Citizenship is a contested notion which has historically evolved as an expression of the collective voice of citizens within the ideological and geographical boundaries of a polity. In the city-states of Ancient Greece, citizens were the privileged class who were entitled to participate in the political decision-making. In modern times, citizenship has been defined within the geographical boundaries of a nation-state as a concept that promotes the accountability of rulers and the welfare of the people.
For modern democracies to function as people-centric systems, the notion of citizenship is fundamental as it bears the intrinsic political value to promote and protect the interests of the people. Citizens and the state are bound by a social contract. The state has certain responsibilities to provide protection, social services and basic amenities while the citizens have rights and duties that are manifested through political reciprocity. In the modern state system, strong citizenship platforms are vital for a well-governed, accountable and inclusive democracy.
However, citizenship is the least-talked-about concept in the mainstream political parties of Pakistan. Barring a few regional and left-leaning parties in the country, the mainstream right-wing political parties – like the PML-N and the PTI – rely on a moral narrative rather than an objective discourse of citizenship to attract political support. Even the PPP, which is historically rooted in a social democratic tradition, does not look much different from the PML-N and the PTI in its political conduct and approach towards mass mobilisation. The PPP now looks more like a nationalist party of Sindh – much like the ANP in KP and the MQM in Karachi. Contrary to its political legacy of a class-conscious ideology, the PPP’s political sloganeering has now been reduced to an introverted political narrative of Punjab versus Sindh to mobilise its support through anti-Punjab sentiments.
Radical nationalist groups from small provinces – such as the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) – also draw their pubic legitimacy through an essentially anti-Punjab political discourse rather than a broad-based ideology of political transformation. Likewise, in Gilgit-Baltistan, there is a strong anti-Punjab feeling among the nationalist groups like the Karakoram National Movement (KNM) and the Balawaristan National Front (BNF). The notion of ‘Punjabi’ has become synonymous with the political terms like exploitation, oppression and coercion as an easily sellable political proposition for short-term political gains.
The genesis of this identity politics is rooted in a historically-constructed dichotomy between the subjects (the colonised people) and settlers (the so-called civilised Westerners) through a legal system of binary opposition between the colonisers and colonised. The memory of this duality between the locals and settlers is so deeply ingrained in the political imagination of postcolonial societies that it has come to dominate the political discourse of identity as a war against the settler.
Our contemporary nationalist groups have internalised the political psyche of the colonial era by identifying a dominant ethnic group as the colonisers – the non-local in the popular nationalistic idiom. There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this ethnocentric and territorial nationalism. The contradiction lies between their claim of the struggle against subjugation and their hatred of the subjugated ones from other ethnic groups. These nationalist groups operate within a state of self-denial in that they never question the exploitation of the local proxies of the ruling elite.
Today, a devout, territorial nationalist in Pakistan would not mind being exploited by the local ruling elite if it elicits an anti-Punjab sentiment. Traditional left-wing political parties – which had influence in the ideological debate of the 1960s and the 1970s in Pakistan – have gradually vanished under the tyranny of General Zia’s regime in 1980s and, more importantly, with the fall of Berlin Wall.
Slowly though, the revival of left politics is taking place with the recent moves by all left-oriented political groups to form an alliance across Pakistan. But the newly-formed political alliance of leftist groups will have a long way to go to have a transformational impact in the national context. They will have to offer an alternative framework of governance rooted in the tradition of the working class struggle instead of pursuing a reformist agenda. This is going to be a big challenge in a political culture where politics is losing its ideological moorings.
The right-wing PTI did much better than the social democratic PPP during the last elections in wining political support through an agenda of institutional reforms. The educated middle class of Pakistan found it more convincing to go with the PTI’s reformist agenda of Naya Pakistan than relying on the traditional populism of the PPP. The right-wing PTI started to gain popular support because of its reformist agenda and an anti-corruption tirade. But it could not articulate the vision for a politically-reconstructed Pakistan. The PTI does not seem to have a concrete political strategy that could offer a sound alternative to the existing system of poor political governance. As a result, it is losing the momentum it has gained over the last five years.
From the realpolitik’s perspective PTI is more a less like the PML-N and the PPP in its approach to electoral politics despite its anti-corruption stance. Like the PML-N and the PPP, it promotes the political culture of electables rather than creating an alternative political leadership. The politics of the PTI has stagnated over time with its expedient and short-term approach to winning the elections.
The nation-building project – which was shaken with the dismemberment of East Pakistan – continues to haunt the topsy-turvy political trajectory of national integration. Pakistan has seen a regression on the political and economic fronts over the years with an undeveloped institutional structure of democracy, governance and accountability. National security concerns prompted a defensive doctrine of necessity amid a volatile regional security situation in South Asia. It was vital for Pakistan to strengthen democratic institutions to build an inclusive mechanism for a broad-based consensus on national development priorities. But we opted for a short-term militaristic solution as a key policy choice to address both the internal and external threats to national integration.
The alternative discourses and practices of the long-term democratic transition from a security state to an inclusive and well-governed polity could have ushered in an era of stability for Pakistan. But the myopic and ad hoc political choices created a permanent security state which, in turn, led to the emergence of radical nationalist and religious groups. These radical political groups could assert their pollical ideologies in an overcentralised but politically weak state. Relying on the trust deficit between the centre and the provinces and among the provinces, the radicals could mobilise popular support.
The response to the growing political radicalisation was a string of military operations against the radical nationalists and religious extremists to dislodge their local and national support systems. However, such operations could only dislodge the support networks and were not sufficient to address the political issues of marginalisation and exclusion. These groups could easily be brought into the mainstream by invoking the ideals of citizenship through a long-term political process.
In post-colonial Pakistan, the concept of citizenship could provide an important political breakthrough for the revival of ideological politics. Citizenship is a strong political connotation, which is defined in a secular domain of a symbiotic and objective relationship between the people and the state. The key to the nation-building project is to create an inclusive sense of political participation driven by a social contract rather than ethnicity and religion.
The idea of citizenship is a prerequisite for a transformational political agenda without which the integration of regional and national political aspirations cannot be achieved. Citizenship, as legal and political term, encapsulates the broad-based ideals for a nation-building project and is a means towards political transformation. For the progressive and democratic forces to prevail, we need an alternative political paradigm founded on the true spirit of citizenship. For a democratic, pluralistic and progressive Pakistan, it becomes inevitable to build an inclusive political party that represents the collective aspirations of the citizens.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
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