sparklingway
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So, I have written small rants on this many times but since Umair Javed is more articulate, better organized and studying profesionally, he is able to write an apt, concise account on this issue.
1) A Pakistani legislator is not a legislator
In theory, an MNA or an MPA's primary job is to create laws and pass resolutions. After all, that's why he or she is called a LEGISLATOR. In a perfect world, said assembly member should be busy working on instruments that help set the structure for governance. Budgetary decisions, foreign policy work, social sector legislation etc. Well in Pakistan, the evolution of our power structure has been in such a way that all these really important decisions are taken behind closed doors by the army, a few select politicians, and members of the local and international bureaucracy. Sure, the budget is presented on the floor of the parliament and opened up for discussion. But how many times does a legislator actually suggest a major amendment? In the same vein, when was the last time a standing committee chairman influenced foreign policy decisions for this country? Or God forbid, when was the last time the defense minister ruled on defense spending? The point here is that the policy-making space in this country has been constrained since forever, and our elected representatives are left with little choice but to turn to the less glamorous things in life, like determining how many condoms to distribute in this year's family planning drive.
(Sometimes we wish that our legislators not legislate at all because it leads to things like this and this)
2) So if our legislator is not a legislator, then what the hell is he?
Interesting question this one. In my book, a legislator is then nothing more than a glorified Tehsil Nazim. For those of you unfamiliar with devolution-speak, a Tehsil Nazim is like the mayor of a small town, or someone who's part of a city council, (for larger urban settlements). His job is to fix water pipes, determine where a school should be built, attend to sewerage and waste problems, fix road potholes etc.
In Pakistan, the resident MNA-MPA is actually held responsible for most of these things.
And it makes perfect sense.
If I'm an MNA without any real law-making responsibilities, i'll somehow need to prove myself to the electorate so that they'll end up voting for me at the next round of polls as well. So what i do is that i install a few water pipes, fix a sewer, get a grant for a school building, have a few photo-ops, arrange sarkaari employment for a dozen or so, and help out that particular widow who cries a lot. Basically, my job is strategic disbursement of favors and goods. This is Patronage 101.
In the lack of a strong local government system, all these jobs have been carried out by our legislators for the basic purpose of keeping their electorates happy. And i speak with the utmost confidence that at the end of the day road-building is responsible for more than half of the votes cast for a particular candidate. This national obsession with a nicely metaled road is symptomatic of the larger phenomenon of strategic disbursement.
3) How does this link up with lineage-based politics:
South Asian political culture operates along cross-cutting lines. One of these lines is direct economic/material patronage, as explained above. Another line is the intangible notion of caste/clan/biraderi. After colonialism, these two lines operate alongside each other. For the disinterested urban observer, a peasant or a mohallay-daar voting for the local elder appears to be the manifestation of some primordial/traditional loyalty. (also commonly seen as backwardness, jahaaliat, and irrationality). Go deeper and you'll see that the local elder is also the guy getting water pipes fixed, helping out mr. peasant when his daughter gets married, and many other such things. Basically what seems to be a traditional relationship, is by now a very modern engagement, almost completely premised on material reciprocity.
Lineage is very important at two levels.
Firstly, Pakistani society still (somewhat) ascribes to the notion of higher social status by birthright. In Punjab for example, a child born in the household of a Chaudhary is accorded more respect than a child born to a pair of Mussalis (artisan sorts).
Secondly, material relationships are generational. A politician father schools his kids in ways to maintain cordial relationships with both the electorate, and with people who make a patronage based system possible (local government officials and other public notaries). It's no different than a shopkeeper taking his 14 year old kid along for the explicit purpose of teaching him how to deal with a customer. Take a minute to think about that particular friend of yours who decided to join his dad in the family business after high-school/college. (My add : think about your friends and acquaintances who chose to join not just the forces in their father's footsteps but joined his very unit. I'm not saying these are equal undertakings but rather that occupation and lineage are part of the society. Also, most small factories today, and up until very recently most industries were still ruled over by families regardless of the intellectual and managerial capability of the heirs. Lack of corporate governance in Pakistan is a direct consequence of heir-taking-all-decisions and governing boards and stockholders having little to say about any issue).
Regardless of whether you think kids running their daddy's businesses are pathetic or not, the principle remains the same. Whats also true is that if a factory owner's son is a complete doofus, the odds of bankruptcy are quite high. Similarly, if a political dynasty ends up in the hands of a disinterested or incompetent child, the odds of voter disenchantment are also quite high. (Noons and Tiwanas are no longer the forces they were a few decades ago)
4) It's not jahaaliat, its common sense:
I could waste another few hundred words trying to explain how the peasant-landlord (and peasant-landlord's son) relationship is no longer what it was a hundred or so years ago but i won't. Instead i'll give you the example of urban dynasties that really underscore my argument regarding the reproduction of patronage via lineage. Khawaja Asif, and Khawaja Saad Rafique share more than just their Kashmiri heritage in common. They are two second generation URBAN politicians. Saad Rafique, like many other Lahori politicians, inherited a certain amount of social capital from his father (Khawaja Rafique, student leader and anti-Ayub protestor). But to maintain his space in Lahore, he's had to work the system. Same goes for Khawaja Asif.
So at the end of the day, a Bhutto inheriting the PPP is simply a macro-manifestation of our political culture. Let's forget Bilawal and Benazir for a second, and think about how the rest of our political system works.
As a disclaimer, i have to state that this piece is by no means a defense of lineage-based politics, which in my view is antithetical to true representative government. It's simply an objective caricature of the factors that make such a politics the norm in Pakistan.
