The obstacle in social mobility in Pakistan

Hello Folks
Well I am actually finding this whole interaction quite interesting, i have printed out every single one just a few minutes ago and will go over them soon. this is better than reading a newspaper because i am getting two opposing views side by side. I can`t put my two cents in right now, after reading some of these I have realized that I really need to work on my History of Pakistan. So hopefully when that is done, I can come back and say something. thanks again

sameer # 43 [``...Pakistan`s real problems are military and Islam. Both are responsible for poor social mobility...``]

One could also argue the opposite. The military is one of the few avenues of political advancement for an average calibre, mediocre, middle class individual who otherwise would never reach above the glass ceiling that his family`s economic circumstances would determine. (Average MNA ecection costs in the millions of ruppees; hell, even a police SHO posting to a moderately lucrative station costs a million.)

It is common to see people decry the loss of `democracy` in Pak. I ask you, when has there EVER been democracy...??? Not while Jinnah was alive. And certainly not ever since. Its always been the military. Sometimes the military decides to put on a fig leaf to cover their ugly privates at other times they dispense with the formality.

The glorious democracy dramma of NS/BB decade that you so often lament the loss of is really surprising. NS or BB were just like Junejo or Jamali -- no real difference, only one of a thin veneer of formality. Remember the time when both Nawaz Sharif and Ghulam Ishaq were fired? (Sorry, they volunteered their resignations.) A US passport holding Pakistani who worked for the World Bank and was in the middle of attending a conference in Singapore, was grabbed by the ear lobe, put on a plane to Islamabad and upon arrival was sworn in as caretaker prime minister to orchestrate another round of musical chairs to promote the fairytale of democracy. Whenever the generals want they grab the civilian politician by the ear lobe and terminate his employment as one would of a domestic servant.

Both NS and Princess Pinky are army creations. Pinky was really a sit-in for daddy and was only as powerful as was he (in his grave). She couldn`t even tour the nuclear facilities while she was crime minister. The BB/NS democracy era was nothing more than an illicit child born of the ravaging of the country by that rapist Zina ul-Haq. So what is all the fuss about? Who is kidding whom?

...SR

hamidm # 38 [``..... half the plots in islamabad were alloted to the clowns in khaki who sold them off to the poor civilians for a nice profit ..... ``]

You miss the point. This is not due to common corruption at all. Its a legal perk that will accrue to anyone who reaches higher corporate management in (na)Pak Fauj Ltd.

These cheap land plot grants are merely the Paki version of ``stock-option grants`` to management. Like US corporate stock options they are also not `expensed out` and thus don`t show up as red ink in the national budget. The top executives, whether of multinational corporations or of Limited Companies like (na)Pak Fauj have a lot of responsibility on their stooped shoulders, so it is only fair that they suck some blood and leech off their stockholders. There is little difference between the two breeds. Paki executives wear khaki fatigues instead of pin stripped grey suits, but that`s just a fashion statement.

...SR

Interestingly in the recent elections the urban voters overwhelmingly voted anti government. The PML(Q) does not exist minus the odd lota or seats bought, in Pakistans urban areas, Urban Punjab overwhelmingly voted for Nawaz Sharif. I`d chalk up much of the PTI`s failure to poor organisation the party has been hit by repeated accusations of being run dictatorially and badly managed. There is another problem as wlel, due to the name identification of Imran Khan, some voters get turned of from vioting for other candidates. In case of Mianwali while he won his seat with a comfortable margin his provincial candidate lost , something similar happened to the MMA, people vote for the Mullah,, generally more in National Seats...so if you look at the MMA`s performance it`s national appeal was far greater than it`s provincial appeal.

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Only if Pakistan had regular free and fair elections, the feudalism as it is made a bogey would have been history. Hamidm has given the example of Ayub Khan. That is the thesis of famous historian, Hamza Alvi. According to him, Ayub Khan wanted to be politically popular, so he started relying on feudals in place of previous reliance on bureaucracy. The power shifted from talented and experienced bureaucrats with Ayub Khan although it started shifting slowly when Ch, Mohammad Ali`s position of scretary general was abolished by Ghulam Mohammed who himself coming from bureaucracy saw a challenge from the position of ch. Mohammad Ali.

