Daily Times

The political parties of Pakistan have a special knack for inviting trouble. They need no enemy since they are endowed with an innate trait of self-immolation through their own absurdities. Provoking anti-American sentiments and enhancing religious bigotry seem to be their latest refuge, especially in times when the people have begun to assert their will in order to resolve their problems. From handling frequent power failures to coaxing and cajoling the real power brokers — the armed forces — through the extravagant theatricality of an All-Parties Conference (APC), their execution is appalling. The establishment is treated with exceptional reverence as if it was not an institution but an endangered species. On a given day, these ‘chosen ones’ may give a rare illusion of subtlety and sagacity but not of austerity since material gains never elude their sight. A national tragedy is their moment of opportunity and once availed, the immunity provided by the rogue system becomes their bulwark. The squabbles they involve in are a bizarre spectacle that cultivated natures would shun. The carnage in Karachi is an allegory of their greed where so much of blood was shed for so little purpose. This is typical of the feudal system where human life is not considered as a source of value-creating commodity; hence it is wasted with impunity. Capitalism is not a friend of the masses either but unless there is a war for capitalist hegemony, such instant killing sprees are not its modus operandi.

In times of peace, any perpetration of naked violence against the people brings the institutions created for its own dominance such as parliament and civil society in a direct but phony confrontation with the system itself. To begin with, it removes the surplus army of workers from the productive cycle, which leaves little choice except to work in dismal conditions. This super-exploitation leads to their slow death. Killing a man at work is an old method of capital but it must appear to be a natural death. Karl Marx wrote, “To be led with success, the industrial struggle demands large armies they can concentrate at one point and decimate copiously.” These men have to defray their living costs as long as they stay alive, and then those of their ensuing death. They have to produce surplus value as long as they are capable of it. For capitalism does not execute the men it has condemned unless it profits by putting them to death.

A free lunch is alien to capitalism but a free labourer who, on the capitalist’s terms alone, can sell his labour power, is a necessary precondition for its existence. The myth of this ‘freedom’ has to be maintained in a democratic farce. This contradiction and the process of accumulation not only leads to the development of productive forces but also enhances the social consciousness of the working class.

In contrast, a feudal society finds itself under no such obligation. Land rather than the realisation of capital remains the source of dominance in society. Due to its inability to develop the productive forces beyond a narrow limit, this system exhausts its possibilities far quicker than any other does. Akin to religion, it too thrives on traditions that themselves are a passive residue of the social forms already eclipsed by history. Political groups working under these social conditions are handicapped due to a limited space for progress available to them. Antonio Gramsci argues, “If it is true that parties are only the nomenclature for classes, it is also true that parties are not simply a mechanical and passive expression of those classes, but react energetically upon them in order to develop, solidify and universalise them.” Classes produce parties and parties form the personnel of the state and the government who ultimately attain the leadership of civil and political society. The social group attached to each party must be distinguished. Since the party reflects the state, hence Gramsci stresses: “There cannot be any formation of leaders without the theoretical, doctrinal activity of parties.”

Pakistan was born without much political struggle. The only party it inherited was a mixed sack of rudderless middle class that migrated from India and an extremely power conscious Junkers/feudal class, which was already ruling Punjab and Sindh. Such parties are incapable of building institutions. The carnage of partition was so dreadful that it masked all the simmering contradictions. It was naïve to settle the religious issue of the people cleaved anew through a speech in the Legislative Assembly. The language problem — the prelude to the national question — that was to haunt the state later, turned out to be more sensitive. The enlightened father of the nation became the advocate of a language that was completely alien to him. This clearly indicated the bureaucratic hegemony over national affairs, which by strangulating the will of the people dominates even today. The party, if there was any, was stifled and the bureaucracy filled the void. The Objectives Resolution interred Mr Jinnah’s (remaining) secular legacy.The party stands as an embryonic state structure. In modern democracies. Power wrests with the party since power, as or when shared, ceases to remain power. No political party belonging to any class can allow an individual or a group who is associated with the party to supersede its governing laws. If such a situation erupts, it means that the power of the party/state has been compromised. In other words, the party has lost its concrete existence as an independent organism. Under these circumstances, the military and civil bureaucracies — in alliance with theocracy, provided it is required to maintain the hegemony of the former — are invariably reinforced. Like the theocrats, this bureaucratic stratum lacks any productive functions but since the latter remains close to the corridors of power and has a definite military wing, hence it becomes a political force and comes into action in public only when ‘legality’ is in danger. When the party is weak, this stratum influences and lays down the laws to the ruling elite. Its decelerated will is directed to this specific end. According to Gramsci, “The bureaucracy is the most dangerously hidebound and conservative force; if it ends up by constituting a compact body, which stands on its own and feels itself independent of the masses of members, the party ends up by becoming anachronistic and at moments of acute crisis it is voided of its social content and left as though suspended in mid-air.”

The present subservient character of our parties owes its origins to the continuation of feudal-cum-civil-military-bureaucratic dominance that commenced at the time of the country’s inception. The two major parties (the PPP and the PML-N) — PTI making no exception — are comprised of a bunch of people who seized the moment but never belonged to the masses. One is a load of feudals and the other a mixture of the same, including the traders. Both are merely interested in making a quick buck. None of them has any stake in Pakistan. The materialisation of any hope regarding the emergence of real progressive forces will depend upon the struggle initiated by the people themselves. As Rosa Luxemburg said, “The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process.” Furthermore, “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”

The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com