A Pakistan for the elite
The Partition of India as a theme of study has many rather contradictory layers. It coincided with the birth of Pakistan; thus we had our independent country but then it also has a not so pleasant dimension. It is a much-visited subject; its banalities to the boons it accrued made many a writers and historians to push their respective pens.
Seen from how various writers have looked at that event, the contradiction in their reading of the Indian partition becomes very clear. Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories like Khol Do and Toba Tek Singh bring out its horrific side whereas Naseem Hijazi’s Khak aur Khoon underscores the dialectic relationship between magnanimity (epitomised in Muslims) and malevolence (represented in the Hindus and the Sikhs). Thus the two competing streaks in the reading of that event come out very prominently on the two sides of the border.
In Pakistan, the national projection of that historical event has a celebratory ring to it. Once at a seminar held on the theme of partition at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, a Pakistani delegate protested over the recital of Amrita Pritam’s famous poem, Aj Aakhan Warris Shah Non. That poem encapsulates the pathos and melancholic sentiment of a poet, known for her representation of humanism and social plurality, latent in the Punjabi tradition.
According to the Pakistani delegate, the poem negated the feeling of celebration and rejoicing that comes with the attainment of an independent homeland. Therefore, the protest of the Pakistani delegate was not unjustifiable. But, if studied and analysed from the point of view of a historian, such an important event of history calls for a reading from a new angle, a theme of our engagement in the lines to follow.
But in order to set the parameters of our engagement, the fact needs to be clearly stated about the colonial dispensation. It was undoubtedly exploitative, repressive, divisive and arbitrary. Colonial structures left very little space for the ‘subjects’ to move up the social ladder. These structures not only perpetuated but solidified the communal and caste identities as anthropologists Bernard Cohn and Nicholas Dirks have shown in their respective works.
However, the point worth underscoring here is the colonial pattern which was accorded continuity after partition. It is really difficult to hold on to the argument that partition brought us freedom. What if I give that argument a twist by saying that it brought freedom to one elite group from the other. Partition was the culmination of the battle between the two elites, one walking out on the other.
That struggle of the elite was two-fold. They successfully homogenised the multiple identities and interest groups under their umbrella, which was a daunting but crucial task in itself. It was ‘daunting’ because the Indian subcontinent was a stupendous region, known for its ethnic, racial and religious variety with deep-seated internecine misgivings for each other. It was ‘crucial’ for the elite because only by holding them together under their leadership, they could assume importance (read it power in Foucaldian sense) vis a vis not only British but their political adversaries.
Both Indian National Congress and All India Muslim League had in their respective ranks such diverse groups and factions like Socialists and the members of religious organisations.
What I will argue in the following lines is that after Pakistan was established, people espousing for the social uplift of the deprived and dispossessed faded away almost immediately. Unfortunately, the inclusive policy of Muslim League even though within the Muslims was shunned once the goal of partitioning Indian had been realised.
But to shift our focus entirely on Pakistani political elite after partition, we must hearken back to the British period to put our deliberation in perspective.
The British, with all their repressive modes of control and command, had to resort to negotiation with the natives to run the administrative machinery because of their inadequate numerical scarcity and no tribal, caste or kinship ties. They co-opted the landed elites as intermediaries for the purpose of negotiation. But more importantly, in order to negotiate with the natives, the British had devised some framework and most of its officials dared not over-step the well-defined parameters of the prescribed framework.
Therefore despite such cataclysmic events like 1857, Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, the British managed to ensure stability. After the partition, those repressive structures came to be appropriated by the local political elite, equipped and invested with unbridled power, which it used with impunity. The very little space available for the deprived during the British period was further squeezed. Those lending support to the cause of social amelioration for the deprived were hounded and persecuted most of the times by invoking religious edicts.
Religious clergy moved from strength to strength with its exclusionary tools, which it has deployed to the detriment of the nation state in particular and the humanity in general. The elite also had the support from kinship networks which unfortunately eroded their respect for the rules and regulations. Right after independence, the rat race for accumulation of wealth started.
The very first act of Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot as the Prime Minister of the Punjab was securing a hefty chunk of property for himself. Rich amassed wealth through corrupt methods without any fear of accountability. Arbitrary patterns of behaviour became entrenched with the poor left to fend for themselves. Thus the edges of the repressive structures, in the post colonial situation, got considerably sharpened.
The Independence has yet to deliver Pakistani masses from the clutches of misery, poverty. So far the only free people are the elite.