However, the real beneficiary was military because now they were not only the rulers but also entered into bureaucracy just as 1100 retired military officers have been employed by the military government. Only benefit to a feudal for supporting ruling junta is avoiding small time cases for cows stealing, electricity theft, water theft and other minor civil offences in local districts. Feudals hate to go to court or jail on such insulting charges.

I believe, land reforms are not that far away because most of the land along the border has been taken by military officers. For next breeds of military officers, Pakistan has to cough up new land which would be taken from feudals in the name of land reforms pleasing MQM - making road clear for them to politically take over Sindh province.

In Panjab, however, feudals could possibly turn the table against encroaching military - with half the officers being non-Panjabis and getting away land in Panjab practically for free. Musharraf`s plots of land are spread from Lahore to Bahawalpur and places in between, two additional plots since ``bravery`` at Kargil and grabbing power. It will be the begining of Panjabi communalism, similar to Mumtaz Bhutto, Wali Khan and MQM we see now. Of course, Musharraf supporters here will start praising him for another fraud - land reforms after successfully frauding the nation with devolution, referendum, LFOs, fraudulent elections and many more frauds to come.

Pakistan`s real problems are military and Islam. Both are responsible for poor social mobility. One has looted the spiritual domain and the other has plundered the material domain of the people of Pakistan. One has hijacked the mind and other has kidnapped the body.

hamidm #38 Look at the bright side. You could have been born in India, raised in a hindutva household, and grown up to become Jay Thakeray. You wouldnt need any feudals or military to torment your soul. Your own demented mind would then have been enough.

dreamz #37 You make an interesting point I think, namely that economic progress makes agriculture - and therefore feudals - less important. Feudalism is no doubt decreasing in significance socially (due to the massive sucking up of rural populations by cities in recent years) and economically (due to economic growth). Nevertheless, agriculture is and will remain for a long time an important part of the Pakistan economy for a long time. The power of the feudals, and the arbitrary control they have over the lives of the tenants, must be broken. And land redistribution is the most effective way to do that. This was done in Indian panjab with excellent results in the 1970`s, and there is no reason not to do it in pakistan as well.

dost-mittar,

.......... the only real feudals in pakistan are the elephants in uniform - the poor zamindars and tribals are merely fleas and ticks that ride behind their ears .............the generals are alloted thousands of murabas along the border and are provided with free cement and steel to build pill-boxes and bunkers on ``their`` land to protect us from you horrible hindoos - instead they end up building troughs for their buffaloes where they can happily feed on ``surplus`` from the military dairy farms .......... surplus labor from the pakistan army ends up cutting down the grass and plowing the land and planting crops before planting mines ............. these tenants (sorry - they are officially known as fatigues)- also end up mowing the generals lawns and tilling the gardens ..............

.......... as PM correctly points out, all this talk about the feudals is drivel - a diversionary tactic by the real culprits .......... ayub khan created a feudal dynasty out of thin air by marrying into general habibullah`s family ............ this dynasty is now not only in parliament on all six sides of the aisle, but they are also bonafide industrialists, construction moguls and transporters..........and he was not the only one............. and let us not even talk about the feudal empire of the fauji foundation, bharia, shaheen,nlc, fwo , etc, etc .............. try getting a construction contract in pakistan without paying off the fwo or getting a permit for an eighteen wheeler without running into the nlc............. prime real estate in all big cities is controlled by the feudals of the army in one way or another ............. half the plots in islamabad were alloted to the clowns in khaki who sold them off to the poor civilians for a nice profit .......... they own everything from cereal factories, power generation plants, lpg distribution, cement factories, farms and buffaloes................ they are the biggest feudals around and nobody is talking about them ................why? .......... because they are going to get us kashmir and protect us from the horrible hindoos !.......... what nonsense!

