On the Inside

Thank you! Zak, for that thought-provoking reply.

The `feudal-mentality` is a mindset, which is a cancer to our society. It needs to be eradicted. Nepotism, cronyism, patronage system, and a multitude of other such retroggressive practices all need to be stamped out.

I was gonna write how Omair was gonna kick up a storm over this article..but he`s already done that!

Anyway a comment I have always made goes like this: Feudalism is a mentality..a culture of impunity that comes from power restricted to that specific family or by it`s extension relations or friends, used for the purposes of patronage. This is not unique to landlords..(and landlords while influential are no longer the be all and end all of Pak politics) ..you have Industrial Feudals (Nawaz Sharif and the Chorys of Gujrat being excellent examples) you have military feudals (Okara, Fauji Foundations heads?, Military heads of cantonment boards?), Civil servant feudals (previously DC`s and Commissioners)

Bina Shah, as long as the `feudals` reject `feudal-mentality`, they are no longer feudals and hence are simply land-owners.

Have you seen the nature of the estates in the U. S. of A? Their Pakistani counterparts look like chicken-feed in comparision.

Btw Romair, industrialists control the lives of thousands of people directly via their factories, and indirectly the lives of alot more who are also involved in indirect changes brought about the certain factory.

The fact of the matter is, the land-lords of Pakistan are our citizens, and scape-goating them is only going to result in more turmoil. They are our citizens, and they have every right to maintain their lands, as long they do not undermine the supremacy of the Pakistani constitution and the federal.

Any one who undermines that, irrespective of his caste, creed, religion, or ethncity, should be brought before our judicary.

Look, the thing is that we can not focus on one thing and blame it for all our ills. European farms are relatively small sized compared to Australian and American farms.

I don`t agree with Bina Shah that the land-lord class will finish in a generation or two. Their power has been reduced significantly as of late but I think they have received the wake up call. They are putting their childern in the best Pakistani educational institutions, and they are advising their childern to seek higher education abroad as well. The land lords, like many other groups in Pakistan ,are mostly loaded with cash, and they will invest this many in industry and other projects in order to retain their former glory. The land-lords are entering into the industrial and commerce realm as well now. They are establishing their feet in both realms, essentially increasing their stake in the development and evolution of Pakistan.

The author has tried to sugar-coat and jusfity feudalism. As will nearly all children of large landholders. Doesn`t matter what kind of social and political affiliations, they may have - secular, religious, liberal, conservative, those for honor killings and those against it, pro-USA or anti-USA etc. Somehow or the other, when it comes to their system of land ownership, they are usually all on the same page........Since it is the bread and butter of their social status...........

But before people get overly enamoured by the romantisiced picture of the foreign-educated feudal and his family, trying hard to benevolently assist their poor sharecropper, one should first see how all of this is viewed by International organizations.

Following is a report on bonded labor in Pakistan, by Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Pakistan.htm

``II. THE NATURE OF THE ABUSE

``Reema`` and her husband ``Ali`` live in the interior of Sindh where they work on a sugarcane plantation. For most of their lives they worked for a landlord who beat them frequently. They were confined to his property because he claimed that they were financially indebted to him. ``Reema`` and ``Ali``, however, were convinced that the landlord owed them money as all they received in exchange for their many years of work was food and lodging. Whatever money was needed for basic necessities was extended as a loan from the landlord.

One day in 1990, while working in the fields, ``Reema`` was summoned to the landlord. Upon arriving at his house she was raped. She chose not to register a case against the landlord as she knew it was unlikely that the police would arrest him. Moreover, there was the possibility that by claiming that she was raped, ``Reema`` could be charged with adultery.1

Later that year, unable to live under such unbearable conditions any longer, ``Reema`` and ``Ali`` attempted escape, only to be detained by the local police and jailed in Mir Pur Khas for one month under false charges. Eventually, the police forcibly returned them to the landlord.

In 1992 the couple and their children were sold to another landlord who owns mango orchards. ``Reema`` and ``Ali,`` forced out of their original home,continue to work long hours, cannot leave their place of work, and are subject to vicious beatings. ``Ali`s`` leg was broken in one such beating.

The experience of ``Reema`` and ``Ali`` exemplifies the fate of bonded laborers in Pakistan. Their lives are marked by a consistent pattern of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by their employers who control their labor. This exchange of labor for loans, in a context where a worker is not allowed to negotiate the length or term of his or her employment, constitutes debt-bondage.

Debt-bondage is one of the forms of slavery proscribed by the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956. Pakistani laws, such as the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1992, are consistent with international laws which seek to eliminate the bonded labor system. But those laws are not adequately enforced.

Bonded labor is most widespread in agriculture, particularly in the interior of Sindh and southern Punjab where land distribution is highly inequitable. Bondage in agrarian regions involves the purchase and sale of peasants among landlords, the maintenance of private jails to discipline and punish peasants, the forcible transference of teachers who train peasants to maintain proper financial accounts, and a pattern of rape of peasant women by landlords and the police.

