Daily Times

Since its creation almost 70 years ago through one of the bloodiest partitions in modern history, Pakistan has never had any prolonged and genuinely stable and prosperous periods in its chequered history. Mass migrations in societies beset by organic crisis of the historically obsolete and economically redundant socioeconomic systems only end up aggravating the crisis, conflicts and turbulence. The political crisis that has arisen through the Panama Papers leaks has gripped Nawaz regime more so than the others across the globe due to the fragile nature of the present democratic setup, and the decay of state institutions and system.

Although there is no mass revolt of the oppressed classes at the moment, but the turmoil and the contradictions underneath the thin layer of scepticism and the gimmickry of hypocritical mudslinging and haranguing of the elite politicians and parties, there is seething anger and sharpening revulsion against the coercive system and its stalwarts. This social unrest expresses itself in different forms and manifestations that could seem to be of adversary and contradictory aims and objectives.

The Frankenstein monster created by the connoisseurs of the system and the deep state for repressing class struggle and social revolt has now come back to haunt its mentors. This monstrosity of religious fundamentalism has historically been deployed to exploit the sentiments of the middle classes and the primitive layers of society to perpetuate the rule of capitalist exploitation and plunder. Now the state is at pains to quell this cancerous growth that is becoming cataclysmic in the destabilisation of this already rotting system.

Pakistan’s corrupt and reactionary ruling classes have failed to complete any of the tasks of the national democratic revolution and, in the process, expose the sick nature of their economic system. The national oppression has continued while there seems to be no solution to this sizzling issue within the confines of the system and the state. Most bourgeois leaders of the oppressed nationalities have either sold to the Pakistani establishment or have become mere pawns to the design and interests of the international imperialist powers in order to extract financial and political power. This betrayal by nationalist bourgeois leaders has pushed advanced layers of oppressed youth and students to the conclusion that the road to national liberation goes through class struggle and a socialist transformation. This also explains why the state and non-state actors are targeting these revolutionaries, adding to the brutalities of bestial fundamentalists, pseudo nationalists that are proxies of different imperialist interests and other state-sponsored groupings, particularly in Balochistan.

There have also been innumerable protests and demonstrations on the oppression of women, religious minorities, peasants, students and the poor deprived of basic needs and reeling from price hike and atrocious conditions of their daily lives. But some of the most serious struggles have been from workers of various industries, and for several years there have been strikes and sporadic movements mainly in the public sector enterprises against privatisation, liberalisation, restructuring and other economic attacks on the workers by these bourgeois regimes in the garb of democracy.

There have been heroic strikes of the PTCL, OGDC, postal, railway and other sectors of the economy, and some of these struggles have been victorious against all odds. The PIA strike earlier this year was a valiant expression of this resilient class struggle. We have witnessed a number of such movements erupting one after the other with an increasing frequency. However, due to a number of factors including despair from betrayals of the leadership in 2007, the rapid and massive erosion of living standards since 2008, both under the discredited Pakistan People’s Party regime and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been a hindrance in galvanising different layers of society into a mass movement. However, this phase is temporary, and we are once again witnessing beginnings of a renewed class struggle.

The dissent in society and a continuum of the economic decline and hardships for the ordinary people is palpable in the crisis leading to conflicts and divisions at the helm of the state and the regime. The military/civilian contradictions and conflicts are often displayed in full public glare just as their rotten and pathetic compromises in their monetary interests and usurpation of more power. This shows the tenuousness of this equilibrium.

The PML-N government has been weak and seems to be a back foot on one issue after another. However, this accident-prone regime is struggling in dangerous waters. The regime is faced with attacks from its friendly corporate media, other bourgeois politicians, and now fissures opening up within the PML-N leaders and parliamentarians. There are even reports of cracks within the house of the Sharifs themselves. The tweet of Shahbaz Sharif’s wife, Tehmina Durrani, against foreign assets of the Sharif dynasty is only the tip of the iceberg.

It is true Nawaz Sharif managed to escape the noose several times on the brink to save his prime ministerial position, but the fallout from the Panama Papers leaks might not end up the same way. The only reason he has survived the last three and a half years is due to catastrophic socio-economic situation, and that the other state actors are terrified of a change, especially a direct military rule that could provoke a mass revolt with military’s incapacity to improve the economy and social conditions and getting exposed amongst the masses. It is in no way a certainty that Sharif will be deposed due to this predicament, but the acuteness of this crisis demonstrates that every regime in the last four decades has been on the brink and in a constant fear of being deposed in one way or the other. This uncertainty and qualms of the rulership shows how deeply Pakistan is inflicted by the catastrophic condition of its rotten capitalism.

The elite cannot control the unravelling crisis and are unable to govern this country. For the masses this rule of a corrupt and reactionary elite has brought only misery, deprivation and bloodshed. Their endurance can explode into a mass revolt with any gigantic event or a sudden change in the economic situation. They detest the political setup as a whole and despise the institutions of the state that only serve the rich and the powerful. Once they get their chance to express themselves in a political arena through a movement it will be the beginning of the end not only for the regime but the exploitative system as a whole.

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.com