September 22, 2002

There is need to place primary emphasis on promoting equity and harmony among different ethnic groups to achieve national unity, security and integrity, writes Prof Feroz Ahmed in a volume dedicated to Hamza Alavi

The ethnic boundaries and ethnic identities in Pakistan are too fluid to be addressed by a framework requiring a rigid definition Sufficient conceptual flexibility — but not arbitrariness — is required to treat all the ethnic communities equally. Therefore, if the purpose of political discourse and public policy is to secure justice and equality for all groups or even for one’s own group, and not to impose a stratification of ethnicity, then concepts which imply hierarchy by designating some as nationalities and others as merely linguistic communities or interest groups would largely be counter-productive.

It has also been shown that while ethnic polarization in Sindh and Balochistan has intensified recently, because of the past and present internal and international migrations, the trend seems to be towards greater ethnic heterogeneity in different parts of Pakistan. Given this fact, and the growing economic and political interdependence, and increasing cultural homogenization, it has become imperative and even possible to seek solutions to regional and ethnic problems in a multi-ethnic framework. For example, redrawing of provincial boundaries, which might have been possible in the early years of Pakistan, is no longer a viable, or even a problem-solving, option. Similarly, the idea of constitutional recognition of Pakistan as a multi-national or multi-ethnic state with clearly identified groups and group rights, which has been articulated as a political demand, and which may sound like a rational approach to dissipate ethnic tensions, may not necessarily produce the desired results.

Assumption of fixed definitional boundaries or fixed number of ethnic groups may pose serious problems in the future even if a consensus on categories and number could be achieved at present. On the other hand, the present segmented approach may provide a more realistic basis for addressing ethnic problems, provided, (a) all the major elements of the ethnic problem are recognized and addressed broadly by constitutional provisions and concretely through public policies, (b) mechanisms for implementing and monitoring the relevant legal provisions are put in place, and (c) effective judicial process is made available to enforce compliance.

Internal migration and urbanization are worldwide phenomena, determined by population growth and uneven development. Although the process of urbanization, particularly in Sindh and Balochistan, is taking place to the demographic and economic detriment of the local population, it would be a fallacy to view the urbanization phenomenon as only an ethnic problem. However, in order to mitigate the divisive effects of urbannization, non-coercive preventive and remedial actions would be needed.

Policies directed towards slowing down the flow of inter-province migration would require both slowing down of population growth rate and focusing on job-creating projects in the source areas of migration (NWFP and Punjab). However, rural-urban migration within provinces is unavoidable. Rural job creation programmes and expansion of urban housing and civic amenities would be the key ingredients of policies directed towards addressing this problem. International migration — mostly illegal — contributes to population growth rate, urbanization, ethnic diversification, competition for resources, social unrest, and political tensions. The ratio of immigrants to the total population in 1981 was 4.8 per cent for Pakistan, 5.8 per cent for Punjab, and 6.2 per cent for Sindh. By all indications, the volume of illegal migration and refugee influx has increased substantially in all the provinces since 1981. The government finds itself helpless to curb this migration. The immigrants, in their struggle to survive, get caught up in the vortex of ethnic politics. Public awareness can force the hand of the government to curb illegal immigration. However, it can also aid and abet illegal immigration from the neighbouring countries if the motive is to increase the numbers of their own ethnic group.

Undoubtedly, the ethnic asymmetries within Pakistan’s ‘elite’ and the substantial overlapping of class and ethnicity pose the greatest challenge to removing ethnic disparities and promoting harmony and national integration. Given the ethnic specificity of the armed forces and the spending of the largest portion of the budget on defence, a more equitable distribution of resources among ethnic communities is unthinkable without drastically altering the ethnic composition of the military and/or reducing the military budget.

The civil bureaucracy has been more amenable to ethnic diversification, and given sufficient political pressure, the bureaucracy can be made to be more inclusive. However, Government rules and the attitude of the government of the time have a considerable bearing on who gets recruited and promoted in the bureaucracy....

Beside the subjective attitudes of the governments in power there are serious ‘structural’ facts concerning ethnicity and class which tend to complicate otherwise simple issues of ethnic parity. The Urdu-speaking community’s urban, middle class character, and its current lower middle class leadership, present some unique problematics. First, ethnic movements are usually based on grievances of the disadvantaged groups concerning ethnic disparities.

By all objective indicators, the Urdu-speaking community is anything but a disadvantaged ethnic group, and it had always been considered by the general public as well as political analysts as a relatively privileged group, along with Punjabis. However, since the mid 1980s, a militant nationalist movement, led by the MQM, has galvanized the Urdu-speaking population which sees itself as the most deprived and oppressed group in Pakistan.

