Love On The Line Of Control, a Story by Col Dharam Pal

Bina:

Hamza Alvi on Pakistani Feudalism (16th Feb., 1997):



``The Colonial Mode of Production and `Feudalism`

The issue of feudalism is a most important political issue for us Pakistanis......

The erstwhile feudals played a leading role in British Government but they were subject to the structural imperative of British capitalism. That was not quite the case in colonial India. Indeed great landlords were valued by the colonial rulers as their allies and therefore protected and privileged. In India feudalism was to be abolished only after independence by a powerful national bourgeoisie represented by the Congress. In Pakistan landed magnates are a dominant force in the State. The feudals inherited the new state of Pakistan at the time of the Partition whereas our bourgeoisie, such as it is, is extremely weak. Dissolution of feudalism in Pakistan is our primary and most immediate task.....

I would indeed go a step further and conceptualise what I would call `The Simple Reproduction Trap` that keeps landowners in the grip of `Simple Reproduction`. It arises from the fact that in the case of industrial capitalism, with capital accumulation the number of production units in industries are extended or multiplied, thus providing an outlet for accumulated capital. In agriculture, on the other hand, the basic input is land. It cannot be multiplied like industrial production units. The available land is relatively fixed for the landlord class as a whole, extended marginally by irrigation schemes. Other inputs like farm mechanisation etc. are marginal. Land is the determining factor. Capital accumulation cannot take place in agriculture in the same way as in industry. The landlord class is necessarily a parasitic class, `trapped` in the circuit of `Simple Reproduction`, consuming the bulk of the surplus. The landowner remains necessarily parasitical......

In India a powerful industrial bourgeoisie managed to subordinate the landlords. Their political problem now stems from the rise of `Rich Peasants` who have demands of their own. In Pakistan that is not the case. Parasitical landlords are at the centre of our political system. Great land magnates dominate the electoral process. There may be room for mere scholastic arguments whether in strict scientific terms we can still call our landed magnates a `feudal class`. But that would be an argument about names and labels rather than substance. We have to recognise that they are not `capitalists` in the same sense as industrial capitalists.

Words are not immutable. There is no need not restrict the meaning of `feudalism` to its classical (and scholastic) sense. We do need a label for that parasitical and powerful class and the word `feudalism` will serve the purpose better than any other that I can think of, for it is essential that we distinguish them from Industrial Capitalism. Moreover, it is a highly charged word, with commonly understood meanings connoting parasitism and arbitrary power.

To say that feudalism was dissolved by metropolitan capitalism would be a only half-truth, a most misleading statement. That would conceal the crucial aspects of the political economy of our landed class today. I would therefore argue that feudalism does exist in Pakistan and its elimination, not least from the political arena, should be our first priority, without which we cannot advance far. We need to emancipate our country from their stranglehold.`` (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sangat/marxform.htm)

These words and arguments have been taken right out of my mouth. Some major points presented by Alvi:

1. ``The issue of feudalism is a most important political issue for us Pakistanis``

2. ``In India feudalism was to be abolished only after independence by a powerful national bourgeoisie represented by the Congress.`` (my note: this is primarily why India has been able to establish somewhat of a good democratic system, while Pakistan has not)

3. ``In Pakistan landed magnates are a dominant force in the State.`` (my note: the only position they have left for the educated technocrat is that of the finance minister)

4. Dissolution of feudalism in Pakistan is our primary and most immediate task``

5. ```The Simple Reproduction Trap` that keeps landowners in the grip of `Simple Reproduction``` (my note: this is the gist of my argument, on how feudals control the population, regardless of how, ``liberated`` and, ``nice`` the feudals maybe personally).

6. ``Parasitical landlords are at the centre of our political system. Great land magnates dominate the electoral process.``

I would be interested in your counter-arguments. I would be interested in your answers to my previous questions, as well, which you did not answer:

``Can you name some countries in the world, that are feudal, and progressive? Can you name some countries that have not made efforts to get rid of feudalism (USA, India, Russia etc. all have attempted to end feudalism)? Is it a coincidence that the most backwards areas of Pakistan (rural Sind, rural Punjab) are dominated by feudals? Can you name any country in the world which is progressing, where feudals control nearly 2/3rd of the National Assembly?``

So far the only counterargument you have given is that feudals are not powerful because they don`t become finance ministers. This doesn`t hold water.

