Apolitical coalitions

The army and the middleclass

Historically speaking, academics have always been interested in understanding our civil-military calculus at the level of the state, but have never really paid much attention to the way that the army reproduces its image in society. Preferring to choose the domain of ‘high’ politics, (as opposed to local or ‘everyday’ politics), people like Hamza Alavi (The Overdeveloped State, New Left Review, March 1972), and Ayesha Jalal (State of Martial Rule), have produced somewhat cross-cutting explanations state-based explanations for the military’s dominance in politics.

Alavi sees the army as a constituent portion of the unrepresentative state, which forms subordinate relationships with domestic political actors, bureaucrats, and the capitalists, while recognising some foreign power (the US, and to a lesser extent, China) as its patron. Within the state, Alavi posits that the military has gained supremacy over the bureaucracy and the judiciary over time because of greater public outreach, its control over the coercive apparatus, and its economic strength.

Jalal, on the other hand, traces the rise of the military to a set of engagements that took place in the domain of high-politics in the period following independence. Her thesis is that in 1947, the army was nothing more than a hollow shell, and was eventually strengthened by the migrant bureaucracy, scheming politicians, and the geo-political interests of the US. The security framework which Pakistan adopted upon partition provided the premise for this strengthening to take place.

Both explanations are plausible and perfectly viable in their own way. Yet the problem with a top-down lens is that it assumes the state (and its internal interplay) to be dynamic, and society to be receptive and static. The army steps into power, receives judicial cover, forms a faction of the Muslim League, and society celebrates the demise of corrupt politicians. This linear narrative needs to be problematised further to actually understand how the civil-military equation obtained its current shape.

In an article published much later on in his career, Alavi reproduced the words of a retired major, from a letter he wrote to the President of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq. He wrote that the army’s popularity, and hence its ability to step into power, is a direct result of its insulation from the rest of society, and that the current COAS/President was under-cutting this by stuffing armed forces personnel in every civilian nook and cranny. Many other retired officers, like this gentleman, were quite concerned about ‘over-exposure’.

The interesting thing is that, on paper, the army major was probably right. Increased society-army interaction could’ve resulted in the unpopularity of the latter – a consequence mitigated, previously, by the insulated nature of cantonments and garrisons. Yet in reality, the army, specifically in Punjab and Karachi, maintained some manner of social legitimacy during the 80s, and enhanced its social capital during the 90s because of some very worthwhile investments it made under Ayub, but more so under Zia.

One such investment is the army’s relationship with the urban/peri-urban, educated middle-class, and more specifically, with middle-class institutions. Despite forming a tiny minority in the overall demographic make-up of the country, the urban, educated class has wielded a fair amount of influence in the overall trajectory of the country. Contrary to the self-perceived narrative of marginalisation that many members of this class imbibe and regurgitate, members of the middle class have held important positions at the level of the state (through their presence in the post-Bhutto bureaucracy and armed forces), and, with the result of their societal counterparts, have helped shape the dynamic of power, and its rhetoric in the country.

The willing collaborators, at the societal level, are most often found dominating two particular institutions: higher education and media. This is helped by the fact that the demographic make-up of 5 institutions (judiciary, bureaucracy, armed forces, higher education, and media) is quite similar. All are white-collar professions that require some form of tertiary level education. All 5 offer, to varying degrees, the middle-class requirement of stability and perpetuity of employment. And all 5 envision, on paper anyway, an apolitical, non-partisan role in society.

This last particular characteristic, i.e. a sense of pride in being apolitical, offers the most convenient catalyst for coalition building amongst middle-class institutions. The recognition of the self as a defined, separate entity in relation to the ‘political class’, (politicians and their clients), creates a fracture that very easily outsteps democratic boundaries.

A century ago, Weber predicted the creation of an ‘Iron Cage’ – a metaphor for a post-industrial, urban society completely bound by the restrictive limits of a legal-rational order. Rules will be followed at all costs, human beings will behave like automatons, and the act of exercising political choice will become a procedural activity, devoid of all substance.

Thankfully though, Pakistan’s current socio-economic make-up puts it quite far away from this Orwellian nightmare. Large parts of society, to this day, are extensively partial and extremely political. They identify their politics through a collection of lenses (class, party, caste, tribe, sect), and undercut an oppressive legal order through acts of everyday resistance (bribery, patronage, sifarish).

As the footprint of middle class institution grows with urbanisation, our political domain faces an interesting, and increasingly relevant question: Will our middle-class, as it continues to evolve, reconcile with the notion of democratic participation and universal franchise, or will it continue to exercise strongly authoritarian, deeply fracturing tendencies?

Guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

The writer blogs at http://recycled-thought.blogspot.com. Email him at [email protected] or send a tweet @umairjav