Modern Asian Studies 52, 3 (2018) pp. 815–848. C Cambridge University Press 2018 doi:10.1017/S0026749X16000469 Public Authority and Local Resistance: Abdur Rehman and the industrial workers of Lahore, 1969–1974∗ ANUSHAY MALIK Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences Email:
[email protected] Abstract In 1968 a popular movement emerged on the streets of Pakistan which toppled the regime of General Muhammad Ayub Khan and ushered in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). After a decade of military rule this movement was heralded as a turning point in the country’s political fortunes. However, the war in 1971, the failure of the PPP to live up to its radical slogans, and Pakistan’s eventual return to military rule in 1977 were seen as clear indications of the failure of both the movement and the PPP. This article focuses on the area of Kot Lakhpat in Lahore and the emergence of a worker-led court under Abdur Rehman to argue that this narrative of the failure of the movement does not leave space for local success stories which, while temporary, had an important impact on the role that the working classes imagined for themselves within the state. The Kot Lakhpat movement was part of a longer history of labour politics, and its story challenges the centrality of the PPP and shows how local structures of authority can be formed in response to the greater space for radical action opened up by a wider national resistance movement. Introduction On 1 May 1974, newspapers across Pakistan carried news of the murder of a labour leader, Abdur Rehman, in the Kot Lakhpat area in ∗ I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, as well as my co-contributors to this special issue, for their comments.