LAHORE: The celebration for 50th birth anniversary of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Thursday remained a low-profile affair in the Punjab capital, where the party had been formed this day (Nov 30) back in 1967 as a progressive political outfit by the then most popular leader of the country – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

No major event such as public meeting or rally was planned in Lahore as the central leadership chose the federal capital for the purpose. Only a small cake-cutting ceremony was organised by the local chapter and attended by a few dozens of workers to mark the occasion.

Some workers present at the function bemoaned that the leadership used the excuse of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) sit-in on The Mall to skip holding any ceremony.

The beginning of the party was a mixture of J.A. Rahim’s Marxist ideology and Hanif Ramay’s Islamic Socialism with whom Mr Bhutto came into contact after being eased out of the Ayub cabinet in 1966.

After coming to power in 1971, the party abandoned its leftist ideology. With the resignation of then federal ministers Meraj M. Khan (1973) and J.A. Rahim (1975), the party was purged of “radical left” replacing them with feudal lords.

“By 1977 the exigencies of staying in power led Mr Bhutto to make ideological compromises thereby bringing the traditional feudal lords in its folds in the senior echelon. That marked its first departure from the original ideology,” says prominent analyst Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi.

The PPP old guard admits the party had to make “adjustments” leading to the impression that it changed its character but claim that these adjustments were thrust upon it.

Dr Mubashir Hasan, who was finance minister in the Bhutto cabinet, blames the “misleading” intelligence reports and “docile” attitude of the feudal class for embracing the landlords against the ideology of the party.

“The intelligence people would submit wrong reports about dwindling support base of the party among the masses, while obedience of the feudal lords would make them more trustworthy in the eyes of the leadership than the middle and lower classes, the real strength of the party which would focus more on manifesto and slogans. This was the reason of leaning of the leader towards the feudal lords,” he explains.

“Whenever there is a revolution, forces of status quo start working against it. That’s a historical process,” former central information secretary Altaf Husain Qureshi argues.

“Shaheed Bhutto knew the nexus between the forces of status quo (feudal lords and establishment) but couldn’t break it for his government was relying more on bureaucracy as the 1970 win was unexpected for the party which then had educated but inexperienced people who knew nothing about how to run a government.”

Dr Askari endorses Mr Qureshi’s views as far as running of the nationalised units was concerned, saying the industries were handed over to the Babus instead of professionals leading to the destruction of the industrial sector.

After the ouster of the party government through the military coup of Gen Zia back in 1977 the party returned to power in 1988 and continued with the legacy of 1970s but was dismissed on corruption charges after two years. It again assumed power in 1993 when it made the second change in the party’s thinking and went for encouraging privatisation of the state-owned institutions.

Dr Askari describes it as a compromise due to the new trend that developed after the demise of the USSR.

Mr Qureshi defends the privatisation policy saying “you need to adapt to ground realities and you cannot term it a compromise.” Otherwise, he says, the party never abandoned its pro-worker policies.

The PPP turned another page of its political history after the assassination of Ms Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari took charge of the party affairs introducing in the words of the former president “politics of reconciliation”.

“After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto the party faced the leadership crisis. Asif Zardari ran the party through Machiavellian tactics and the use of state patronage with greater freedom to people at top to make money. The trend was later adopted by Nawaz Sharif. Therefore, the PPP faced crises of leadership and ideology,” says Dr Askari.

Asked about the future of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Dr Askari says Bilawal is a representative of legacy which is the strongest source of strength of the party. However, he needs time to establish his own credibility as a leader who can communicate effectively with the masses. He needs to come up with a new socioeconomic programme that attracts common people and helps him come out of the shadow of his father (Mr Zardari).

He says the PPP’s problem is its programme is not drastically different from those of other parties and it varies only in use of terminology.

Mr Qureshi insists that Bilawal has returned to socialism and claims that the PPP chairman raised the socialist slogans at a recently-held function of the Peoples Students Federation, the student wing of the party.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2017