Daily Times

The process of colonisation often leaves as its legacy a conflict-ridden society, which faces great difficulty in containing the violence within it. This is due to a variety of factors that mostly stem from the colonial power’s measures at controlling, and subsequently ruling its subject population. Knowledge is created by colonial authorities through their understanding of the colonised, and that is, in turn, reified by formalising it in the institutions of the colonial state. Such knowledge structures persist even after independence and the binaries that they create come to characterise society and institutions of the postcolonial state. However, the colonial enterprise is as much about power and dominance as it is about negotiation and settlement. Often the power and control of the colonial state is perceived to be absolute, ubiquitously pervading all aspects of its subject population. This illusory power, while having substantive weight behind it, overlooks the partnerships and the compromises that undergirds it. And as the postcolonial state assumes control, it faces the challenge of dealing with the arrangements that the colonial state had made in order to strengthen its rule.

Pakistan had to deal with this unenviable situation following its independence. The difficulty in reconciling the relatively contentious boundaries of British colonial India with the neatly demarcated boundaries of the modern nation state manifested itself in the form of border disputes in the north and the west. These border issues were just one example of the imperfect control of power of the colonial state. More importantly, the colonial state’s limitations in imposing order without coming into partnerships with local bosses and elites to buttress its rule had a profound impact on the future trajectory of the state of Pakistan. As local bosses deeply entrenched themselves under the patronage of the colonial state, their preponderance continued into postcolonial Pakistan. Naturally then these local bosses were able to exert their dominance in the political system of Pakistan.

All this gave rise to the networks of patronage politics that dominate the electoral landscape of Pakistani politics. While operating in a gross asymmetry of power, these networks do provide some benefit to their far more numerous lower socioeconomic members. This is in the form of access to the state, in absence of which their already unenviable lives would be far more difficult. However, these patronage networks have perpetually locked the country’s poor into a relationship that is fundamentally exploitative. This in part explains the underdevelopment of most of the areas of Pakistan. As the local bosses who benefit the most from these networks can rely on the votes of their members, the incentive for constituency development gets reduced. And in the absence of meaningful alternatives for the lower socioeconomic members of these networks, they are left with no other choice but to accept their fate.

Taken in the broader context of provincial politics of Pakistan and the rise of regionalism in the country, it can be inferred that regional underdevelopment is partly to be blamed on this phenomenon. Provincial parties and politicians have long used the alleged injustices of the centre for political point-scoring while at the same time perpetuating that underdevelopment when in power by virtue of the security of these patronage networks. However, this does not mean that their cries for fair distribution of resources should fall on deaf ears. For Pakistan to unify the diverse ethnolinguistic people of the country, it is imperative to take into account provincial concerns even if it results in suboptimal development plans.

In light of this it becomes quite clear that any party that aspires to bring change at the grassroots level would have to offer an alternative to this mode of patronage politics. It would have to extend its party machinery into the country’s rural areas and offer people some form of support so that they could break free of the shackles of the current patronage system. Unfortunately, however, the successful parties have already deeply entrenched themselves in these networks while those who vie for power and ostensibly promise change seek to replace the successful parties by co-opting rather than replacing these networks.

All is not lost, however, as rapid rate of urbanisation has infused a new dynamic in the country’s politics. Cities have in them much more aware and, more importantly, far more independent-thinking voters. The relatively better economic standing of urban dwellers gives them a greater degree of autonomy to choose their representatives based on their party’s performance. It is in cities that the responsiveness, essential for democratic growth, manifests itself as politicians continuously have to take into account the tide of public opinion. Ironically, it sometimes is in politicians’ political interest to go against their personal interest if public opinion so demands it. Hence, urbanisation has provided an alternative to the patronage networks of Pakistani politics, but the fact still remains that urban vote is grossly under-represented in the country’s legislative bodies. Hopefully, this will be rectified soon as talk of electoral reforms has become de rigueur, given the weight that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has put behind it. At the end, it must be realised that democracy contains within it the mechanism for gradual but transformative change as piecemeal measures combine to bring about a qualitative improvement. Democracy does indeed need time to mature but it is the only system that can fix Pakistan’s problems.

The writer is an assistant editor at Daily Times