Looking forward to your response to mine and Mr. Alvi`s comments (which are identical).....

Ylh# 183

….for once, a levelheaded and sagacious post

Stuka

“Saudi Arabia, I know is a US ally, but I just don`t know why.”

….just the matter of a little something that practically drives the world economy: oil….no more….no less

scout,

{{ok, i can`t argue there. but here`s my solution to the problem, when cooking desi food, you have to follow certain guidelines}}

Please dont use the adjective ``desi``, lest miss sarwari has a fit:)

Ofcourse, when miss sarwari eats desi (i`m sorry, pakistani) food & , er, passes gas, she blames india for the foul smell.

But then again, she could be like my sweet feminazis...if there is any ``suspicious`` smell at home, i`m invariably blamed for farting. To top it off, they claim women NEVER fart, they purr...

Solving the kashmir problem

The following is a good example of the indian incompetance. The villagers should have been moved long ago and the entire border mined to

to send the jihadists quickly to heaven.

Farooq appeals to New Delhi to help stop border firing

IZHAR WANI

Srinagar, September 28, 15:05







he Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Dr. Farooq Abdullah on Friday urged New Delhi to help stop firing by Pakistani army on border villages in Kashmir, saying the same affects crop cultivation.

``I urge Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to take up the issue of border firing with Pakistan immediately,`` Farooq Abdullah appealed on Friday from the floor of the state assembly, which is currently in session. ``Continued firing by Pakistani troops has not only sparked migration,`` he said, ``but even affected the crop cultivation in border areas.``

Abdullah said Pakistan should be told to stop firing at Kashmir villages, ``or we will also bombard their areas.``

The state assembly discussed the matter after a law maker from Jammu said that entire border village of Suchatgarh migrated from their houses recently when Pakistani troops resorted to ``unprovoked firing.``

urstruly #79 ``Oyay Hinduo``

I assume this is how you heard your parents addres one another every morning when you were of an impresionable age. No one raised in a half-way decent household would use such language. You dont insult anyone other than yourself. And pollute the atmosphere for the rest of us.

Stuka #82, ``Cooking indian food is a pain coz the smell permeates your apartment and your clothes.``

ok, i can`t argue there. but here`s my solution to the problem, when cooking desi food, you have to follow certain guidelines.

1) open the windows, doors and a fan

2) wear your dingiest clothes

3) invest in a heavy duty air cleaner, turn it

on to high

4) cook the most volatile foods on the back

burner, the further away from you as possible

5) COVER COVER COVER those pots and pans as much

as you can

6) try to cook desi food in large amounts so you

can freeze it instead of making the house

stink again and again

7) after most of the smell is out (through proper

ventilation and excessive use of air cleaner

sprays), take a shower

8) take a shower again if you have a hot date, the

worst thing in the world is smelling pakoras

and fried onions when you`re close to someone you like (not that it`s happened to me of course)

Re: Stuka

``French cuisine brings forth the ingredients, and does not drown them in a sea of spices.``

When you don`t have spices, you are forced to ``bring forth the flavor`` by doing things like deglazing the bottom of a just-used pan with wine. Someone ought to take take that pan and smack the snooty French over the head with it. Do they realize what they are doing? Bartan dho ke gandaa paani khane pe?? Yuck.

If they had spices, they would`ve learned to use them. But until they came to Asia, they didn`t so they invented these disgusting techniques.

Urstruly #79

Yaar, tum to bilkul paglaa gaye ho!!

Anyway, iron dalne kaa invitation kab de rahe ho?

Scout, Satyavadi, RSaxena and sundry others who have criticzed my well thought out menu, I have only this to say:

``Bhains kya jaaney Heeng Ka Swaad``

This is an ancient Hindi proverb, and I hope you guys get my drift.

Firstly, I like desi food as much as the next guy, but it has its drawbacks. Cooking indian food is a pain coz the smell permeates your apartment and your clothes. Go to any desi dominated apartment complex, and you can smell the curry a mile away.

French cuisine, on the other hand is a subtle array of tastes and flavors. The food is conducive to imbibing fine wines. French cuisine brings forth the ingredients, and does not drown them in a sea of spices.

