A little about the historical and current problems of Pakistan, the analysis of which may be useful
At the end of January next year, general elections are due to be held in Pakistan, which were called after the summer government crisis associated with the actual removal of Prime Minister I. Khan from the leadership of the country.
I. Khan is under arrest as a result of investigations into corruption schemes, and unless something extraordinary happens, he will have to forget about the elections for at least the next few years.
Corruption investigations are a traditional part of political competition in Pakistan. Some will say that this is some kind of disgrace, but considering history Pakistan and the way this competition took place in past years, one can say that such methods are even a kind of progress.
At least, the previous Prime Minister Sh. Sharif managed to prevent a planned provocation, as a result of which I. Khan could well change his status from accused to commemorated, and thereby preserve the political system in a relatively (albeit relatively) stable state.
The new configuration of forces will be determined in the elections, and in this configuration, like “in the good old days,” the military caste of Pakistan will once again build a balance between the elites behind the representatives of the Bhutto family (Sindh) and the elites behind the representatives of the Sharif family (Punjab) .
Another thing is that the old days are over and a balance will have to be built taking into account quite serious social changes that brought the electorate of I. Khan onto the Pakistani arena, as well as changes in the composition of the country’s army itself.
Both of these factors are significant not only for Pakistan - their analysis will help to draw more general conclusions that will be applicable to processes in other countries, including ours. This analysis can also provide good material for understanding how domestic elites and large political international projects interact.
Therefore, this study, although dedicated to Pakistan, aims to provide a broader overview than just Pakistan. It also develops some aspects raised in materials published at VO in August и May this year.
The recent history of Pakistan could partly become the basis for creating a modern textbook on political economy in its Marxist understanding. The division of India into Muslim Pakistan, and then the separation of Bangladesh, went side by side with the destruction of the late feudal economic system. Today, such maxims already look like an anachronism, but the very last thing the British Empire did was the industrialization of its colonies.
Accordingly, archaic forms of economic management persisted in these territories for quite a long time, while Pakistan in its central part historically had good conditions for the development of agriculture, as well as access to maritime trade.
Pakistan's legacy from this period was a clan-family approach to the formation of a political elite, relying on the main tribal groups of Sindh and Punjab. At the same time, Islam was even a kind of progressive factor. Islam did not free people from clanism, but it did free them from a more serious historical problem—casteism.
Economic development in the 1950-1960s started from a low base, was quite rapid by regional standards and inevitably led to the formation of, if not a middle class in the modern sense, then it added to the traditional elite families many new ones from various strata of society.
As in the Middle East as a whole, during this period society was imbued with a rather specific mixture of ideas of a socialist nature and various forms of the so-called. "political Islam". At this time, a term such as “Islamic socialism” appeared, which was understood differently from region to region and from movement to movement. But in essence it was a reflection of economic processes. Society gradually moved from the traditional “bazaar democracy” with a class hierarchy to an elective political system and party building.
The old elite has not disappeared anywhere, and its most prominent representatives in Pakistan were precisely the names of Bhutto and Sharif. Another thing is that now it was much more difficult to achieve legitimation, considerable efforts were required to ensure inclusivity in politics, and the problem of a third force arose in full force - the army, which overpowered everything else. Why it overpowered is also clear - the army was becoming truly massive and was also a cross-section of a changed society and changed relations in society.
As a result, the centers of representative democracy became the two already mentioned elite families, around which political forces and movements were mainly concentrated.
The Bhutto surname are descendants of Rajputs and the elite of Indian Gujarat, who later migrated to the modern Pakistani province of Sindh. Pakistan People's Party (PPP, English Pakistan People's Party) - moderate left, moderate Islamic conservatives, supporters of social reforms. Father B. Bhutto generally went to the elections under the slogans “Islam, democracy, socialism.”
The surname Sharif - descendants of Kashmiri Brahmins from the Bhat tribal confederation, who later moved to Punjab, informally bear the title of princes of the blood, equivalent to the status of "raja" or "nawab", which, however, is not disputed by anyone. In 1988, the broad party network of the Muslim League was reorganized into the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party. Right-wing, pronounced Islamic conservatism, adherents of liberal views on economics.
In 1977, Benazir Bhutto's father (Prime Minister Z. Ali Bhutto) was arrested and then executed by M. Zia-ul-Haq, who effectively became the head of the state. Zia-ul-Haq is a general from the Arains, a Punjabi agricultural tribe that, like other confederations of this type, began to supply its representatives to politics and the army in the XNUMXth century.
