Nature of the state
MAMA Qadeer’s long walk to Islamabad ended up at the UN. The decision of the marchers to go over the heads of Pakistani state managers and seek UN intervention in the missing persons’ case caused an outcry among some commentators.
Yet the intent from the beginning was to draw the world body’s attention to the issue of the ‘disappeared’ when the state had failed to come clean about its role in the unfortunate saga despite a series of judicial interventions.
Mama’s Qadeer’s desire to bypass the state is nothing new and signals a deep disillusionment with the state’s capacity and will to address grievances relating to the missing persons. From the early years, smaller nationalities in Pakistan have viewed the elite nature of the state with suspicion, finding it inadequate to address their political and economic concerns. They have seen the state as grasping, extractive and unrepresentative. Simply put, they’ve equated the Pakistani state with Punjab’s domination.
There is substance to the deep-seated disenchantment of the smaller provinces with the configuration, and composition of the Pakistani state. In fact, the nature and character of the Pakistani state in a post-colonial setting has been endlessly debated. Sociologist Hamza Alavi characterised the Pakistani state as an overdeveloped, post-colonial state with military-bureaucratic complex lording over all aspects of society in cahoots with the landed elites and business class. However, in recent years, this concept has been critiqued as too institutionally focused.
The Pakistani state’s narrow base faced its first serious challenge when the 1954 provincial elections in East Pakistan returned unexpected results with opposition parties winning hands down. This wake-up call to become more inclusive elicited the opposite reaction, with Pakistan amalgamating the provinces under one homogenised unit.
Understandably, this triggered movements for provincial autonomy which were suppressed with a brutal hand. The result was the 1971 dismemberment.
But in the last decade, the static, institutionally limited, elite and insular character of the state has come to be vigorously contested. This challenge has emanated from new institutional actors such as the media, judiciary and parliament as pointed out by political economist Akbar Zaidi.
The emergence of these new actors and social forces are forcing a rethink of the overdeveloped thesis of the state by a new breed of academics. The variations on the overdeveloped state give primacy to new social forces and the larger society in shaping the state’s future contours. These new developments have seen a diminution of the role of certain institutional actors in the state from hegemonic to mere vote-holding, according to Akbar Zaidi.
This development is going hand in hand with the drastically reduced role of the state in fulfilling its prime function of internal security and exercising its sole monopoly over violence, as exposed by the rise of the Taliban and private mafias.
Further proof of the fractured nature of the state can be gleaned from the statement of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani when he pointed out the existence of a parallel state within the Pakistani state.
Despite the changing nature of the state, Balochistan still feels more alienated from Pakistan compared with other provinces. Over the years, Sindh has considerably enhanced its representation and stakes in the state through the PPP’s periodic stints in federal power. KP too has developed huge stakes in the state through its representation in state institutions such as the bureaucracy and military and the wider footprint of the Pakhtun-dominated businesses all over the country.
Balochistan, in contrast, has a list of unaddressed grievances beginning with the incorporation of the Kalat state, long-running military action in the 1970s and the killing of Akbar Bugti in recent years. These have been further inflamed by the deeply emotive issue of the missing persons. While this issue has received some attention from newly assertive actors — the media and judiciary — the state has failed to give a coherent account of its role in this deeply emotional human rights issue.
Having failed to elicit this coherent account, Mama Qadeer resorted to the long march with a view to highlighting the emotional plight of the families of the missing. Seen in this light, the march pertained more to raising the debate about the changing nature of the state and its tin-eared response to the legitimate concerns of the grieving families.
Mama Qadeer’s march to Islamabad should have focused our mind on the important question of why he opted to bypass the state rather than why he chose the UN path. The debate should be used to dissect the evolving nature of the state and how to reshape it to fit the rapidly mutating landscape of 21st-century Pakistan.
The writer is an Islamabad-based development consultant and policy analyst.