This chasm between reality and perception has intrigued many an analyst. One could find parallells between this movement and those of the Sikhs, Croats, Afrikaners, and other groups, and attribute it to the ‘relative deprivation theory’ or ‘false consciousness’ of a better-off group. Here, however, we are not engaged in analyzing the causes of any specific movement, but wish to point out a problematic of ethnicity-class nexus that a specific ethnic movement in Pakistan poses.

What the MQM dilemma underlines is the inadequacy of looking at ‘class as a whole’ and ‘ethnic group as a whole’. The Urdu-speaking people, ‘as a whole,’ can certainly not be viewed as a group at the bottom rungs of the ladder of privileges. Nor can the middle class — even the lower middle class — be viewed as a deprived class in comparison with the multitudes of impoverished and destitute peasants, workers and other poor.

The Urdu-speaking lower middle class, having struggled hard to get higher education, found the avenues for jobs and advancement blocked. It followed the model of the deprived or dominated groups (Bengali, Sindhi) to blame ethnic discrimination for its plight rather than following the model of the dominant (Punjabi) group of blaming the ‘system’ or class oppression. It manipulated the cultural symbols of its group to mobilize the rest of the classes of its ethnic group in a militant nationalist movement.

The job situation of the ‘Mohajir’ lower middle class, like the by-passing of Sindhi peasants for land allotment and Sindhi workers for jobs in the new industries in Sindh, underlines the fact that there is more to the ethnic problem than just ‘elite competition’, even if the educated middle class proper is included in that ‘elite’.

Second, in popular view, a middle class leadership, in contrast to the ‘oppressive and exploitative’ feudal or capitalist leadership, is generally held to be more legitimate. The MQM never tires of stressing the contrast between its middle class character and the ‘feudal’ character of the PPP’s leadership, with the implication that all of the MQM’s demands can only be legitimate and any share meted out to Sindhis is just illegitimate feudal expropriation.

The coding of ethnic hatred behind leftist rhetoric by a right-wing organization is an interesting development engendered by the conflict between two ethnic communities led by markedly different classes. The political supremacy of the landlord class — a function of its traditional economic and social power — and the relative weakness of the middle class among Sindhis, forces the latter class not only into dependence on the former, but subjects it to a burden of constantly proving to the people of Pakistan the legitimacy of its rights.

Third, one of the most important sources of tension between provinces is the share of irrigation water and the differential impact of constructing new dams. Although the Urdu-speaking members of the Sindh Assembly, so far, have tended to vote along with Sindhi members in defence of the province’s rights, the water problem is not perceived by the Urdu-speaking people as a ‘life and death problem’ the way it is seen by the people directly dependent on agriculture. Although this may just be an expected indifference of the urban population, in Sindh’s specific context, ethnic motives are readily attached to such attitudes. On the other hand, the landlord leadership’s lack of understanding of and sensitivity toward pressing urban problems in a highly urbanized province like Sindh immediately acquires an ethnic dimension.

In Balochistan, the conflict between the Baloch and the Pakhtun, after a long history of political cooperation, burst out recently in the form of armed clashes. Whatever else may have been the specific reasons for these incidents, it is not difficult to see how the differentials in the class structure between the Baloch and Pakhtun may have put the latter in an advantageous position to avail itself of the professional opportunities and the spoils of the state. While the Baloch still have extensive remnants of nomadic life and a strong clan organization, the Pakhtun have a weaker tribal control and a relatively large educated middle class.

The overlapping of class and ethnicity, by preventing the formation of cross-cutting cleavages, not only makes inter-ethnic collaboration more difficult, it promotes class collaboration within the groups which perceive themselves to be threatened from outside. As a result of the rising ethnic consciousness, the real challenge — as opposed to the empty ethnic codified diatribes — to the oppressive feudal-type system in the countryside has weakened substantially.

While national integration is a desirable goal, the primary emphasis on integration in the past has led to oppressive policies about ethnic diversity and disparities. On the other hand, if the primary emphasis is placed on promoting equity and harmony among different ethnic groups, national unity, security, and integrity would be the logical outcomes. Suppression of ethnic rights in the name of security, unity, or integrity of the country will have the opposite effect.

Excerpted with permission from
The post-colonial state and social transformation in India and Pakistan
Edited by S.M. Naseem and Khalid Nadvi
Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350 Tel: 021-4529025. 
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 0-19-579636-5
473pp. Rs595

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