But what could Zia ul-Haq rely on in terms of ideology when taking such public steps? Ali Bhutto was popular and the PPP had very good electoral support. A peculiar mixture of political and mystical Islam. How did the future military dictator learn about the “intrigues and crimes” of his predecessor? He had a “revelation from above.”
It’s not as if the general-dictator was much loved by the people; he was not at all liked in the United States, although they clearly did not regret much about the fate of the elder Bhutto. However, in general, the general theses of the Islamic conservative ideological agenda turned out to be quite important for society, and the United States needed a strong rear, since the USSR campaign in Afghanistan began.
We would call the theses with which Zia-ul-Haq came to power dense revanchism, and in general it was so - Pakistan as a whole was not yet ready for moderate political Islam. However, the very appearance in the highest political league of such characters as Zia-ul-Haq, and generals from not the most aristocratic families and status confederations, already reflected fundamental social changes.
Tribal elites with ancient roots, seriously respected and recognized in society, were forced to come to terms with the fact that the society of Pakistan was becoming different. The army was still largely drawn from Punjab and Sindh, but society became much more homogeneous.
However, M. Zia-ul-Haq still preferred to move the Punjabis along the military line rather than the Sindians, and in politics, in terms of working with the old elites, he logically relied on the Sharif clan. Over time, the Pakistani generals will take their financial toll on the clan elites, turning into a closed financial club, but they will no longer be able to ignore changes in society.
In the late 1980s, “enlightened Europe” sent the young talent I. Khan to Pakistan. And something tells me that he is sending not just for the excellent performances of the team in cricket competitions. M. Zia-ul-Haq and N. Sharif offer political cooperation to the young talent, and later places on party lists. But, apparently, I. Khan had consultants who suggested that he should refrain from cooperation for now, but should gradually go to the people with his theses in politics.
I. Khan is a native Pashtun, which, on the one hand, reflected the history of military operations in Afghanistan, where Pashtun tribal confederations were fully involved, but, on the other hand, the Pashtun politician, who was quickly gaining popularity, again reflected social changes in Pakistan society.
Z. Ali Bhutto is the social reality of the 1960-1970s, M. Zia-ul-Haq is the reality of the 1980s, the struggle of P. Musharraf and the generals with the name Bhutto is the reality of the 1990-2000s, but the political activity of I Khana - new social processes of the 2010s and to the present time.
In 1996, he formed a new political party, the Movement for Justice, and for quite a long period he essentially played for it as a single person. However, since the mid-2000s, his slogans: “Islamic socialism”, “Islamic democracy”, “fair ethnic representation” begin to shoot louder and further. Was this possible 20 years before? No. But I. Khan’s voter base has grown, and society has become even more homogeneous.
I. Khan began to gain popularity not only in the Pashtun region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but also in Balochistan, among the Baluchis of Sindh, and his popularity grew in Punjab. In fact, he became the opposition to both main political forces and the object of close attention of the Pakistani generals. But what do we see parallel to this process?
2018-2020 The national composition of the Pakistani army is actually close to the size of the main regions. People from Punjab make up 51% of the army, Baluchistan – 3%, Sindh – 16% and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (where the so-called “tribal zone” is located) – 20%. And this composition took 7-8 years to develop. The Movement for Justice party shares first and second places in popularity, but its main electorate is people aged 25-35 years old who were born in modern times. This is not only a reflection of the homogenization of society, not only a conscious demand for “democratic” Islam, but also a generation with its own value structure, and it is generally quite liberal, although not in the modern fashionable Western version.
It is worth noting here that in the 1980s B. Bhutto herself intermarried with Baluchistan clans (A. Ali Zardari, Sindhi Baloch). You can’t command love, but the fact remains that on the one hand, Pashtuns are entering politics and at a high level, on the other, the Sindhis are strengthening ties with the Baluchis. The return of the Bhutto family name to power also brought her Baloch husband to the top of politics. Baluchistanis have never had problems with rich families, but today we are talking about very broad representation in all structures, and this gives rise to competition.
One more feature should be noted. If we look at media releases of past years, the first thing that Pakistan was hearing about was religious extremism and terrorism. However, it is parties and movements of a radical orientation that have practically not reaped the electoral harvest since the late 90s. The radicals speak out extremely loudly; the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan provide them with some basis for this. People can protest en masse against various forms of religious oppression and disrespect. However, when it comes to elections, fundamentalists no longer gain votes at all. And this is also a consequence of social changes.