On Lineage and Politics
Is there something intrinsically wrong about dynastic politics? Is it impossible to have a pair of good politicians from two generations in the same family? To answer some of these questions, we need to understand what makes a good politician in this country.
1) A Pakistani legislator is not a legislator
In theory, an MNA or an MPA's primary job is to create laws and pass resolutions. After all, that's why he or she is called a LEGISLATOR. In a perfect world, said assembly member should be busy working on instruments that help set the structure for governance. Budgetary decisions, foreign policy work, social sector legislation etc. Well in Pakistan, the evolution of our power structure has been in such a way that all these really important decisions are taken behind closed doors by the army, a few select politicians, and members of the local and international bureaucracy. Sure, the budget is presented on the floor of the parliament and opened up for discussion. But how many times does a legislator actually suggest a major amendment? In the same vein, when was the last time a standing committee chairman influenced foreign policy decisions for this country? Or God forbid, when was the last time the defense minister ruled on defense spending? The point here is that the policy-making space in this country has been constrained since forever, and our elected representatives are left with little choice but to turn to the less glamorous things in life, like determining how many condoms to distribute in this year's family planning drive.
(Sometimes we wish that our legislators not legislate at all because it leads to things like this and this)
2) So if our legislator is not a legislator, then what the hell is he?
Interesting question this one. In my book, a legislator is then nothing more than a glorified Tehsil Nazim. For those of you unfamiliar with devolution-speak, a Tehsil Nazim is like the mayor of a small town, or someone who's part of a city council, (for larger urban settlements). His job is to fix water pipes, determine where a school should be built, attend to sewerage and waste problems, fix road potholes etc.
In Pakistan, the resident MNA-MPA is actually held responsible for most of these things.
And it makes perfect sense.
If I'm an MNA without any real law-making responsibilities, i'll somehow need to prove myself to the electorate so that they'll end up voting for me at the next round of polls as well. So what i do is that i install a few water pipes, fix a sewer, get a grant for a school building, have a few photo-ops, arrange sarkaari employment for a dozen or so, and help out that particular widow who cries a lot. Basically, my job is strategic disbursement of favors and goods. This is Patronage 101.
In the lack of a strong local government system, all these jobs have been carried out by our legislators for the basic purpose of keeping their electorates happy. And i speak with the utmost confidence that at the end of the day road-building is responsible for more than half of the votes cast for a particular candidate. This national obsession with a nicely metaled road is symptomatic of the larger phenomenon of strategic disbursement.
3) How does this link up with lineage-based politics:
South Asian political culture operates along cross-cutting lines. One of these lines is direct economic/material patronage, as explained above. Another line is the intangible notion of caste/clan/biraderi. After colonialism, these two lines operate alongside each other. For the disinterested urban observer, a peasant or a mohallay-daar voting for the local elder appears to be the manifestation of some primordial/traditional loyalty. (also commonly seen as backwardness, jahaaliat, and irrationality). Go deeper and you'll see that the local elder is also the guy getting water pipes fixed, helping out mr. peasant when his daughter gets married, and many other such things. Basically what seems to be a traditional relationship, is by now a very modern engagement, almost completely premised on material reciprocity.
Lineage is very important at two levels.
Firstly, Pakistani society still (somewhat) ascribes to the notion of higher social status by birthright. In Punjab for example, a child born in the household of a Chaudhary is accorded more respect than a child born to a pair of Mussalis (artisan sorts).
Secondly, material relationships are generational. A politician father schools his kids in ways to maintain cordial relationships with both the electorate, and with people who make a patronage based system possible (local government officials and other public notaries). It's no different than a shopkeeper taking his 14 year old kid along for the explicit purpose of teaching him how to deal with a customer. Take a minute to think about that particular friend of yours who decided to join his dad in the family business after high-school/college. (My add : think about your friends and acquaintances who chose to join not just the forces in their father's footsteps but joined his very unit. I'm not saying these are equal undertakings but rather that occupation and lineage are part of the society. Also, most small factories today, and up until very recently most industries were still ruled over by families regardless of the intellectual and managerial capability of the heirs. Lack of corporate governance in Pakistan is a direct consequence of heir-taking-all-decisions and governing boards and stockholders having little to say about any issue).
Regardless of whether you think kids running their daddy's businesses are pathetic or not, the principle remains the same. Whats also true is that if a factory owner's son is a complete doofus, the odds of bankruptcy are quite high. Similarly, if a political dynasty ends up in the hands of a disinterested or incompetent child, the odds of voter disenchantment are also quite high. (Noons and Tiwanas are no longer the forces they were a few decades ago)
4) It's not jahaaliat, its common sense:
I could waste another few hundred words trying to explain how the peasant-landlord (and peasant-landlord's son) relationship is no longer what it was a hundred or so years ago but i won't. Instead i'll give you the example of urban dynasties that really underscore my argument regarding the reproduction of patronage via lineage. Khawaja Asif, and Khawaja Saad Rafique share more than just their Kashmiri heritage in common. They are two second generation URBAN politicians. Saad Rafique, like many other Lahori politicians, inherited a certain amount of social capital from his father (Khawaja Rafique, student leader and anti-Ayub protestor). But to maintain his space in Lahore, he's had to work the system. Same goes for Khawaja Asif.
So at the end of the day, a Bhutto inheriting the PPP is simply a macro-manifestation of our political culture. Let's forget Bilawal and Benazir for a second, and think about how the rest of our political system works.
As a disclaimer, i have to state that this piece is by no means a defense of lineage-based politics, which in my view is antithetical to true representative government. It's simply an objective caricature of the factors that make such a politics the norm in Pakistan.
