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From International Socialism, No.46, February/March 1971, pp.11-12.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The December elections in Pakistan are the culmination of the gradual process of removing the lid that was so suddenly clamped on the boiling cauldron of mass upsurge with imposition of the Martial Law in March 1969.
Pakistan is a country with several nationalities: in East Pakistan the linguistically and culturally homogeneous seventy million Bengalis; in West Pakistan four national groups – the Punjabis, the Sindhis, the Pathans and the Baluchis – each speaking its own language and having its distinct culture. The governments to date have been coalitions of big capitalists, landlords, militarists and bureaucrats of predominantly Punjabi origin. Since Punjab was a minority but powerful province, even the facade of representative government was neither possible nor necessary to maintain. The country had, throughout most of its existence, a succession of authoritarian governments culminating in the imposition of Ayub Khan’s direct military rule in 1958. Since then, the country experienced significant growth in terms of that mysterious magnitude – the per-capita national income – although the standard of living of the vast majority of the population visibly declined or failed to rise.
The mass upsurge of 1968/69 was a combination of two distinct but closely related struggles – that of the dispossessed against the oppression of the exploiting classes and that of the oppressed nationalities (particularly the Bengalis and to a lesser extent the Sindhis, Pathans and Baluchis) against domination by the Punjabi ruling class. Although the regime was able to halt the advance of the masses temporarily through the imposition of the Martial Law, it had to promise to transfer power to a representative government formed through elections on the basis of adult franchise. Hence the first ever national general elections on the basis of adult franchise in the 24th year of Pakistani ‘independence’.
The contending parties and their programmes in the two regions have been very different. In East Bengal, the ‘mildly socialistic,’ Awami League made the militant Bengali nationalism its major programme though, in deference to popular wishes, it also endorsed a social democratic position by committing itself to policies like the nationalisation of banking, insurance and key industries. The autonomy proposed by the Awami League would not only create the loosest confederation ever conceived in political science, but would economically mean an even looser alliance between the two regions than that among the nations of the European Economic Community and perhaps even EFTA. It would not only eliminate common external tariff, but would also give the federating states the right to impose interstate tariffs. Effectively there would be two currencies and two exchange rates even if nominally there may be a single monetary unit. Only defence and foreign affairs would be the responsibility of the federal government but even these would be limited by the provision of state militia and the right of the states to negotiate foreign assistance directly.
The Awami League was opposed both by the right and by the left. The rightist opposition was based on emphasising the religious basis of the unity of Pakistan. The only leftist party in the field was the Wali group of the National Awami Party (NAP), which is the ‘multi-class party’ led by the pro-Moscow communists in East Pakistan. For several years this party has been emphasising the right of self-determination of the oppressed nationalities and the need to form a bourgeois-democratic government of national unity with a programme to nationalise key industries and commerce and abolish ‘feudalism’ (without ever concretely analysing the nature of feudal oppression and the steps for its elimination in East Bengal, where landlordism seems to have been dead for two decades although the vast majority of the peasants remain extremely poor). Thus the NPA position was virtually the same as that of the Awami League.
The other leftist parties did not participate in the elections. The orthodox extreme left – three splinter groups from the Bhasani NAP – rejected the elections as irrelevant since the situation in their opinion was ripe for armed revolutionary struggle. Significantly, none of these groups took any concrete steps towards spelling out an action programme for such armed struggle. The dubiously left-wing Bhasani NAP (a peculiar blend of Islam, primitive egalitarianism. and ‘friendship towards China’ due both to egalitarianism and anti-Indian chauvinism) and the innocuous but ineffective National Progressive League withdrew at the last minute using the pretext of the cyclonic disaster and the landing of the ‘imperialist armies’ ostensibly for relief purposes. There is little doubt that the withdrawal of these parties was dictated by more realistic factors, such as the certainty of complete defeat.
The Awami League succeeded in turning the elections in East Bengal into a referendum on the demand for self-determination, captured 151 of the 153 seats contested and got about three quarters of all votes cast. The old belief that the uneducated population of East Bengal were still influenced by the religious ideologies was shattered by the complete rout of the rightists. The Wali NAP did even worse, its share of votes being less than the share of the leading rightist party. The orthodox extreme left did succeed in convincing any significant proportion of the people about the irrelevance of the electoral process.