Bonded labor in agriculture often emerges from historically hierarchical relationships between landlords and peasants. These relationships are reinforced by contemporary agricultural policies which give landlords privileged access to land, resources, and credit. In many cases peasant children inherit the debt, and thus the working conditions, of their parents.``

Feudalism, in Pakistan, is the height of the exploitation of labor. Sharecroppers have the fewest rights of any kind of labor in Pakistan. In fact, they are generally at the benevolence of the land-owner……….

The areas in Pakistan, which have the largest landowners, invariably, are the most backwards in the country. They have the largest discrepancies between poor and rich. They have the most backward customs, like honor killings. They have the least opportunities for upward mobility. They have the lowest literacy rates. The statistics are right there for everyone to see………Most of all, they have one family, which controls the destinies of many other families. This article validates that. It actually makes an attempt to justify it. It tries to divide feudals into, “good” feudals and, “bad” feudals.

The easiest way to judge the progressiveness of an area, a system, or organization is to see what kind of possibilities of upward mobility it provides to its residents. Jehlum is an area, which has no feudalism. It has traditionally been poor. It has no good agricultural land. No industry. It is not a major (or even minor) center of commerce. And most of all it has no powerful politicians. It has small farmers based in villages.

Based on the author’s description, Jehlum should have rolled into the sea by now, without the protection of large-scale benevolent landowners, like her family. Yet it is doing fine. It has the second highest literacy rate in Punjab (higher than even Lahore). It has low crime. You will never hear of honor killings, there. When there is an election there, the candidates have to beg everyone to vote for them. No family ever goes to a landowner’s house to plead for mercy, for anything. No single landowner, bestows his benevolence on the farmers, and builds a school for them. The farmers and villagers build the schools themselves, because they own their own land……..Due to the progressive nature of the area, people have gotten educated enough to go abroad as laborers and professionals, into the Army as soldiers and officers etc.

The sole reason Jehlum has been able to do so, is because it has not large-scale (or even mid-scale) landowners trying to provide their benevolence to the peasants and farmers.

Kashmir is the same way. There are girls from my village, who have grown up there and have gone onto higher education and civil services and even abroad. Such luxuries are not reserved for just the daughters’ of the large landowners. My family is one of the wealthiest (relatively speaking) from the village. Yet when I go there, I am no one special. I don’t bestow my benevolence on the local farmers and laborers and workers. I don’t have, “notions of coming back to “lord it” over the poorer members of our society.” Not because I am a nice guy. But because there is nothing to lord over. And if I did try to lord over someone there, they would give me a good kick on my rear end. Even if they were dirt poor. We are all equals.

As long as people do not own their own assets, they will never be able to progress upwards. And the whole basis of feudalism is to ensure that no one, other than a small group, is allowed to own the assets of the area. This is why there are no areas/countries of the world, which have progressed, where feudals are a cornerstone of politics and society…………..

It is thus, quite sad, to see people defending this system, while simultaneously criticizing its consequences, like honor killings, poverty, peasantry etc. It’s the equivalent of someone defending a system, which enables rapes, and justifying their defense by stating that they and their family are not rapists………

It is often quoted that feudalism started with Mughals. The society was pretty much agarian and egalitarian before that.

Your family`s (father`s) example is not reflection of feudality. Absolute power corrupts absolutely - feudalism is no exception. There are hundreds of cases against feudals oppressions for every defense like yours.

Probably (if youre speaking truth) your father`s attitude is different towards his workers from other feudals is because of his foreign education.

If ``things in pakistan are amiss`` as the author puts it, then the two overwhelming reasons are greed and stupidity, and these traits can be found in the entire population across the board , from elite to peasant.No personal malice is involved in the above statement.The feudals are a convenient scapegoat.

Bina,
I am afraid this is a rather simplistic and feeble attempt to defend feudalism. Actually, you are not defending the feudalism but the mid to small land holding class. The mid to small land holding class though referred to as Wadera or feudal are not feudal in any way. I too belong to a mid level landholding family. I share your sentiments but there are many inequities and problems in the countryside that come from the feudal mindset of even the mid size land holding families.

There are just a few large-scale Landowners (the true Feudal) left in Sindh, all of them are heavily in debt, and their lands mortgaged to the tilt. Actually, banks own their properties. They are supporting large families but still want to look big and spend borrowed money on politics, parties, and marriage ceremonies.

Unfortunately, Sindh is so far behind in social development that sometime I feel the Sindhi land owning or even the Haris would never come out of the rut.
Whenever I go to Pakistan, I find the same set of people sitting in clubs, in their homes in Karachi or Hyderabad just drinking, looking to buy cars from loan sharks or begging bankers to get some more loans.
Most of them wanna spend time in the cities and leave the lands to Kamdaar. Of course, there are some exceptions but really very few.

Shikarpur, once the pride of Sindh is nothing more than a dirt city now. Same situation with Larkana and many other cities.

I hate to say this but Sindhi nationalism has actually hurt Sindhis the most.