The charade and the change

Can the middle class do it?

“Nothing could stand in its way. The gods and kings of the past were powerless before the businessmen and steam-engines of the present.”

With such awe one of the most eminent historians of our times, Eric Hobsbawm, has spoken about the Industrial Revolution that broke out in Britain towards the end of 18th century, and accompanying rise of the middle class so consequential that the world thenceforth was defined by it. So far-reaching was the change that, to borrow the phrase from Carlyle, all social bonds crumbled except the implacable gold and paper ones of the cash nexus.

‘Change’, the captivating six letter word, has come to be the shibboleth of urban middle class of Pakistan in general and of Punjab in particular. Imran khan is the long awaited Godot who has shown up to reestablish the lost utopia of the middle class. Enthusiasm is in the air. The said class is all set to rock the boat. New-Pakistan-fad is running amok in urban areas of Punjab unmoved and untouched by the unabated violence being unleashed on certain political forces in certain parts of the country. The spectacle of two parallel realities, i.e. coffin and campaign, unfolding before us warrants a serious dissection of the middle class phenomenon as to what extent it may prove as a harbinger of much yearned change.

Dr. Durr-e-Nayab of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) proposes the size of the middle class in Pakistan to a substantial 61 million people which is 34.6 per cent of the total population. She has used ‘expanded middle class’ categorization that includes ‘upper lower class’ – which has been categorized as ‘climbers’ – in the middle class.

For largely being an urban phenomenon the size of the middle class has increased with the increasing urbanization in recent years. In the recent past, the PML-N has enjoyed a considerable support from the Punjabi middle class, which is largely a commercial stratum of the society. This support base largely is still intact arguably though. Against the backdrop of arrival of electronic media owned by private enterprises, rise of consumerism, judicial activism and web based interconnectivity of urban population, a new class has emerged which made its presence felt during the Lawyers’ Movement in 2007. This is the ‘New Middle Class’ of Pakistan. The said class had its political moment during the lawyers’ movement and the momentum then acquired has led to its political expression, namely PTI.

The new middle class includes judiciary and legal community, thriving media, technicians and associate professionals, expatriates, the NGO sector, small businessmen and to some extent trader classes. The prefix ‘new’ has been attached in the context of newfangled consciousness that has manifested itself in the Middle Class lately, although the structural bases of the class are unaltered.

In order to conceptualize how far-reaching is the new middle class phenomenon, it is important to understand the structure of the state and its subsequent relation with the former. Distinguished civilian military analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa has reasoned in one of her incisive pieces that the phenomenon is cosmetic rather than consequential in real sense. She has invoked the construct of post-colonial state delineated by well known Marxist scholar and activist Hamza Alavi. Through a groundbreaking article written in 1972, Hamza Alavi propounds the idea of post-colonial state, which he termed as an ‘overdeveloped state’ as follows:

“In particular the special role of the military-bureaucratic oligarchy has become all too common a phenomenon in post-colonial societies. This role now needs to be interpreted in terms of a new alignments of the respective interests of the three propertied exploiting classes, namely the indigenous bourgeoisie, the metropolitan neo-colonialist bourgeoisie, and the landed classes…”

He further writes how the post-colonial state comprised of military-bureaucratic oligarchy mediates competing but not contradictory interests of competing propertied classes thus assuming a relatively autonomous role.

Increasing size of the middle class in the past has laid the bases for its inclusion in the state apparatus itself. The 2008 parliament had only 25 members out of 342 with over 100 acres landholding, while the rest largely hailed from the burgeoning indigenous bourgeoisie including both the upper and the middle class. The same goes for the military and civilian bureaucracy that has allowed more middle class people to enter than ever. Graphical presentation by the PIDE is as follows:

For being the part of the entrenched hegemonic system, the middle class discourse vis-à-vis the change and overthrowing existing exploitive system is irrational. A case-in-point is the recent development related to Engro Fertilizer that has been fined Rs5.5 billion by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) for raising the prices by 86% in 2010 thus exploiting the already impoverished peasantry that stands for the masses in Pakistan. Not to forget that during the said year Asad Omer, proverbial chief policy maker of the new middle class, was the CEO of Engro Fertilizer. Such is the nature of exploitive system the new middle class itself is a part of.

So called political awakening of the New Middle Class is nothing but vying for its own piece of the pie in political arena. Hamza Alavi has described it as: ‘positions in the oligarchy are of crucial importance, especially for aspiring educated middle class groups; and their political demands are focused on shares of positions in the oligarchy.”

For the very reason religious nationalism, which has been propagated by the state as its raison d’être, is being invoked by the leaders of the new middle class to peddle the state sanctioned discourse. For the very reason, the terrorism, nemesis of the people of Pakistan, is being downplayed and obfuscated by its leaders since it outrightly manifests the failure of the state itself. For the very reason, the main election battle is being portrayed by the corporate media, which itself is an emerging stakeholder, as between the two Middle Class political parties in Punjab, which are vying for the same space and essentially stand for the same ideals despite the superficial contradictory interests. For the very reason, the change mantra is unfounded and unsubstantiated.

It may feel somewhat gratuitous to judge the new middle class of Pakistan against the standards of the European bourgeoisie of 19th century, but the rationale was to highlight how the change warrants downright groundbreaking approach towards things and not just the mimicking. ‘Change’ stems from questioning socially accepted stereotypes, challenging dogmas widely taken at face value, calling into question the state propagated lies and even the very structure of the state itself. From reformation to iconoclasm, the process may take many shapes but this is the only way to get to changing things. All told, it would be unwise to suggest that the middle class is ready as yet for this momentous undertaking.

The writer is a mechanical engineer by profession.