A day before Bilawal announced the arrival of his father from his self-imposed exile, Asif Ali Zardari a master tactician in wheeling and dealing, and shrewd operator in Pakistan’s moneyed politics the party also announced a desire for a grand alliance of the opposition parties. The press statement said, “The party would form a grand alliance through a consensus by contacting all parties of the opposition.” So what’s new? This statement reeks of inaction and capitulation to the rotten status quo politics. Where is the change? Where are the party’s programme, will and determination for its revival? Perhaps the top hierarchy is happy with status quo. All evidence points towards the party’s desire to be part of a coalition or alliances in perpetuity in this democratic façade of the rich by the rich for the rich. Historically PPP has only been allowed in to the corridors of power by the imperialists and the Pakistani establishment after long, bloody, inefficient periods of military dictatorships and growing seething revolts from below. However this was at a time when PPP either had a radial programme and or led mass movements against military dictatorships.
PPP’s aping of Sharif and other looters will not even get a seat at the table of plunder sharing. The same is true of Imran Khan and his bandwagon of PTI. It is no wonder Khan has completely failed to dislodge Sharif. It is not possible to replace Sharif and his cohorts with offerings of the same to the masses. For masses it is better to stick with grade “A” peddlers of naked and brutal capitalistic market economics rather than grade “B” crooks in the shape of Zardaris or Khans of this world. The incumbent PPP leadership has no fire in their belly to mobilise the masses for the overthrow the PML (N) regime or any desire to eliminate the existing system. The present political discourse has abandoned the masses. But who cares? With Bhutto’s portraits behind their backs and total abandonment of his radical socialism and his slogan of “Roti, Kapra aur Makan” and shouting slogans in his name from the microphones, the PPP leadership is oblivious to the death agony of the party.
Hunger has actually increased in Pakistan during the last four decades. Forty percent of Pakistan’s population is under 14 that have been deserted by the successive governments over these decades. The stunted growth in under-five children has actually increased since 2000, a statistic shared by only three other countries. Pakistan spends the least on education of any country in South Asia. The agony of women, the elderly and the vulnerable sections of the population are painfully visible if one ventures in the petrifying slums and the countryside littered with poverty and disease. Vast majority of the population is deprived of food and shelter to water, health, education and sanitation. The working classes are least interested in superficial issues such as the constitution, democracy, secularism, power devolution, legal bills and judicial clauses. The ruthless dictatorship of the financial oligarchy keeps traumatising ordinary people what ever the political setup might be.
Nawaz Sharif represents the main sections of Pakistan’s bourgeois. Historically and financially this class was destined to be corrupt and robbers of the state and society. They failed to carry out the industrial revolution and what has morphed in Pakistan is a hotchpotch of remnants of different historical systems, from tribalism to feudal despotism, one unable to replace the other. Even the western cold but candid social relations, economic forms and parliamentary systems could not be attained. Their ugly caricatures this elite created reflect in their morality, culture, ethics, mind-sets and politics of Pakistan’s ruling classes and their state institutions and structures.
Colossal events impend. Even if Nawaz Sharif is forced to quit by the establishment and that is possible, the new regime would be as corrupt, untruthful and hypocrite if not more. No respite for the common people neither any fundamental change can transpire. Poverty, misery, deprivation, violence and drudgery will only worsen. That’s what politics of power and money can deliver. For any real transformation of society the masses need to be mobilised into a revolutionary upsurge through concrete demands and programme that is connected to the aspirations of the people. This cannot be realised within the confines of capitalism.
Even the most celebrated experts have come to the conclusion that the crisis and decay within PPP is inherent and organic. Not only the ‘new’ leadership have to go back to the basic founding documents and come up with a programme that is relevant to the masses expectations and aspirations but it will have to abandon half-hearted and reformist gestures. There is a huge trust gap and chasm between Party’s hierarchy and the toiling classes. Even if the leadership pledges to reconnect to the basic fundamental class politics and abandon the duplicitous capitulation of ‘the theory of reconciliation’, there is no guarantee masses will move under the PPP flag let alone to the level of the late1960’s. They have had their own experiences and lessons. The burden of the epoch and the economic aggression has had its toll.
Mass movements have their own dynamics and timings. But in a class society, arise, they will, sooner rather than later. The PPP leadership at the present moment in time is soaked in the bourgeois political and social milieu. It has abandoned attacking capitalism and calling for its overthrow through socialist revolution. The PPP efficaciously tested its socialist programme and slogans during the 1968-69 revolution against the system under Ayub dictatorship. The tragedy now is that PPP leaders have not only abandoned these ideas and slogans but are even refusing to say that PPP is the party of the working classes. The slogan of ‘power to the people’ becomes meaningless if the party abandons the people’s interests and demands in its policy and struggle. But the ‘people’ have to fight for their survival. In this milieu whenever they enter the arena of class struggle, the party of the revolution will crystallise from the womb of the revolutionary movement. The task is to prepare for it.
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail