Volume 7, No. 3, March 2025
Editor: Rashed Rahman
“If you have tears,” Shakespeare says, “prepare to shed them now.” The electoral farce is over, but its spectre continues to haunt the Pakistani Praetorian Guard driven by an unquenchable desire to keep an iron-fisted control over Pakistan’s polity. “Elections of masters,” Marcuse says, “do not change master-slave relations,” be it a western democracy or the US presidential elections between two equally far-right candidates wearing the different costumes of their respective parties. The one backed by Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and the Zionist-sponsored American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is usually the winner in US elections. In Pakistan, the victorious military needs no masquerades. Because of the virtual absence of the Left, wiped out from the Pakistani national scene through sheer coercion, the alignment of class forces has been overshadowed by the alignment of right-wing politicians with the Praetorian Guard, a key to electoral success in a managed democracy. The ‘hybrid’ model indicates the failure of the propertied classes to devise a civil structure to contain the acute crisis of the polity. The coercion of the repressive apparatus has further extended the crisis, which it thinks can be resolved through further oppression.
Iskander Mirza’s assault on Pakistani democracy by imposing the first martial law was not condoned by the US. In the impending (aborted) elections most of the political parties of both wings were its allies. Stability was key for metropolitan capital. Ruling out the electoral process, the US found it convenient to facilitate Ayub Khan’s putsch to secure its interests. It all happened in the four-day visit of Neil McElroy, the US Defence Secretary, but it precluded the possibility of democracy until the country was cleaved in two. The totalitarian regime of General Ziaul Haq uprooted the culture and material conditions necessary for democracy.
Democracy, Aijaz Ahmed said, needs enlightened people or, as Gramsci put it, a class-conscious proletariat not hanging on strings. In the absence of these characteristics, democracy becomes an instrument to guide a herd into submission. Bhutto’s pinkish tide comprising the middle and working class and the peasantry of Punjab, including the middle-tier landlords exploited by the big feudal stratum, was the only one to become a cross-class phenomenon. More than Bhutto’s charisma, it was his socialist manifesto and the historical conditions of the time gravitating towards socialism that lured the masses, especially of Punjab, to support his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Punjab was punished for its crime of supporting ‘socialism’. Zia’s brutal martial law distributed the nationalised commanding heights of the economy almost free of cost to the capitalists, turning the parasitic lumpen groups into a non-technical, vulture (comprador) bourgeoisie. When Bhutto’s proposed land reforms of 1977 were invalidated, the feudal became Zia’s natural ally. The Afghan jihad was the last straw on the camel’s back, pulling the people from the socialist and secular realm to religiously cloaked capitalism.
The petrodollars infused by the Saudi-US nexus into the economy turned the army into the biggest capitalist force in Pakistan. Besides, the army was directly involved in the arms and drug trade. The Zia regime was notorious for the rule of Kalashnikov, Heroin and toxic Islam. The collaboration of capitalists, feudals and the lumpen proletariat, especially jihadis returning from Afghanistan, erased all the possibilities of a democratic tradition in Pakistan.
Zia left behind a terrible legacy of massive indebtedness, a ruined infrastructure, an army addicted to political power and dependent on International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. After losing direct control on power the Generals manipulated the elections, replacing one government with the other. The plague of Bonapartism has been a constant phenomenon of the national polity of Pakistan. It suits the imperialist powers; they rule countries entangled in the web of peripheral capitalism through the native bourgeoisie, which Pakistan can boast includes the army, to squeeze the country’s resources without any productive investment.
In 2018 the army brought the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), a party cobbled virtually overnight, into power. However, the populist man of destiny miserably failed on the economic front, and hence was shown the door, only to become a ‘martyr’. The old tried and tested but disgraced Trojan Horses of the past are once again shoved into power through overt and blatant rigging of elections. However, the masters failed to read the pulse of the people who voted against the wishes of the army, giving it a rude shock. Despite a thorough purge carried out in the army, divided both vertically and horizontally, it was the second time in the history of Pakistan that a party deprived of its electoral symbol had managed to secure an outright majority. Nevertheless, the army has cobbled together a coalition government bereft of legitimacy. The elections have severely dented the army’s hegemony, especially in Punjab, its major constituency.
The Sharifs are the Somozas of Pakistan with an opaque and abhorrent past. Nawaz, a protege of Zia, continued to enrich his family and friends during his three stints in power. Corruption is integral to the capitalist system, but the thoughtless privatisation process under his aegis has ruined the country. He privatised banks and educational institutions, the latter destroying the structure of public education. Imran put the last nail in the health sector’s coffin, defunding the public hospitals while supplying massive amounts of money to the private hospitals. Both the major alliances, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) with PTI, have nothing uncommon between them. They are both strongly anti-people, pro-IMF, religious bigots, and eager to serve their mentor, the army. However, the army is annoyed at and scared of Imran’s populism. A populist leader backed by relatively big capital is likely to develop fascist tendencies and at some point not only begins to assert himself, but demands a share for civilian capitalists in the plunder of the country’s economy.
It’s no eureka moment to describe the Pakistani economy as on the verge of default but apparently, neither the army nor the ruling classes have any qualms about the existential threat of insolvency. Borrowing-led growth, the technologically illiterate bureaucracy and the massive uneducated population running amok in the name of religion are the greatest impediments to its progress. The inert civil-military bureaucracy stymies any attempt to bring necessary structural changes likely to curtail its perks. The land tycoons, mostly the frontmen of the army, are running scot-free, and so are the sugar and other mafias. The subsidy-dependent capitalist class has failed to develop itself into some sort of Birlas and Tatas. It is still a suckling infant clinging to the state’s breasts for eternal feeding.
The gravity of the economic situation can be gauged from simple facts. Approximately 90 percent of the population has no access to basic health and education facilities, clean drinking water is available only to those who can afford to buy Nestle, a Zionist product, or others of its kind. Nearly 38 percent of children are suffering from stunted growth. Every year nearly half a million infants die of malnutrition. With 40 percent inflation, the death toll might see a steep rise.
The caretakers, following the diktats of the IMF, hiked the power tariff and fuel prices manifold. Furthermore, many Chinese power projects have revised capacity charges based on new inflation and exchange rate figures since January 2024. This means there will be a historic rise of Rs seven in the fuel cost adjustment in future bills. The gas price has been increased in two phases. The last one saw a gigantic rise of 223 percent. The inability of the State Bank to cut the policy rate will be catastrophic for business activity. The government’s massive borrowing from commercial banks, which was more than Rs 3.7 trillion and is now increasing further, will make the economy hostage to finance capital.
According to Reuters, “Pakistan’s debt-to-GDP ratio is already above 70 percent and the IMF and credit rating agencies estimate that the interest payments on its debt will soak up 50-60 percent of the government’s revenues this year. That is the worst ratio of any sizeable economy in the world. Analyst firm Tellimer says the country’s problem is primarily domestic debt, which comprises around 60 percent of its debt stock and 85 percent of its interest burden. Pakistan’s external debt stock – denominated largely in dollars – is also heavily skewed towards bilateral and multilateral creditors, which comprises roughly 85 percent of the total.”
As if all this is not enough, the uprising in Balochistan has gained momentum. Led by the younger and class-conscious elements, especially the women, familiar with the tactics of passive resistance, it has become more threatening for the armed forces than the factions engaged in the armed struggle. The unrest in Gilgit-Baltistan is real and needs attention and so is the religious bigotry that so far proved beneficial to the army in diverting people’s attention from the concrete issues. Acknowledging the invincibility of the neigbouring forces, the army has opened multiple jihadi fronts inside Pakistan. Barring a few, the majority are its handmaiden product to manufacture consent.
The recent scary incident of encircling a young woman wearing a dress carrying Arabian calligraphy not only alluded to religious fetishism but also provided evidence of the failure of the religion to bring any substantial relief to the suffering masses that lose their humanity on trivial issues. This is Marxist alienation, where man becomes a beast and beast a man. Appetite cannot be severe unless the human is starved and besides starvation, if overdosed on religion, one’s violent reaction is not limited to the allegedly blasphemous act but unconsciously to the object itself, which is the religion that has failed to provide him with any socio-economic relief.
Is there any hope for the Pakistani people to get rid of this morass? The answer can be in the affirmative. However, for that to happen Pakistan needs to be self-reliant in energy, the parasitic private energy companies must be nationalised and a rapid transition to alternative energy sources, discarding fossil fuels as much as possible, must be adopted as a priority. Land reforms are an immediate necessity. Immediate industrialisation is difficult, but to enhance the service sector Pakistan needs to focus on educating its booming younger lot on scientific grounds. The provision of free health facilities will be essential. None of them are a step towards socialism but denote a capitalist necessity. A healthy, scientifically educated youth creates more surplus value not only for the capitalists but also for the country.
It is time to change priorities. Having good relations with the neighbours, especially with Iran and India, will be crucial. However, relations with the latter will depend on the Indian response, where current policy is largely anti-Muslim and Pakistan-centric. If Germany and France, two old imperialist enemies, can today live in peace, why cannot India and Pakistan give peace a chance? The military will not create space for the civilian capitalist class without peace in the Subcontinent. Peace will solve the problem of religious bigotry, albeit partially, and a craving for strategic depth. With the exchange of goods between the two countries the prices of many import commodities will decrease, providing some respite to the people of Pakistan.
The rule of the IMF is the rule of metropolitan capital, direct slavery of the US hegemon. Pakistan has already visited the IMF 23 times and now there is nothing left to privatise, barring the state itself, which will find no buyer. The need to live within our resources is the only remedy. It’s a tall order but the only path to pave one’s way from the edge of the precipice to the shores of safety. Euripides warned: “Who search the reason of things/Are those who bring sorrow on themselves.” Sorrow is the land where our people dwell. Maybe it is time to search for the reason for the sorrow.
The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. His latest work, God’s Republics: Making and Unmaking of Israel and Pakistan, is available on Amazon.com. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com