Daily Times

A sudden and tragic assassination has cast an even deeper shadow of unpredictability over the electoral process, which goes beyond implying a mere temporal delay. This is upsetting news for those who feel that the growing militancy within Pakistan is in fact a by-product of authoritarianism, which can only be combated by establishing a legitimately democratic dispensation. Even if the currently hapless government can somehow manage to prevent further electoral boycotts so that the planned polls can retain at least a minimal semblance of legitimacy, the impact of the subsequent elections on the lives of ordinary people may still hardly be felt.
There are ample reasons for harbouring such pessimism about the pending electoral process if one takes a deeper look at the lingering hurdles which continue to cause political activities in our country to remain so unrepresentative.
While the prevailing power structures and procedures deployed to rule Pakistan still clearly reflect our historical colonial legacy, they are also a function of more recent developments that have taken place since independence.
Since 1947, we have seen decades of military rule interrupted by intermittent periods of controversial rule by the elected executive. It is thus not unfair to conclude that it has proven rather difficult for Pakistan to make the desired transition to democracy. When aiming to understand why this is so, political historians point to the weakness of the Muslim League in the areas that became Pakistan, as opposed to its relatively stronger organisational support and social links in the Muslim minority areas of the United Provinces. Resultantly, Pakistan primarily had to be ruled on the basis of alliances among the state bureaucracy, large landowners, and an industrial bourgeoisie.
State building in Pakistan has kept manoeuvring and moulding inherited colonial arrangements based on a system of elite patronage which does no more than help perpetuate undemocratic power structures. Among the regional elites, Punjabis have disproportionately dominated public life and the military, since Punjab had been relatively more integrated into British colonial structures due to its elaborate irrigation system, modest industrial activities, and perhaps most importantly, over-representation within the British army. The concentration of wealth and affluence in Punjab has exacerbated uneven development and fuelled growing tension between provinces and ethnic groups across and within provinces.
To address the problem of provincial discontent and recurrent fears of succession, the state has time and again found it more convenient to offer incentives to provincial elites in exchange for political stability, instead of trying to address the disparity on ground. At the same time, regional elites have remained more concerned with further consolidating their own positions, rather than working to ensure greater integration of their areas within the national government. Combined with the narrow sectional politics and encouraged by weak representative institutions, the elite tactics of governance inherited from our past have thus caused serious rifts in Pakistani society along the lines of class and ethnicity.
While decentralisation and devolution designed to democratise local-level governing bodies and increase local decision-making powers over rural development funds have been attempted as early as the 1960s, they have so far not been able to adequately empower economically, politically, and socially marginalised groups.
The most recent attempt at devolution of power was initiated in the form of the Local Government Ordinance, 2001. Yet this attempt too is considered impelled by the need to enhance the grasp of the ruling government over lower power structures, to supposedly undermine the support base of conventional political parties, instead of really promoting democratic decision making.
Development approaches and interventions cannot possibly have a transformative impact within the context of such superfluous reform measures. There is enough worldwide evidence to indicate that if development activities are not strategic, they inadvertently strengthen existing elites by diluting discontent and weakening potential forms of resistance by the powerless. They do so by providing minimal levels of assistance to ensure that the poor remain complacent enough not to be instigated into outright revolt against exploitative systems such as feudal arrangements.
The feudal system, historically conditioned by the former rulers of the subcontinent for resource extraction, has in turn been nurtured by the modern Pakistani state. Without larger macro-level reforms and the implementation of legislation to prevent atrocities like bonded labour, the economic and political hold of feudal elites is unlikely to reduce. However, the first Prime Minister of the current set-up is on record for having declared land reforms a ‘dead issue’ during his very first parliamentary address. The issue of land reforms has also hardly been focused on in the recently designed political manifestos for the coming general elections. With the exception of the MQM, no political party has paid due attention to this long standing problem.
Yet, even the World Bank now recognises that when local systems of social organisation result in tight control of community decisions by elites, malevolent forms of capture of resources become likely. Apparent market distortions can be caused by this sort of a phenomenon so that measures like increasing transparency of land records remain unable to increase agricultural productivity, or help improve wages for the landless poor. It is thus vital to put in place checks and balances to effectively reduce the systematic exclusion of the poor from access to resources such as land in rural areas, and improve the life of the disenfranchised in a primarily agrarian country like Pakistan.
Stressing the need for a legitimately democratic dispensation is just not enough. Institutions like the World Bank and other concerned donors should also do more to help establish this dispensation. Going beyond rhetoric, effective efforts in this regard imply promoting practicable means to mitigate the elite’s hold on land and other resources intended to reduce poverty within the rural and urban context, instead of mutations of the tried and tested trickle down approach.
Unless and until the state and development agencies which fund its policies decide to implement more aggressive pro-poor policies, people in our country will not be empowered. Moreover, given the mire surrounding the current general elections, it seems unlikely that anything substantial will be done for the poor this time around, despite the fact that all politicians will be trying to capture maximum votes of the poor to ascend to power.

The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu