The political apathy that prevails amongst the deprived and oppressed masses in Pakistan reflects the deep malaise and despair that has set in in society. The mammoth reception that Benazir Bhutto was accorded five years ago on her return from exile to Karachi on October 18, 2007 that had raised new hope for the masses and the subsequent campaign that had turned into a vigorous movement had sent tremors through the echelons of power. In desperation, the reactionary sections decided to eliminate the point of reference of the upsurge. Benazir Bhutto was struck down with a vengeance, and the imperialist brokers and the reformists in the state stood clueless and impotently on the sidelines. They were no less petrified by the upheaval, the tremors of which were beginning to threaten the system and state. However, the bosses in Washington and London had a plan B in case of such a scenario. CIA’s wily operative Zalmay Khalilzad orchestrated this transition to demoralise and plunge the movement into an abyss of sorrow and despair. The results of the 2008 elections were tailored in Washington in accordance with the imperialist strategy of ‘reconciliation’. A coalition government was installed to carry out the most ferocious economic and social attacks on the already impoverished teeming millions in Pakistan.
Five years on, the toiling masses have not completely recovered from the tragic defeat inflicted upon them through a democratic counter-revolution. Unprecedented price hikes, unemployment, poverty, drudgery, violence, shortages, terrorist violence and state repression have ravaged society and devastated the masses. There is no real alternative on the political horizon at present for the respite of the masses from their woes. Imran Khan, the much-prompted messiah, has been exposed by the recent events. The thin veneer of glamour, justice, veracity and liberalism has come off revealing the conservative and rightwing chauvinism with overtones of fundamentalist bigotry. The other right wing parties, including the Muslim Leagues, do not really engender any real hope. The extreme right wing and the Islamic parties, despite support from important sections of the state and media, have seen their political base wither into a downward spiral. The terrorism being obtruded by the religious outfits have created a hatred and revulsion amongst the masses towards these merchants of the black economy and religious reaction. There is terror of the neo-fascist MQM mafia bosses who have to rely increasingly on state power to protect and preserve their criminal extortions and omnipotent fear in urban Sindh. The regional nationalists, although being propped up by adversaries of the proxy wars, have forsaken any progressive or social economic content in their programme that would galvanise the toiling classes of the oppressed nationalities.
The exploited masses have always voted for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as a vehicle of change, but with the experience of the incumbent regime, that flame of hope has flickered. In the absence of a mass revolutionary alternative, it continues to stagger on. The recent appointment of Manzoor Wattoo at the helm of the PPP in Punjab shows the direction in which the leadership is heading. This politician has been in connivance with every rotten military or civilian rightwing regime. This has hardly anything to do with the ‘politics of the people’. The leadership has since decades tried to make the party more subservient, insipid and palatable to the establishment and imperialism. The imperialist and state honchos have never really trusted the party, and they doubted the authenticity of the appeasement of the leadership but they were always terrified of the root cause of the PPP’s mass support. But this time the PPP leadership came into power not in an ascent but after a vicious defeat of the movement after the tragic events of December 2007. They had no real pressures from below and hence, instead of reforms, they carried out counter-reforms and severe austerity cuts under the dictates of the IMF. The malicious policies of trickledown economics have pulverised the masses. Those who have tried to give a left cover to these draconian policies are the worst perpetrators of crimes against the people.
As Marx once wrote, the burden of tradition is like the weight of the Alps on the shoulders and consciousness of the working classes. The working classes in Pakistan have been dismayed and severely disillusioned by the PPP leadership but they do not have an alternative option yet. This cannot be artificially created in a period of stagnation and mild reaction. But the irony is that with a decrease in support that might express itself in the shape of mass abstentions in the next elections and without a movement in the offing, the PPP will not be of much use for the imperialist bosses and the establishment. The dialectical paradox is that now when a mass upheaval egresses, it will initially orientate towards the PPP. But it will be a double edged sword that will not only move forward to sever the shackles of capitalism but will also cleave the PPP on class lines. The stranglehold of the leadership on the so-called party structures is due to the perks, privileges and monetary gains from being in government. Once the present PPP leadership loses state power, there would be fierce disarray and pandemonium in the party. PPP has not been much of a party with organised structures, internal democratic regime, electoral colleges and national conferences or party congresses. The last national party conference was held in 1972. There have been leftwing and right wing splits in the past but they were not of much significance, as the attacks from the state and the rightwing gave new life to the hierarchical leadership. But this time, with the mass support of the party dwindling, the splits and dissensions would be decisive and probably on a class basis. President Zardari inherited his wife’s party but not her authority or charisma. In such mayhem, if the left is not organised, accidental and demagogic figures might emerge in the vacuum after the demise of the discredited and corrupt leadership. With a Marxist leadership and a Leninist organisational structure, a revolutionary force can emerge that will carry out the socialist founding programme of the party and complete the unfinished revolution of 1968-69 that gave the PPP its mass base and traditional status for the working classes in Pakistan.
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]