In West Pakistan, the Wali NAP stood for the autonomy of the smaller nationalities although its definition of autonomy was milder than that of the Awami League for East Bengal. It also stood for a mildly socialistic programme, although orthodox communists and doctrinaire socialists were much weaker in the West Pakistan wing of the party. The other ‘leftist’ party, was the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Mr. Bhutto. Unfortunately, Mr. Bhutto can hardly be characterised as a consistent socialist. His policy, somewhat resembling Bhasani’s, has been a mixture of anti-Indian chauvinism (and consequent enthusiasm for China) and militant but vague pronouncements against the capitalists and landlords. Mr. Bhutto has widely been believed to be predominantly an opportunist madly in search of power. Against PPP (and other socialists) were ranged the rightists – the Jamaat-i-Islam, the three Muslim Leagues, the Pakistan Democratic Party and several other ‘Islam-loving’ parties. Although pre-election speculation had favoured victory for the right in West, the PPP won an impressive victory of 84 out of 138 seats. Bhutto’s victory in the Punjab was due to his anti-Indian chauvinism widely believed to be shared by the Punjabis, it should be noted that it was not limited to the urban areas where such feeling was supposed to be powerful. For the first time ever, he succeeded in winning over the ‘politically backward’ Punjabi (and also Sindhi) peasants from their traditional feudal allegiance. The PPP victory in the Punjab and Sind was undoubtedly due to popular enthusiasm for socialist reforms, however vaguely they may have been formulated.
What could be the consequences of the present elections? The elections have clearly shown that Pakistan cannot effectively remain one nation. The only constitution the Awami League in the East will sign will keep the unity of the country in name only. If the PPP and the present government of predominantly Punjabi capitalists, army and bureaucracy, recognise this fact, the most outstanding national problem would be resolved. If the relevant West Pakistani groups do not recognise this fact, it will amount to an open declaration of war on the people of East Bengal, which will have to be fought until East snatches its freedom by force. It is difficult to see which forces in East would lead such a struggle which would inevitably be violent and hence reduce the Awami League, a constitutional petty-bourgeois party, to a lesser position.
If a constitutional solution guarantees peaceful autonomy to each of the two regions, the problem of social transformation will come in the forefront in each. In the East, this urgent question has been postponed because the only force, the socialists, who were capable of combining the struggle for self-determination and the struggle for socialist transformation, failed to see the importance of the former issue at the right time and thereby forfeited its right to lead. It is unlikely that East Bengal, a society without any powerful indigenous group of exploiting classes and vested interest and devoid of an indigenous army, can have a non-socialist development to solve its problem of unprecedented poverty. It is also unlikely that the Awami League, the present leader of the nationalist movement, can lead the process of socialist transformation. None of the existing leftist parties seems to be prepared for the struggle after the solution of the national question. The Wali NAP and the communists behind it are unlikely to recover from the shock of being rejected totally by the people. The orthodox ultra-leftist groups seem to be interested only in abstract doctrinal squabbling without any attempt to study the circumstances objectively to derive a feasible strategy.
In West Pakistan, the capitalists and landlords are much stronger as classes, with the powerful backing of an organised and over-privileged army. But the working class is also much bigger and the proportion of rural proletariat much larger. Hence the possibility of a protracted confrontation between the classes is a good deal greater than in the East. It is unlikely that a party like the PPP can lead the workers and peasants to a victory over the ruling classes. Its socialism is little more than vague promise for some form of a social democratic programme. Its success has almost entirely been due to the lack of a truly socialist and courageous alternative. It is not at all certain that such a hastily put together party can even score such minor victories as the nationalisation of banks and key industries, thereby slowing down the urgency of comprehensive social change. Moreover, it is wedded to the dangerous doctrine of confrontation with India and ‘emancipation’ of Kashmir. The record of the Punjab as the custodian of the freedom of the other nationalities is so infamous that one would think that the problem of Kashmir’s self-determination is better left to the Kashmiris themselves. Finally, the problem of the national minorities in West Pakistan itself will have to be resolved and at the moment the PPP is showing no awareness of the reality of the situation. The other ‘socialists’ – the Wali NAP and the Bhasani NAP – hold out little promise. The former has been relegated to the position of a regional party mainly representing the interest of the small Pathan and Baluchi minorities, while the latter is on the verge of complete disintegration. West Pakistan’s social revolution too has to be preceded by the emergence of a new revolutionary party which must be able to build up a strong organisation of truly revolutionary forces by overcoming the barriers of the division between (i.e., recognising the rights of) the nationalities.
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