I am curious, are there any royals in Pakistan's politics and in other powerful positions. In India though all the special status of royal families were removed long back, there are still few people from royal families in active politics. Pakistan being more feudal than India, I would expect more Kings and princes and Nawabs in the ruling class, but never heard of any so far. If I am correct, Bhuttos's ancestor was Dewan of princely state of Junagadh, but that doesn't make them royal family. What do the royal families of Pakistan do currently?
An interesting question, sir, however it has certain biases. First of all, what do you mean by 'royalty'? I'm a Mughal, my family traces back its ancestory directly to Babur so by that manner I'm royal. However, I do not suppose that this is what you meant. If you mean of patronised royalties e.g. family lines given political recognition as royal then no, neither India nor Pakistan has royalty. If you mean the concept of royalty then yes, both India and Pakistan have 'royal' families. In fact this phenomena has been noted in political scienc and political psychology, it is called 'republic political dynasties' these are families that are not condoned as royal by law but in fact operate much like the royal families of the past. Bangaldesh has the Shiekh Mujib family (his daughter has twice been the PM), Ziaur-rehman family (following the president's death his wife held PM office and his son is active in politics too). In Pakistan we have the Bhutto-Zardari family (Zulficar, Benazir, Asif Ali and soon Bilawal) and the Sharif family (Nawaz, Shabaz and Hamza). India has Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (Jawalal, Indra, Rajiv, Varun), Pilot (Rajesh, Rama, Sachin, Sara) and many other political families. So does Thiland, Philipines and many other countries.
Regarding your proposition that India is freer of feudalism compared to Pakistan. This premise is faulty, it would be better to say that India is more diverse than Pakistan. India has a middle-class that forms a buldge between the Landlord class which has also evolved into the technocratic business class and the vast lower class. In Pakistan the middle-class is much thinner. However, the degree of feudalism in both countries is relatively same.
Interestingly, many 'Nawabs' of Pakistan have been pushed out of power. The Mamdots for example of Punjab were successfully pushed out of the political mainstream during the first 7 years of independence. By the complete decay of the original Muslim League the Nawabs were out of much of their political power. Ayub Khan's government wasn't fond of raising them to political power and empowered the bureaucracy though many of the Nawab families used the Ayub era to become the economic powerhouse of Pakistan. Bhutto's era was the most severe blow to royal families and lesser land-lords rose to power by his economic reforms that still retain much of their power in rural Pakistan. After the Zia era the land-lord's traditional stronghold of Punjab was taken over by the Sharifs these were the business class leaders that DID NOT own traditional lands and subsequently during Zia's era the middle class of Pakistan rose which still retains its original characteristics of being based in the urban areas, being politically conservative and pro-business. The Sharif family, however, made a successful alliance of the bussiness-leader class and the land-lord, the dominance in the overall politics was retained by the former and the latter was given the control of the rural areas (the PML-N still votes against rural progressive developments, a stark difference from the PML-Q that despite having a large land-lord base passed bills for rural education and progress this, however, can also be a power tactic to successfully enstill the rising rural educated class into the bureaucracy and the technical areas of the country out doing the urban educated.)
So the picture is not as simple as you think. Some of the largest parties of Pakistan like the MQM and the PTI do not have royals or land-lords and their main support is from the urban educated. Hope my answer helps.