Not to say I don`t like spicy food, I do, but I don`t like to limit myself. In fact, when I eat ethnic foods I like to submerge myself in native culture. Eating fried fish and rice from a Banana leaf in Kerala does have its own charm.

Is that an arse braying in the distance???

Oh No, Actually that`s UrsTruly expressing himself.

Oh right, carry on then..

satyavadi #75, ``BTW, since when did the martial Pakistanis started eating Khichdi (and daal.. and bhindi ki sabzi..)?``

Well......I get the Khichri and other such Hindustani foods from my Mohajir UP mom.

``Arent Ali1 and other Pakistanis calling us Hindians daaleaters etc and supposedly insulting us?:)``

Ever have daal gosht? It`s our Pakistani way of having our daal and eating it too ;).

``Find me one Persian or Arab Khichdi eaters and I will believe half you descended from Mohammad and the rest are from that godforsaken Hamdan village somewhere in Iran.``

You may find it hard to believe, but there are many Pakistanis who have Persian ancestry. My maternal great grandfather was from Kirman. They used to use Kirmani as a surname until my grandfather decided to drop it (being in India for two generations). Khichree with cucumber salad was a summer time favorite in their home.

So there you go, you have your half Persian khichree eater in my grandfather.

Oyay Hinduo

What the hell is wrong with you people. What the hell is going on in Lacknow and Firzpur. And why the hell you banned the freedom of speech of SIMI. Why on earth the custodial killings in Kashmiri torture cells have quadrupled since Septemeber 11? hummm again thinking that you will get away with the murder eh? Will you ever learn how to run an alleged democracy? God! you people are Nazi fascists.

from the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,559528,00.html

Muslim societies need to deal with their own failure

Western ability to deal with Islam is one thing but ...

Martin Woollacott

Friday September 28, 2001

The Guardian

There is a recurring delusion that most problems in the world could be solved quite easily if the west would look beyond its narrow interests, try harder, and make up for the mistakes and crimes of the past. That western countries should indeed try harder, and would make a large difference if they did, is indisputable. Yet to see the exclusive key to a better future in changes in western policies is to ignore the irreducible responsibility of the non-western majority of mankind. If you are a westerner, it is cultural imperialism to suggest that all the critical moral and political decisions are in the hands of the west. But when, for example, Muslims argue the same way, they collude in turning themselves into moral passengers.

The attacks on the United States are properly seen as a signal to the west that it must change its behaviour, not just by striving for more efficient technical ways to increase security, but more fundamentally. But that signal was for everyone. The present situation illuminates the fact that the Muslim world is in a disarray that cannot be explained simply in terms of wrongheaded western policies, evident although such policies are.

The linked crises of Muslim societies bump from west to east and east to west along a dangerous transmission belt. In Kashmir, few care much about Palestine, except in a rhetorical sense. In Palestine, few have time for Kashmir. In Afghanistan, Afghans care little about anything except Afghanistan - witness the fact that Afghans are notably absent from the lists of suspected hijackers, whereas Osama bin Laden, obsessed with the Holy Places, seems to have little real interest in the plight of Islam in South Asia.

But it is precisely this situation that allows the different crises to play into each other. Each region has players from outside whose interests complicate and worsen the local situation. Bin Laden is at that point where the very distinct problems of the secular Arab Middle East, the Arabian peninsula, ex-Soviet Central Asia, and Islamic South Asia intersect.

The connection that cannot be disputed is that of failure, whether real or perceived. It is not original to suggest that Islamic countries have found it harder to adjust to what they see as failure than have other non-western societies. Religion and tradition suggest to them that they should have a superior, rather than a middling, position in the world. While Japan, Russia, China and India have all to some extent succeeded in catching up with the west, Muslim societies have not made comparable progress.

The most familiar failure, which does not need much rehearsing, has been that in the secular Arab Middle East. The new republics gave their citizens poor government and, in addition, could not muster the industrial and military strength necessary to confront a US-supported Israel. When realists like Sadat and, later, Arafat, emerged to offer peace in return for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, the Israelis responded according to their own halting timetable; American pressure was less than it should have been and, in the fumbling, the opportunity was lost. Weakened governments now maintain a sort of truce with their disappointed peoples, on the basis of anger at both Israel and the US.

