January 12, 2003

Post-colonial state and social transformation in India and Pakistan is a unique tribute to the extraordinary intellectual achievements of Hamza Alavi, a social scientist and intellectual of world repute, by his contemporaries. They have written on themes which have been the focus of Alavi’s intellectual inquiry.

Edited by two eminent economists, S.M Naseem and Khalid Nadvi, this book is a collection of 16 essays divided into four generic sections titled “State and governance”, “Economic development and structural change”, “Religion and democracy in South Asia”, and “Gender relations in Muslim society”. Most of Hamza Alavi’s scholarly endeavours, spanned over 50 years, have remained devoted to these subjects. He evolved new concepts to explain transformation, natural or induced, that has been taking place in state structure and governance and the shifting balance of power from one class to another.

Rehman Sobhan writes about the different theories of governance and its relative importance in development. He observes that the more autonomous the state is, the greater are the chances of it having good governance. This autonomy is weakened by foreign aid which erodes the states’ sovereignty and creates dependency on foreign donors.

Another factor which has had an impact on the state structure in the post-colonial age has been the rise of ethnonationalism which has impeded the integration of new nation states. In this context, Feroze Ahmad, who passed away in 1997, observes that generally ethnic problems arise when there is an imbalance in power-sharing and decision-making. This lack of participation among political units or ethnic groups manifests itself through the inequitable allocation of resources and unequal development efforts.

Enayatullah also touches the same issue in his article “Ethnonationalism and democracy; is co-existence possible?” His findings are that “ethnonationalism is a double-edged weapon, in certain conditions, it can promote democracy. In others it can subvert it”. Tariq Rahman, a linguist by profession, deals with the role of professional classes and bureaucrats who earn their living by intellectual endeavour which Alavi calls by the common denomination of the ‘salariat’.

This concept is useful for understanding the dynamism of South Asian politics. The consciousness of Hindu and Muslim identities in pre-partition India, the struggle for Pakistan and then the partition of India is traceable to the struggle of the Hindu and the Muslim salariats for power under the British raj. The break-up of Pakistan, one may add, was also the result of the power struggle between the salariats of West and East Pakistan which were formed on lingual, cultural and regional basis.

The section on economic development does not follow the beaten path of growth, deficits and inflation. It concerns itself mainly with the distribution of output gains and the change in social structure and power equation that this distribution brings about. As this causes a structural change in the economy and transforms the society a redistribution of power among the classes takes place.

In this context K.N. Raj, an eminent Indian economist, examines the impact of land reforms and how they are empowering the peasantry in India while the power structure remains frozen in Pakistan in the absence of land reforms. This theme is also taken up by Mahmood Hasan Khan who shows that the inadequacy of land reforms has enabled the large landowners to appropriate a large part of the agricultural surplus, produced mainly by peasants, in the form of rents and profits. This has strengthened the political and social grip of the big landlords over the state structure.

In the present situation the other class that is coming up to challenge the landlords is that of the capitalists. Khalid Nadvi and Asad Saeed focus on the rise of the capitalist class and its impact on state power in which family and kinship plays an important role. Since no class was powerful enough to dominate the state in 1947, it soon fell into the hands of a bureaucratic-military oligarchy which patronized the capitalists in the belief that unless the country industralized itself swiftly its survival would be in jeopardy.

This policy of the state created a class of socially irresponsible bourgeoisie causing social tension. Since the relative power distribution in society has been unequal for all these years the pattern of economic development and state structure have also been reflective of that with political rights being enjoyed by a small elite.

S.M. Naseem’s essay deals mainly with economic management which, from the very beginning, became the preserve of the bureaucracy rather than that of professional economists. The bureaucracy’s concern was growth. Income distribution, poverty alleviation, human resource development, domestic savings mobilization, diversification of industrial and export base suffered in the pursuit of the growth objective.

In South Asia religion has been used by the middle classes as a weapon in the struggle for political power. Romila Thapar in her essay, “Religion as history in the making of South Asian identities”, explores the claim that the religion of the majority should give the identity to the state. She rejects this concept as being based on the colonial interpretation of history of the subcontinent which divides it into the Hindu, the Muslim and the British period. She explains that this interpretation of history has given rise to the Hindutva version of the past which justifies the Hindu quest for redressing the wrongs of history. Romila Thapar argues that it was characteristic of South Asian civilization that monolithic identities, where they were assumed, were not primarily associated with religion.

Dr Mubarak Ali concurs with Thapar when he says in his essay that Muslim communities in India have never been united as a single cohesive entity and they have been transformed according to the changing priorities of the ruling classes. When Muslim power was at its peak no attempts were made to arouse a religio-political consciousness of Muslim identity. For most of the Muslim period, the ruling elite asserted an ethnic identity in its bid to hold political and economic privileges.

Islam is analyzed by two scholars. While Ralph Russell argues that in the humanist concept the only sin is to harm one’s fellow human beings — irrespective of their faith — Asghar Ali Engineer perceives Islam as being democratic and liberal in its initial stages but, as happened with all religions and ideologies, it was hijacked by power elites that surfaced and distorted its teachings.

The last section contains three essays on gender relations in Muslim societies. Farida Shaheed recalls women’s activism which emerged in response to the state-sponsored initiatives under the Zia regime. Women came out of their homes out of sheer economic necessity to join the labour force. Zarina Bhatty analyzes the rise of fundamentalism in South Asia, especially in India, and finds that although all religions are not homogeneous, there is homogeneity in their approach. All religious groups reject pluralism and hold their own faith as being true and superior.

Sabiha Sumar is highly critical of women’s organizations who, according to her, have turned their back on the historic task of challenging the power of the clerics and feudal forces. But she fails to substantiate her charges. Until now there was no forum where women of all classes and ideologies could discuss their common problems. The increased representation of women in the assemblies will hopefully provide this forum which should reinforce a women’s movement.

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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