In every conversation about Pakistan’s politics, one phrase surfaces with uncanny regularity: “the establishment.” Whether we are discussing elections, the judiciary or media clampdowns, there is always the unspoken understanding that real power lies elsewhere.

This is not a recent phenomenon; it has been our condition since birth. Half a century ago, the Marxist sociologist Hamza Alavi offered a concept that explains this predicament better than any slogan. He called it the “overdeveloped state.”

In a 1972 essay in New Left Review, Alavi argued that postcolonial countries like Pakistan inherited a state apparatus far stronger than the social classes that were meant to govern it. The colonial masters had built an efficient, centralised bureaucracy and a disciplined army to rule India, extract resources and suppress dissent. These institutions were designed to be insulated from society, not accountable to it.

A BUREAUCRATIC COUP

When Pakistan was carved out in 1947, it inherited a disproportionately large share of this coercive machinery, but without a strong bourgeoisie, an organised working class or a politically mature peasantry to keep it in check. The result, Alavi wrote, was an “overdeveloped” state: a state that towered over society rather than being shaped by it.

Since its inception, Pakistan’s political destiny has been shaped not by its people but by a state apparatus that towers over society. Revisiting Marxist sociologist Hamza Alavi’s seminal concept reveals why the “establishment” remains the true sovereign…

The consequences were visible from the earliest years. The Muslim League, which had mobilised the demand for Pakistan, disintegrated almost immediately after Independence. Its leaders lacked organisation, resources and vision beyond the achievement of Partition. The vacuum was swiftly filled by the bureaucracy, which claimed to act in the national interest but, in reality, subordinated representative politics.

Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed prime ministers at will and Iskander Mirza, a military general who also served as the country’s first president, dismantled parliamentary institutions with bureaucratic ease. The first decade of Pakistan was thus defined not by civilian consolidation but by bureaucratic manipulation.

THE IRON FIST

In 1958, the military stepped in openly, confirming what Alavi would later describe: the rise of the military-bureaucratic oligarchy as Pakistan’s real sovereign. Gen Ayub Khan’s coup marked the beginning of a long cycle. His “Basic Democracies” system gave a pseudo-democratic cover to authoritarian rule, while the country became deeply enmeshed in Cold War alliances with the United States.

The state, in Alavi’s words, did not merely act autonomously; it aligned with imperial powers while keeping domestic classes weak. Ayub presided over an era of economic growth that benefitted industrialists and landlords but widened inequality, sowing resentment that would later erupt in East Pakistan.

The tragedy of 1971 illustrated the destructive power of the overdeveloped state. Gen Yahya Khan’s refusal to accept the democratic mandate of the Awami League — and the decision to crush Bengali aspirations by force — exposed the limits of a state that claimed to arbitrate among classes but, in reality, suppressed society.

The military operation in East Pakistan was not just a political miscalculation; it was the logical outcome of a state apparatus unwilling to yield power to elected representatives. When Bangladesh emerged, it was not only a secession; it was an indictment of the overdeveloped state.

THE INVISIBLE LEASH

In the years that followed, civilian governments briefly returned, but the pattern remained. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto attempted to assert civilian supremacy and mobilise popular classes through populist reforms, yet even he relied heavily on the coercive arm of the state. His government, too, centralised power, and when the military moved against him in 1977, it found little resistance within the state structure.

Gen Ziaul Haq’s eleven years in power entrenched the problem further. By using ‘Islamisation’ as an ideological crutch and the Afghan war as a source of foreign patronage, Zia not only expanded the power of the military but also reshaped society to suit authoritarian control. Alavi’s framework once again proved prescient: the overdeveloped state was sustained by external allies while suppressing democratic forces at home.

The 1990s were marked by elected governments, but these remained under constant pressure from the establishment. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were repeatedly dismissed, their governments destabilised through presidential powers, judicial interventions and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring.

What looked like a return to democracy was, in fact, a managed system, where civilian rulers were tolerated only as long as they did not threaten the prerogatives of the military-bureaucratic elite. The “civilian decade” did not challenge the overdeveloped state; it merely confirmed its ability to adapt.

Gen Musharraf’s coup in 1999 was yet another reminder of the durability of Alavi’s thesis. Musharraf’s era combined the language of liberal reform and “enlightened moderation” with a reliance on American patronage during the “War on Terror.”

Once again, foreign alliances sustained the autonomy of the Pakistani state against its own society. When Musharraf eventually fell, it was less because the overdeveloped state weakened and more because popular movements and elite rivalries made his position untenable.

THE FACADE OF DEMOCRACY

Since 2008, Pakistan has formally remained under civilian rule, but the story has hardly changed. What we call “hybrid regimes” today are nothing more than the old overdeveloped state wearing new clothes.

Civilian governments may take office, but they remain under constant scrutiny and pressure from unelected institutions. Judicial disqualifications, selective accountability, media censorship and engineered defections are the modern tools of an old game. The establishment does not always need to impose martial law; it can achieve the same results through subtler interventions. Alavi’s concept remains alive, describing a condition in which the state remains too powerful for society to democratise.

There have, of course, been important critiques of Alavi. Scholars such as Ayesha Jalal have argued that the Pakistani state was never truly autonomous but always intertwined with landed and capitalist elites. Instead of standing above all classes, the state fused with them, creating a ruling bloc.

Others point out that Alavi underestimated the resilience of civil society. From the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the 1980s to the lawyers’ movement in 2007 and the more recent mobilisations of women and students, Pakistanis have not passively accepted authoritarianism.

Moreover, in an era of globalisation, the pressures of international financial institutions, neoliberal reforms and global markets exert constraints that Alavi’s Cold War-era framework did not fully capture. However, these criticisms — while important — do not erase the relevance of his concept. If anything, they refine it.

The overdeveloped state may not always stand above society in perfect autonomy, but it continues to dominate political life in ways that stifle democratic growth. Civilian governments rise and fall, political parties fracture and social movements flare up, yet the state apparatus retains its upper hand. The persistence of this imbalance explains why Pakistan oscillates between fragile democracy and creeping authoritarianism, without ever achieving stable civilian supremacy.

The lessons are urgent. Until Pakistani society builds stronger institutions of its own — vibrant political parties rooted in the people, independent media that can withstand pressure, civic organisations capable of mobilising citizens — the imbalance will remain.

Until parliament asserts itself as the undisputed centre of sovereignty, we will continue to witness cycles of intervention and manipulation. Until the state reorients itself away from external patrons and towards its own citizens, we will remain dependent, unstable and vulnerable.

Hamza Alavi’s warning was clear. A state that is too strong for its own society is not a blessing but a curse. It breeds authoritarianism, alienates citizens, and erodes democracy. Pakistan’s tragedy is that, five decades after Alavi wrote his diagnosis, it still fits.

We remain a nation in the shadow of an overdeveloped state, struggling to build a society strong enough to claim the democratic future it deserves.

The writer is a columnist, educator, and film critic. He can be contacted at
mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk.
X: @NaazirMahmood

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 5th, 2025