'Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains' — thus said Karl Marx. His call to arms became the signature slogan of Communism, and if we substituted 'People of Pakistan' for 'workers of the world' it would encapsulate the socio-political philosophy that has brought the Taliban to power. It is possible to analyse the rise of the Pakistani Taliban, and their success, in terms of a class struggle as has been recently done in an article in the New York Times. The essence of the article is that the Taliban have exploited the divide between rich and poor, landed and landless, in such a way as to give a sense of empowerment to those long disempowered. Pakistan remains a feudal society, and is in many ways unchanged since partition. | That was one of the reasons for partition - Nehru and the Congress were going to outlaw the feudal Zamindari system in India - the Muslim elite of the Punjab backed Jinnah and the Muslim League so they could retain their property, serfs, privileges |
No government has ever successfully implemented a programme of land reform and there has never been a popular revolt against feudalism — until now.| The Pakistani military has protected their feudal allies until now - landowners still have their own private jails where their serfs are punished. The Army itself is a major landowner |
The sophistication of the Taliban strategy is becoming clearer. They were unlikely ever to come to national power via the ballot box, but they may come to it via popular revolution.
Examining the way in which they took hold of Swat tells us that they targeted a group of key landowners and landlords, as well as several local politicians who were also landowners or landlords. Disaffected peasants were organised into armed groups, pressure was applied either through direct intimidation or indirectly by the publication of 'the list' of people disapproved of by the Taliban. 'The masses' were promised swift transparent justice for their grievances, a redistribution of wealth — the landlords and landowners having fled — and an end to corrupt and inefficient governance. To a landless peasant or daily-wager this was an attractive proposition; even if it did come loaded with a different version of tyranny. The result is what we see today with Swat existing as a state outside of Pakistan and ruled by the Taliban. Swat is the prototypical model, the 'proof of concept' that the Taliban needed in order to replicate their success outside of their Pashtun homelands. They are now self-sustaining, less reliant on foreign aid, and have the rudiments of governance at their fingertips. They also make plain that the conquest of the rest of the country is their end-goal.
| the peasantry sees a dwindling income from the land and endless years of bonded labour ahead, and in the cities the pool of uneducated or ill-educated and unemployed urban youth is an unruly character in search of an author. Punjab will be the Swat model writ large |
As recently as two years ago we might have laughed this off such is its improbability. Not today. Today there is no shortage of Doomsday scenarios for Pakistan emerging from various think-tanks and commentators. Some of them are far-fetched — the suggestion that the state will collapse in six months for instance - but others less so and we have to consider them as a possibility. There is a ring of credibility about the New York Times analysis that should give us pause for thought, and it cannot be dismissed as the musings of a crackpot. The state is extremely vulnerable not only because of the ramshackle politics and corruption, but also at the hitherto untouchable feudal end of the spectrum. And where is the great stronghold of feudalism? Punjab. Punjab is populous, wealthy and provides most of the power-elites that have run the country since partition — periodically aided and abetted by Sindhi feudals. Punjab is clearly in the sights of the Taliban. They have power-bases in all the major cities and the conscientisation and mobilization of a disaffected peasantry, albeit on a far larger scale than in Swat valley, is possible. They are tilling fertile ground — the peasantry sees a dwindling income from the land and endless years of bonded labour ahead, and in the cities the pool of uneducated or ill-educated and unemployed urban youth is an unruly character in search of an author. Punjab will be the Swat model writ large; and it may be that the failure to implement land reform from the outset of the state, choosing instead to perpetuate feudalism, will be its downfall. |