The failure in the Arabian peninsula arose out of the combination of oil wealth with monarchical oligarchies and puritanical forms of Islam that extended to their regimes no automatic legitimacy. Oil leverage did not make Saudi Arabia a great power, and made only a limited difference on the question of Palestine, but Saudi Arabia`s wealth allowed for much meddling abroad. Saudi Arabia, in effect, exported its troubles.

When Russia attempted to extend its colonial control of Muslim central Asia into Afghanistan, it set in motion a process which ultimately bound together Muslim failures in both West and South Asia. That has culminated now in a western threat to Afghanistan that also threatens to undermine the foundations of the Pakistani security state.

Pakistan`s main difficulty is not the existence of a vehement street opposition, nor differences of religious belief among its elite. It is that the Americans are asking Pakistan, as the historian Professor Ian Talbot puts it, ``to throw 20 years of strategy into the dustbin``. Pakistani life has been dominated since partition by a vain search for a way of maintaining strategic equality with India. This has provided the rationale for its foreign policy and the legitimisation for the overwhelming role of the army and the intelligence services in domestic affairs.

After defeats in war and the loss of Bangladesh, the perplexed Pakistani security elite found a new strategy for Afghanistan-Kashmir. As the Russians flailed away, Pakistan moved into Afghanistan, with the Taliban as its instrument and ally, in pursuit of what was called ``strategic depth``. Influence in Afghanistan and the use of its facilities to train fighters in Kashmir, along with the acquisition of nuclear weapons, was in some way supposed to compensate Pakistan for India`s otherwise vast superiority.

The debate now evidently going on behind the scenes between the American and Pakistani governments is in part about preserving this unhappy strategy, by ensuring that a government beholden to Pakistan survives in Kabul, whatever happens to Bin Laden.

There are Pakistanis who wish that their country would reconcile itself to the fact that it cannot ever be more than a distant number two to India in South Asia. If it continues to bankrupt itself to match India, where are the resources to be found to feed and educate a country which by the middle of this century will be the world`s third most populous nation? How can Afghanistan ever recover if its biggest neighbour insists on viewing everything that happens there through the lens of conflict with India?

There are Saudis who accept the fact that oil wealth alone does not entitle them to a leading role for which they have neither the population nor the sophistication, and that exporting extreme forms of their style of Islam can only bring them trouble. There are Egyptians and Syrians who understand that the roots of failure in their societies cannot be explained away by raging at US support for Israel.

There must be many Muslims everywhere who understand, too, that defining success so exclusively in terms of physical power - and then not achieving it - must shape the mentality of the dangerous minority who will then seek any remedy for Muslim weakness.

Turkey and Iran, while far from free of this preoccupation - and with military establishments to prove it - may be in different ways pulling away from it. Real power, including real military power, springs out of many different kinds of success: intellectual, social, cultural, and political.

What needs special emphasis in these new and charged circumstances is that the problem of Muslim failure is not the same as the problem of the failure of the west to deal with Muslims always wisely or well.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Reply Sigalph # 44

“How come I was not invited to the curry and wine party? I want to be there too. I will even settle for cheap wine (Rinunite` Lambrusco) or cheap beer (Coors Orig). Please, please, please me too..”

This is not worthy of your new position. Please remember that the dignity of Roachistan now resides in you, so you can’t drink Coors any more. (Budweisar ka naam bhi math leejiye.)

sCOUT::

[Stuka #33, ``Ideally a Chateau De Neuf Pape from Cote Du Rhone, accompanied with tenderloin, scalloped potatoes with hollandaise sauce and tender asparagus.``

UGH, you need to be put on a khichree/achar diet for ten days to help you get over this culinary oreo-ness.]

That was funny Scout...And I agree Stuka`s description of whatever that thing is doesnt sound attractive at all :)

BTW, since when did the martial Pakistanis started eating Khichdi (and daal.. and bhindi ki sabzi..)? Arent Ali1 and other Pakistanis calling us Hindians daaleaters etc and supposedly insulting us?:)

Satyavadi

PS: Persio-Arab wannabe Pakistanis::

Find me one Persian or Arab Khichdi eaters and I will believe half you descended from Mohammad and the rest are from that godforsaken Hamdan village somewhere in Iran..