The Rise of Liberal and Quasi-Iiberal (Islamic) ‘Legalism’ and the Dying Working Class Struggle
The question before us is, why was ‘legalism’ acceptable for all class formations as a form of political development in the late 1980s and throughout 1990-2000s? Particularly, why did the rising ‘liberal’ middle class, as well as ‘quasi-liberal’ (in terms of ideological contestation) support this project? This question demands one to figure out the relation of the state patronage, political/class struggle (‘political society’) and ‘legalism’ of ‘civil society’ (in which takes us straight to this discourse as promoted in the 1990-2000s).
Akhtar (2008) used Antonio Gramsci’s ideas of hegemony, historical bloc and common sense to develop a historicized theory of the postcolonial state. He attempted to dialectically look at the relationship of accumulated power and capital, and emphasized their logic and practice in wider society. He observed that the intermediate classes[771] and the religio-political movements/clerics are part of the ruling coalition.[772] The intermediate classes in Pakistan, according to Akhtar (2008), owe their economic power to the deepening of capitalism and derive their political influence from their access to the state.[773] He added that the understandings of how intermediate classes are structurally a part of the ruling coalition and in turn how subordinate classes are tied to this coalition through intermediate clas- ses,[774] all through patronage. Subordinate classes are not tied in personalized market relations with intermediate classes but through patronage and also in exploitative conditions.[775] Subordinate classes are also connected with this patronage through the lower bureaucracy and if they resisted, they were punished. The court and police at the lower level were to control dissent so as to protect patronage. So these intermediate classes, according to Akhtar (2008), isolate the historical bloc from counter-hegemonic challenges.[776] As a result, “the structure of power remains exclusive despite the great objective changes in the wider society”.[777]
First of all, there is a need to understand the proper use of the term ‘patronage’.
Anthropological use of the term has a technical meaning, which is an interpersonal relationship between ‘patron’ and ‘client’ like in peasant societies. In political science meanings, it refers to the ways that are used by party politicians to distribute public jobs or special favours in return for getting votes. This means purchasing political activity and responses,[778] in that sense, it is very much connected to the legislature. The problematic aspect of Aasim’s explanation is that patronage explained here seemed a deliberate attempt of the state (military) to kill the politics of resistance. For him, from 1977 to 1985 (Zia’s regime), coercion from the military along with legal and constitutional arrangements was not enough, and hence, military rule effectively devised the politics of patronage to replace politics of confrontation. This meant that the state delivered political and economic power. This preposition stands on the state’s ‘rationality’ (though not good) and its ‘will’ to give or not to give patronage. The state in these analyses acts as a ‘subject’ that is not neutral (though it should be). Thus, a specific state formation is not just the product of class formation and politics; rather certain state formation is creating all kind of class formations and struggles. This is a very descriptive nature of the affairs. How to conceptualize it? Let us first correct this causal relation.It is true that a new middle class emerged in the 1980s. The remittances of those who had migrated to the Arab world for employment and the increase in the service sector,[779] and informal economy became connected with big industrialists through patronage links, particularly in Central Punjab. Gulf migrant families are the dominant explanation of the popularity of Zia.[780] According to Burki, Zia belonged to groups of urban middle class professionals (actually the groups which resented Bhutto). Based on this, Burki said that Zia knew the pulse of ‘middle Pakistan’.[781] These classes came in local body elections and later Federal and Provincial non-party-based elections.
In 1979, Zia’s local bodies undermined the Pakistan People’s Party national politics through the localization of politics. In the 1985 non-party base elections, 52.9% registered voters cast their vote. Voters connected through patronage were pulled out by the candidates who were rival landed factions. These elections were without issues or ideologies. Similarly in the 1987 local body elections, the Muslim League backed 40% of candidates and they were all fearful of disqualification. The remaining 60% were contesting elections under a rigged system. The PPP lost.Putting the legislature back into state formation, we will see how patronage in a horizontal and vertical direction binds the Prime Minister as a head of the legislature within state formation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Horizontally he/she had to hold all the legislators, or they would defect. Vertically legislators were to bind intermediate classes in a ‘hegemonic bloc’ of the three fundamental classes as explained in chapter two of this dissertation. So, the dynamics of class formation are responsible for patronage. On the other hand, the explanation of patronage as an excuse for the non-existence of ‘politics of resistance’ by Akhtar ignores the structural issue, which is the non-representation of the working class in all of these state formations. Any change in this particular state formation needs struggle within class formations and the key is class struggle. Class struggle is buried in Aasim’s prevailing ‘politics of common sense’.
We should grasp that the legislature (made up of the reigning landed and capitalist class and, through it, the new entrant intermediate classes as the part of ‘historical bloc’) contributes to state formation. Furthermore, it is not a matter of ‘access to the state’ (the way patronage is usually explained) with the state conceived as outside the classes. This mistaken position leads to solutions from ‘civil society’ to go to the state and fix it through the rule of law or the control of corruption.
Rather, the middle class is the part of class formation embedded in certain modes of production and which needs class struggle to change the class formation. This can explain the working class struggle, and its effects on consequent class formations (of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s) gave birth to a politics of resistance and a consequent ideology in Bhutto. Its results were ‘welfare’ through the state. The demise of the politics of resistance was not because of Bhutto or Zia or the military only, but because of the inability of the working class or its representative Left to project its politics. Patronage did not stop the politics of resistance, rather the absence of politics of resistance has resulted in the current class formations and class struggle, and hence patronage has been allowed to grow.How come the ‘intermediate class’ as a part of the ‘historical bloc’ expresses its own politics (or is accommodated) in a contradictory relation with landed, capitalist and metropolitan bourgeoisie? To understand this, first of all, let us depart from the conception of class on economic criteria very particular to American political science. Instead of taking intermediate classes outside or alongside classes, we can look at their positions in the economic and production spheres and particular politics and we can assume that they are a part of the petty bourgeoisie. At an ideological level, they believe in individualism, the status quo and fear of revolution, the myth of ‘social advancement’ and aspirations to bourgeois status, a ‘neutral state’ above classes and political stability. They also have a tendency to support a ‘strong state’.[782] Based on this, we have seen how these aspirations are addressed by a presidential system like that of the U.S. with safe political advancement in 19601980s in relation to three fundamental classes to stop working class participation. The only contrast was Bhutto’s era of ‘politics of resistance’ (with its focus on the support of the working class). After this period, both the Cornelius project as well as Benazir Bhutto’s liberal project, along with the newly emerged petty bourgeois (1980s), chose ‘legalism’ and ‘constitutional’ struggles. Macroeconomic populism was replaced by macroeconomic stability.[783] The following chapters, focusing on the 1990s and 2000s, will demonstrate the rising role of the judiciary within this transition.