Toward a new independence struggle: Part III
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Instead of a proper, land to the tiller reform, what Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic nexus opted for was a ceiling reform in 1959. This is often considered to be an inefficient reform
If, in post-colonial Pakistan, one wanted to end the dependence of lower classes upon upper classes, it would have had to involve land reforms.
Land reforms were both economically and politically necessary for the eradication of dependence on the country upon landlords.
But landlords were so entrenched in the ruling structure of Pakistan that it would be impossible for the military-bureaucratic nexus—itself composed of so many landlords, and its officers likely to acquire even more land when they retired—to carry out any meaningful land reform without an absolute revolution.
Land reform was not simply a moral issue. Distributing lands, and investing properly in agriculture, would almost certainly result in increasing agricultural productivity and provide a boost for industrialization. Millions of peasants with greater purchasing power would provide a domestic market for industrially produced consumer goods. Very importantly, the political dependence of peasants upon landlords would be minimized or even eliminated.
Instead of a proper, land to the tiller reform, what Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic nexus opted for was a ceiling reform in 1959. This is often considered to be an inefficient reform, as ceilings were set too high and barely any land was resumed for redistribution. However, redistribution was hardly the intent. Rather, land reforms were undertaken to signal to landlords to modernize their agricultural practices.
Instead of continuing to lease out land to sharecropping tenants, it was time to invest in new technologies and mechanization, to hire wage-labour under what is called “self-cultivation”. This is the transformation of pre-capitalism (let’s call it feudalism, for convenience) to capitalism without fundamentally restructuring the hierarchical relationships or cultural baggage that exist between the landed classes and the peasants and agricultural labourers.
This is capitalism from above, not agrarian capitalism from below, as pursued in Germany and Japan before its occupation by the Americans.
In Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of tenants were ejected from the lands they had been renting for generations by landlords who wanted to resume the land for supposed self-cultivation. Dependency upon landed elites was reduced, only so far as the new landless had to leave villages for search of gainful employment to urban centres—only to find new people to depend on there.
For those who remained, and had no access to land as tenants of whatever kind or as proprietors, dependency upon the various landed classes (not just the elites) increased. Prices increased as rich farmers and landlords incomes increased, and the poor could less afford things than before. Rural poverty, inequality and unemployment increased.
For American imperialism, this was great news and great business. In the 1950s the burning issue across Asia was land. In China, the revolution had been based on redistribution of land to millions of impoverished peasants who raised their living standards. In Vietnam, the peasants were organized under a people’s movement to take back their land from the savage French colonizers. In North Korea, communists carried out far-reaching land reforms. In other parts of Asia, people’s movements led by communists agitated for land to the tiller.
Whatever the problems and outcomes of these communist movements, it cannot be denied that the land reforms they carried out were immensely popular, raised people’s livelihoods, broke their dependence from landlords, and set the base for rapid industrialization.
American imperialism itself had to take this into account. America came out of the Second World War with direct or indirect control of several Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and many others. Where revolution was too close for comfort—particularly in South Korea where hundreds of thousands of communists and democrats had to be repressed; in Taiwan, which was basically part of China but under the control of reactionary Kuomintang and fearful of communist uprising; and in Japan, where communists were a potent intellectual force—the Americans instructed local rulers to carry out far-reaching land reforms.
If agrarian productivity could be increased without carrying out land reforms, all the better. And this is what was now happening with the help of American-developed technology, high-yield varieties, in tractors, and whatnot. Aside from providing military aid, America sent all kinds of advisors for Pakistan’s “development” strategy. Pakistan’s ruling classes basically subordinated the country’s development planning to American advisors from Harvard.
Pakistan’s Communist Party, adventurist and disconnected, had been shelved by the ruling classes in 1951 and then in 1954. Rather than carry out effective underground work, the Party went into the landlord-bourgeois formation of the National Awami Party, where, at least in West Pakistan, it remained further disconnected from mass work for the next decade.
Meanwhile, the bureaucracy nurtured an industrialization through the typical import-substitution industrialization. Rather than basing industrialization on a synergy with agriculture, industrialization was based on the depression of wages and the concentration of wealth into the hands of a few (proverbially, twenty-two!) families.
Mahbub-ul-Haq, the Chief Economist of Pakistan then (and Minister of Finance later), noted, “The under-developed countries must consciously accept a philosophy of growth and shelve for the distant future all ideas of equitable distribution and welfare state. It should be recognised that these are luxuries which only developed countries can afford.”
