The Hashtnagar Peasant Movement: Agrarian Class Struggle, Hegemony and State Formation in Northwestern Pakistan, 1947–1986
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Hashtnagar Peasant Movement: Agrarian Class Struggle, Hegemony and State Formation in Northwestern Pakistan, 1947–1986 by Noaman Ali A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by Noaman Ali 2019 The Hashtnagar Peasant Movement: Agrarian Class Struggle, Hegemony and State Formation in Northwestern Pakistan, 1947–1986 Noaman Ali Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Toronto 2019 Abstract This study examines how peasant movements led by revolutionaries impacted state formation, or more broadly the institutional configuration of power, in post-colonial Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The study asks, first, how did a movement of lower classes, specifi- cally tenant farmers and landless labourers, win concessions from landed elites and also shape the direction and institutionalization of state power in the 1970s? Second, why did revolutionary politics in Pakistan decline and fade away, diverging from its counterparts in other parts of South Asia? Based on archival research, oral history, and participant observation, the study divides a narrative of nearly forty years of events into three critical conjunctures, comparing and con- trasting the interactions of radical organizers, rural classes, the political organizations represent- ing exploiting propertied classes, and the state. The first conjuncture concerns the late 1940s, when the Communist Party of Pakistan’s inadequate preparation and organization of peasants led to an ultimately failed movement in the northern Hashtnagar area. The second conjuncture co- vers the period from the late 1960s to the early 1970s in which the communists formed the Maz- door Kisan Party. The party’s organizational work contributed to the comparative success of 1970s peasant struggles in the form of de facto land and tenancy reforms and the decline of insti- tutions of landlord power in villages, alongside the generation of new and renewed institutions of ii peasant power. Peasant organization compelled the state apparatus to intervene in favour of ten- ants. The third conjuncture concerns the denouement of the peasant movement in the latter 1970s and 1980s. As tenants became de facto proprietors of land their involvement in the movement and party organization declined, leaving them unable to mount a significant challenge to a mili- tary regime that restored some of the power of landed elites. Nevertheless, tenants largely pre- served the gains they had made. Ultimately, the institutional configuration of power inside and outside of the apparatus of the state was determined by the balance of power between different classes. Moreover, strategic choices that revolutionary organizers made about confronting the state frontally as opposed to lowkey organizing increased or decreased their own organizational capacity and longevity. iii Acknowledgments I wrote this thesis because I was inspired by the struggles of peasants, workers, and organizers in South Asia over the 2000s and 2010s. I am, first and foremost, grateful to the many workers, peasants, and many others who have to remain unnamed, who shared with me their thoughts, stories, concerns and ideas across Pakistan, Nepal and India. Despite differences of language, culture, class, caste, and gender, they showed me great love and welcome. It is as a youth, and for youth struggling to smash existing oppressive and exploitative social relations, and to put something more egalitarian and just in their place, that I sought to get at the history and practice of the Mazdoor Kisan Party. I’ve certainly grown older, if nothing else, but my commitments have sharpened rather than dulling. This is because while writing the thesis, comrades in and beyond Toronto never let me get soft, and I have never stopped accumulating practical experience in student unions, labour unions, people’s journalism and community organizing. Pointing out their individual roles would take too much space, so here I thank my comrades collectively, including Steve da Silva, Kabir Joshi-Vijayan, Lana Rabkin, Marianne Madeleine Lau, Urooj Shahzadi, Arsalan Samdani, Hamna Mughal, Raji Choudhury, Samuel Nithianathan, Sara Jaffri, Harshita Singh, Priyanka Soundranayagam, Sahar Ashraf, Nooria Alam, Pragash Antonipillai, Hadia Akhtar, Shafiqullah Aziz, Martha Roberts, Aiyanas Ormond, Yuly Chan, Sadia Khan, Shozab Roza, Salima Kassam, and Tayyaba Jiwani, among others. Syed Azeem and Sara Abraham (and Sumana Abraham, too) have been friends in both Toronto and in Lahore. More than our common and divergent political and intellectual insights, I have drawn immeasurable emotional and mental sustenance from them all. This thesis relies on a range of sources, including government records, private collections, oral history and interviews, and participant observation, none of which would have been possible without the support of dozens of people. Syed Azeem was crucial in opening up iv my access to present and erstwhile members of the Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party. In Faisalabad, Abdullah Kamoka, Muhammad Salim, Chaudhry Mukhtar, Master Bashir “Sanobar” and his sons Arfan and Usman Choudhry helped me collect and copy the literature of the left and the documentary records of the Mazdoor Kisan Party. I thank Abdullah Kamoka and Haleema especially for hosting me like a son in Faisalabad. In Hashtnagar, Sher Bahadur shared his collection of Mazdoor Kisan Party Circulars and Muhktiar Ahmad Khan shared his research on Sher Ali Bacha. In Mardan, Murad Ali Bacha and his sons hosted me and gave me access to Sher Ali Bacha’s private papers, which were invaluable. Faiz ur Rahman helped in collecting and digitizing the resources from Hashtnagar and Mardan, and also hosted me in Malakand Agency. In Karachi, Zafar Aslam helped me with access to copies of the Mazdoor Kisan Party newspaper Sanobar, facilitated by Hassaan Mallick and Ayyaz Mallick. Very crucially, I was hosted in northern Hashtnagar by Afzal Shah Khamosh and Sajida, who treated me as a son alongside their sons Zakria, Adnan and Waqas, who all treated me like a member of their family. Yaar Muhammad and Taj Gul and his sons also provided me with their love and companionship. Dr. Kazim Niaz introduced me to government officials in Peshawar and also to Captain (Retd.) Sikandar Qayyum, and importantly to Himadullah Jan in southern Hashtnagar who very graciously and openheartedly hosted me there. Mamoon Rasheed facilitated many interviews in Hashtnagar as well. In Islamabad, Haji Hattar and the staff at the National Assembly Library were very helpful. In Peshawar, Hadia Akhtar helped me with my research at the Directorate of Archives and Library of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the staff there was very helpful as well. My interviews and travels in Hashtnagar were made possible by the research assistance of Gul Rehman in northern Hashtnagar, whose friendship and mohabbat I value dearly, as well as Gul Nawaz Khan in southern Hashtnagar. Hadia Akhtar and Bushra conducted interviews among women in northern Hashtnagar. v Aside from source material, my stay in Pakistan was also made enjoyable due to several people, who also helped in forming connections necessary for the research. In Islamabad, I thank Aasim Sajjad Akhtar for facilitating my research affiliation with Quaid-e-Azam University, as well as Mahvish Ahmad, Ahsan Kamal, Ali Amirali and Ismat Shahjehan for their academic and political help and their friendship. I was hosted in Islamabad by Ghulam Samdani and Nargis Samdani, and their son Alishan Samdani, whose friendship and friends got me through the city. In Lahore, it was Hashim bin Rashid, Ali Jan, Ammar Ali Jan, Sonia Qadir, and Sher Ali Khan. I was graciously hosted in Lahore by Lateef Chaudhry and Javeria and their children. In Karachi, I thank my cousin Arsalan Wahed and my uncle Abdul Wahed Muhammad for always welcoming me with love and openness. I remember in particular my aunt Rukhsana who passed away shortly after I had stayed with them in early 2013. The research in this thesis was also made possible by funding from the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, the Robert C. Vipond Graduate Scholarship in the Department of Political Science, a Doctoral Research Award from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and Participedia. On the academic terrain, I must begin by thanking my committee, whose composition reflects the interdisciplinary nature of my thesis. My co-supervisors, Malavika Kasturi and Paul Kingston, brought their training in historical and anthropological approaches to bear in my study of politics. Malavika Kasturi has been a constant source of support and detailed criticism, pushing me to make my ideas at once more expansive and precise. Her detailed comments not only on my thesis but also on my professional pursuits have been of immeasurable help. Paul Kingston could go through any piece of writing, however small or large, and arrive at its analytical core, helping to make this thesis sharper and tighter. He also had to bear the administrative brunt of the process. As members of my committee, Ken Kawashima and Dickson vi Eyoh provided insights, comments, and directions that forced me to reconsider my approaches and nuance my arguments. Kanta Murali served as my internal reader, and her comments and encouragement will be very important in moving forward. I have to especially thank A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, whose advice and support over the years have been vital, and who stepped in under heavy time constraints to serve with his keen and exacting eyes as external examiner. Other professors at the University of Toronto who at various times consulted and helped, and from whom I learned a lot, include Edward Schatz, Tania Li, Shivaji Mukherjee, Kanishka Goonewardena. Last, but certainly not least, I must thank Richard Sandbrook for his advice and encouragement since I entered the PhD program, and for his example as a political scientist with normative commitments. Getting through the PhD program would have been difficult without making friends among PhD students.