign policy." In Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. London: Zed Books. Waseem, Mohammad (2003) "Mohajirs in Pakistan: A Case of Nativisation of Migrants." In Community, Empire and Migration: South Asian in Diaspora, edited by Crispin Bates. Delhi: Orient Longman. Waseem, Mohammad (2006) Democratisation in Pakistan: A Study of the 2002 Elections. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Washbrook, David (1990) South Asia, the World System, and World Capitalism. Journal of Asian Studies 49: 479-508. 259 Washbrook, David (1997) "The Rhetoric of Democracy and Development in Late Colonial India." In Nationalism, democracy and development: state and politics in India, edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha lalal. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Weiss, Anita (1991) Class, culture and development in Pakistan: the emergence of an industrial bourgeoisie in Punjab. Boulder: Westview Press. Weiss, Anita (1994). "The Consequences of State Policies for Women in Pakistan." In The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Wesolowski, Wlodzimierz (1979) Classes, Strata and, Power.!. London: Routledge. Whaites, Alan (1995) The State and Civil Society in Pakistan. Contemporary South Asia 4: 97-110. White, Lawrence 1. (1974) Industrial Concentration and Political Power in Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wilder, Andrew (1998) The Pakistani Voter: Electoral Politics and Voting Behaviour in the Punjab. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Wright, Erik Olin (1985) Classes. London: Verso. Wright, Erik Olin (2002) The Shadow of Exploitation in Weber's Class Analysis. American Sociological Review 67: 222-235. Zaidi, S. Akbar (2005a) Issues in Pakistan's Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zaidi, S. Akbar (2005b) State, Military and Social Transition: Improbable Future of Democracy in Pakistan. Economic and Political Weekly. December 3: 1122-1140. Zaman, Qasim (1998) Sectarianism in Pakistan: The radicalization of Shia and Sunni Identities. Modern Asian Studies 32: 689-716 Ziring, Lawrence (1997) Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ziring, Lawrence (2003) Pakistan: at the Crosscurrent of History. Oxford: Oneworld Press. 260