Not for Pakistan’s ruling classes were bold statements about the end of exploitation of people over people. Rather, they openly welcomed “functional inequality,” claiming they would produce more, and then redistribute. In fact, neither production, nor redistribution, has gone where it could and should have in Pakistan.
kyun na darkaar ho mujhe poshish?
jism rakhta hoon, hai agarche nazaar
kuch khareeda nahin hai ab ke saal
kuch banaya nahin hai ab ki baar
raat ko aag aur dn ko dhoop
bhaar mein jaaein aise lail-o-nahaar
aag taape kahaan talak insaan?
dhoop khaawe kahan talak jaandar?
The masses of Pakistan found themselves more dependent and in many cases more helpless than before. It was only a matter of time before they took matters into their own hands....
(To be continued.)
Sources consulted:
Hamza Alavi, 1983, “Class and state in Pakistan”
Hassan Gardezi, 2004, “Globalisation and Pakistan’s Dilemma of Development”
Ronald J. Herring, 1980, “The Policy Logic of Land Reforms in Pakistan”
Ronald J. Herring, 1979, “Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the ‘Eradication of Feudalism’ in Pakistan”
Akmal Hussain, 1984, “Land Reform in Pakistan: A Reconsideration”
Chalmers Johnson, 2001, Blowback
Richard Stubb, 2005, Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle
| Akram Javed can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
Comments
In author's opinion " land to the tiller reform" is the true reform but again if that is the true reform and that was the model followed in SU, China, North Korea or any other country, was it successful anywhere? The answer is a resounding NO!
In Soviet Union, land distribution to tiller caused a major mayhem in the rural areas that led to armed resistance allowing easy pathway for the outsiders to interfere. Eventually the lands were taken away from the tillers and state took over the control itself. In fact the Land reforms were the beginning of the failure of the socialist revolution and eventually led to state capitalism under Stalin.
In China, the same land reform model "land to the tiller " led to major famine and later a civil war which was hidden behind the cultural revolution and eventually led to another socialist country switching to first state capitalism and now a mix of state and private capital where private capital is taking the lead role now in state affairs.
Author claims, “If, in post-colonial Pakistan, one wanted to end the dependence of lower classes upon upper classes, it would have had to involve land reforms. Land reforms were both economically and politically necessary for the eradication of dependence on the country upon landlords.”
Absolutely unsupported statement devoid of any evidence.
Did Pakistan have the political, economic or social stability to handle such a gigantic task after the partition? As I said there is no evidence anywhere that the socialist model of land reforms was successful anywhere. Where is the evidence it would have been successful in achieving the lofty goals in Pakistan?
Many left inclined cite Indian land reforms that were enacted in the 60s. The Congress government was strong enough then to handle the political resistance to land reforms but the results of the same land reforms show abysmal failure all over the Indian states where they were enacted with much fanfare. Indian farmer is still poor and more are committing suicide than anywhere else in the world thanks to Left supported Nehru land reforms. From East Bengal to UP to Andhra the failure of those land reforms is written all over India and we still have some so called leftists supporting similar land reforms. The major drawback is that distributed land is further distributed within one generation and in the second generation the land is no longer able to support the tillers families. This fragmentation of Land actually makes the tillers poorer at a faster rate than in non-reformed areas.
Taking lands from the middle to big landholders and distributing it to tiller or landless peasants is sheer lunacy.
Tillers or landless peasants who had never had any experience in managing lands in generations cannot manage the land given to them no matter how much financing you provide to them.
Land reforms is stupid political sloganeering and nothing else. Specially the left from the urban areas who have no ideas about land management should never talk about it because mostly they are clueless as to what happens to a farmer and his family when you have to wait six months or more before harvesting.
Author was very quick to criticize the CPP for “landlord-bourgeois formation of the National Awami Party, “ instead of working underground.
The shows ignorance about the underground work the party did and was able to effectively manage a public political position thru its alliances. It was part of the democratic struggle in both Baluchistan and Sindh and its leftover cadre is still managing to able to remain part of the struggle in both provinces. Party was weak in Punjab and we now see how undemocratic, religious and sectarian forces are maintaining influence in Punjab. Despite the adventurism of the pseudo-left in the shape of PPP, its land reforms and other adventures of the so-called leftist in Punjab.
Thanks.