Today, analysts are entirely focused on how the political forces behind Bhutto (the current Foreign Minister, Benazir’s son Bilal Bhutto) and behind Sh. Sharif will “technically” distribute votes in January. It is not for nothing that the current prime minister, the ethnic Baloch K. Anwaar-ul-Haq, was brought forward, and the province of Sindh was neatly divided into two parts. Attention is focused on how the generals will incorporate the Pashtun elite into politics, how the issues of the political seesaw between the United States and China, on which Pakistan has been moving for many years, will be agreed upon.
Often one has to look through materials where almost every step in Pakistan is defined through the confrontation between the United States and China, and the story of the resignation of I. Khan is cited as an example. However, it should be taken into account that although I. Khan is the “golden child” of the European elite, which is losing its subjectivity, in general Pakistan (like many other countries) mostly conducted its internal “squabbles” itself.
If the United States had a hand in giving the go-ahead for the removal of I. Khan, it was not at all for his anti-colonial rhetoric, which was of no interest to anyone in Washington, but for getting involved in the issues of recognizing the Taliban. Another thing is that this goes beyond the usual patterns in the media.
Neither the United States nor China have ever expressed anything more than pragmatism towards Pakistan; they preferred and still prefer to operate over a broader political geography. For example, Washington took an extremely pragmatic approach to the Zia-ul-Haq regime, and it was similar with the regimes of Musharraf and Bhutto. I. Khan, if he was annoying, was no more annoying than his predecessors.
B. Bhutto, of course, very vaguely hinted that the United States, which opposed primarily the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, could somehow be involved in the overthrow of her father. However, Washington opposed this arsenal both before them, and under them, and after them, and always acted harshly.
But what the United States was doing in the region in a very specific way was feeding fundamentalism, which they saw as a crowbar that could be used to move borders and regimes if necessary. And there was a kind of black logic in this, since the entire recent political history of the Middle East very well showed that moderate political Islam in development always moves “to the left,” somewhere towards socialist or quasi-socialist ideologies.
Therefore, no matter what they say in the United States, it is radicalism and fundamentalism that have been and will be traditional, albeit not obvious, traveling companions for American foreign policy. Al Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation) openly called B. Bhutto an enemy, and W. Bin Laden did not even hide the fact that he allocated $10 million for her liquidation. When she was asked about this, B. Bhutto replied that
“They simply hide behind him, and we don’t see the faces of those who are behind him: they are always in the shadows. "Osama bin Laden is more the name of a large brand than of one person."
That is, the United States created an external force that loomed over every border and every regime in the region, but did not always go into clan politics in particular, did not keep its finger on every button and every trigger. Actually, this largely uncontrolled external force became fatal for B. Bhutto.
In general, if you look at it in detail, then a much more important question for the Pakistani elite is not how to technically “outsmart” I. Khan’s electorate, but what to offer this electorate in essence. Its number is growing every year, and this is not at all the same society divided by clans and tribal configurations. The theses “against the USA” or “against China” no longer help (which, by the way, I. Khan himself was already beginning to understand).
Geopolitics in Pakistan won’t get you very far, and Islamic conservatism won’t go far either; we need new meanings - not Western or Eastern, but our own - Pakistani. Of course, Islamabad is also doing something, for example, it has launched large-scale housing construction, but it, like in neighboring China (and not only in China), cannot boast of the same massive population.
A peculiar irony of fate is that the leader of his electorate - I. Khan - is already a completely different generation for him, although he is slowly losing relevant semantic threads, and the youngest politician - B. Bhutto - is essentially an organic part of the network elites and not very “in” for I. Khan’s electorate.
The Pakistani generals, the Pakistani elites, and those foreign policy forces who are considering relations with Pakistan for the future will have to deal with this historical collision. Whoever can develop new, relevant meanings and a relevant program will rule Pakistan for another couple of decades. Whether the Pakistani military elite understands this is a matter of question.
In Russia, it would be nice to analyze social changes in Pakistan, since there is something to think about, and the level of current economic development of this country should not be confusing - we are talking about very interesting social processes. And if we go even further, then the most far-sighted thing would be to keep our finger on the pulse in this country in such a way as to immediately “catch” the political force that will provide answers to current needs.
In the end, for some reason everyone is rushing to the Indian markets, which, due to the Indian economic model, are essentially closed for large-scale work, and the market of 240 million Pakistan, by the way, potentially more open and technically convenient, for some reason always falls out of fields of view.
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