Illustration by Abro

Karl Marx’s (d.1883) interpretation of the history of humanity, divides it into different categories and analyses it on the basis of its evolutionary process. The first well known period of history is known as the period of hunting and gathering. This was a time when there was no existence of any private property nor any differences on the basis of resources and men and women all were treated as equals, at least as far as the theory goes.

He called it the Proto-Communist society, arguing that human history evolves by undergoing different stages. Slavery emerged after hunting and gathering, led to feudalism which in turn led to capitalism. According to him, capitalism bears the seeds of socialism and ultimately history would end by the accomplishment of communism.

Based on the Marxist concept, every society must pass through these stages to finally establish communist society. In the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was confronted with political and economic crises while different intellectual groups discussed how to change the outdated structure of the country. There were a number of socialist and communist groups, the Populist being one of them. They questioned the two-stage theory of Marx, based on their observations of the experience of the capitalistic system in industrial European countries.

How do you want your democracy? Well done, medium or rare?

Here, workers were compelled to work from 18-19 hours for low wages. They lived in shanty towns without the facility of running water and sanitation and malnutrition prevailed, causing disease. On the whole, the life of a worker was miserable. Therefore, the Populists argued that Russia should bypass the stage of capitalism without acquiring the experience of suffering and misery and directly establish socialism.

After 1917 Revolution, when Russia had bypassed the stage of capitalism, established socialism and subsequently experienced the dictatorship of Stalin some intellectuals, after analysing the historical process in Russia, argued that the reason of the failure of socialism in Russia was that it missed the stage of capitalism. Since the society was not mature enough to accept socialism, it had failed to achieve its objective.

If we apply the two-stage theory of Karl Marx to the democratic system in Pakistan, we find that we have adopted it after bypassing a number of stages which are required to make the society mature enough to accept its institutions and traditions. The European countries adopted democracy on the basis of the evolutionary process. They experienced the Greek and Roman societies and after passing through the age of feudalism, they set up democratic institutions in what was a slow and evolutionary progression.

In the case of England, the right of vote was previously limited and extended in 1832, 1864 and in the decade of the 1880s. Women got the right of vote after the First World War, which is why the roots of democratic institutions are deep and strong in England. The evolutionary process transformed the public consciousness about fundamental rights.

The constitution of Pakistan was framed in 1956 and granted universal suffrage but continued with colonial institutions such as feudalism, bureaucracy and the army. These three institutions were so strong that they did not give any space to evolve democratic institutions and traditions. Politics was controlled by feudal lords and the families of the Sufi saints, the bureaucracy dominated the administration which tended to favour the elite classes and the army received a major part of the budget as the defense budget.

The reason for the failure of democracy in Pakistan is that it was adopted in its immature form without eliminating the institutions which are anti-democratic and anti-people. The institutions have retained their feudal and elitist structure and people were treated not as citizens, but as subjects.

The question is whether our society has bypassed the different stages of the democratic system or has democracy been planted in a society which is not mature enough to understand it? So far, democracy has miserably failed and become an exploitative tool in the hands of feudal lords, bureaucrats and army generals, leaving society in a dilemma. In the presence of these institutions, a popular democracy cannot be established. There is no time to go back into history and start right from the beginning and go through the evolutionary process and then establish popular democracy. There seems to be no way to get rid of this problem and experiment with a system that can benefit the citizens.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, September 13th, 2015

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