Land reform furthers growth most effectively. It is not an easy proposition to prove but perhaps it follows from the claim that smaller farms are more productive. Then why do landlords not break up large units into smaller ones? Perhaps they do not see their self-interest clearly. Can they not be shown their self-interest through taxation? Is the landlord not a wealth maximizer? Often the argument boils down to a defense of land reform as a political or social end.

In the light of the history of the market for land, and in the light of the analysis of that history, it can be seen that the abolition of the zamindari system will not end poverty or even contribute much to the solution of that problem. . . . the lot of the cultivator . . . may rise from their present impoverished state to a higher standard of living with which all can be pleased. But if this happens, it will not be because the zamindari system was bad or because the new system is good, but because capital resources have been developed and alternative employments, with higher productivities, have been
provided.

The question of prestige brings us to a set of issues that lie in the back of everyone’s mind. Landlords enjoy undue privileges and land reform is actually a proxy for democratization. It is well documented that many aspects of civil life are unfairly biased against the peasant—access to the law, titling of land, credit from banks, subsidies on inputs, extension services and educational facilities. This is a formidable and important list. While they are all essential for civil life, none of them can be called an economic measure. Why should an economic asset, land, be held responsible for the inability of the State to fulfill its responsibilities? If the government cannot fulfill its elementary obligations how can it find the competence to undertake something so massive as land reform?

Advocates of radical land reform argue that land reform has not worked because it has been subverted. But of course! This is what comes of planning a radical reform without thinking how it is to be administered.

Radical land reform needs to be undertaken speedily, without compensation for confiscated land and with extensive post-reform support for reform beneficiaries. If a State can contemplate doing all of this, it can just as well provide access to law, titling, extension, credit, and education. When one reads the list of items needed for successful land reforms, it is a complete menu for economic development. But then it is probably better to aim explicitly at economic development—and if such development necessitates land reform, that is the appropriate time to face up to this issue.

Land reform should not be held as a goal in itself but always subordinated to the larger goal of economic development. At first, when the economy is primarily agrarian, the major asset of production is land. As one goes up the development ladder, the major asset of production becomes physical capital, and then it becomes what economists call human capital and what others would call more simply human resources.

My contention is that a blueprint exists to replicate that kind of successful development process in more countries. And the interesting thing about that blueprint is that, if one looks at it abstractly, it did not matter whether the countries following it were socialists or free enterprise. This then leads to an empirical case for land reform: it accompanies all successful economies, so there is sound presumption that it is a sine qua non for development. Such arguments require us to look both at the reform countries and at those who succeeded without reform.

dost-mittar sahib:
re. 26
Finally, someone`s started to see the point of my statistical question!
Thanks.

[whose first name was Sir, whose middle name was Mohammad, and whose last name started with I.] - romair.

...... so what was the first name of sir`s father...pair?? .....what else to expect from army wallah ignorants...

re: Sigalph235

The referenced post was # 32 and not # 26. My mistake.

Ciao

re: sigalph235 # 26

You said, ``It is very possible that the Muslim League died along with the Quaid-e-Azam:

That is the most accurate statement I have heard in ages. My family has been tradtionally supporters of the ML; we support the ML that existed before August 14, 1947 and not the one, which exists after that date.

I hold the same opinion as your quote.

Ciao

FaizaHussain #18

If you were raised in the US then your effort to learn about Pakistan is impressive. I assumed that you were educated in Pakistan.

I have a good enough understanding of Pakistani society to know how its various components view the world. So to me this article`s mohajir connection was pretty obvious. That should explain my reference to Urdu and the number of mohajirs on this board.

(Now, of course, there is a mohajir on Chowk who believes that we Indians know nothing about Pakistan. :) I also know that only a Mohajir, other than some racist Pathans, can make such comments about India, but lets not digress)

Perhaps this was lost in the haze the first time round...

Out of a total of 342 seats in the NA, PPPP won 81, PML-Q 60 and PML-N won 19. Even assuming that 80% of those were `fedual`, that still leaves about two-thirds of the seats in the non-feudals hands. So how is the feudal lord the `main culprit` in the sorry sitaution in which we find ourselves today??