Thanks a ton! That was indeed quite informative and helpful.
A few questions to you
1. How do you view the role of Sir Syed as the chief architect in shaping up the new Muslim identity post Mutiny and do you believe the Pakistan movement trace it's ideological roots to his philosophies?
2. What and How much role did the Islam actually play? Sure it was used as a propaganda tool to entice the common, illetrate masses but how much impact it had on the minds of the leaders of grand standing such as Jinnah and Liaqat?
3. This I have always wondered, how come State of Pakistan never understook any land reforms in a fashion similar to India did soon after the Independence? Why does feudalism still persists in the 21st century Pakistan when in fact it should have been wiped off 70 years ago instead.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan - clearly we should not draw a simple, straight line between his ideas and the creation of Pakistan. A lot of water flowed under the bridge between his death in 1898 and the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Whilst emphasising the distinctiveness of Muslim, mainly elite, interests, he still believed that Hindus and Muslims in India should form a single nation. Nevertheless, we can acknowledge that his opposition to the Congress contributed to a generation of Muslims by and large choosing to not join the Indian nationalist movement. More significantly, he laid the foundations for separatist institutions and provided the intellectual ammunition for Muslim separatism. This was not a cause, but a precondition, for the creation of Pakistan. We should not forget, though, that his ideas were deeply contested within the Muslim community. The poet Akbar Allahabadi wrote disparagingly of the Aligarh intellectuals, “forget your history, break all your ties with shaykh and mosque - it could not matter less. Life's short. Best not worry overmuch. Eat English bread, and push your pen, and swell with happiness.”
The role of Islam - this is a hugely contested area with many different viewpoints. My perspective is that the demand for a separate Muslim state was spearhead by the modernists, whose rhetoric was in fact suffused with Islam as an ethical ideal which would guide the Pakistani state. There was an emphasis on the ‘spirit of Islam’ with the view that Islam was a dynamic religion, that needed to be freed from excessively formalistic understandings and that as an ethical ideal could cure many of the world’s ills. When the modernists spoke of brotherhood, social justice, and equality, they were not grounding these ideas in some secular norms but seeing them as expressions of longstanding Islamic norms. The modernists understanding of Islamic principles was of course greatly different from the ulama and ‘Islamists’ and their vision of Islam was ‘ecumenical’ and inclusive. But the language nevertheless did overlap. So unlike many I don’t think the reference to religious rhetoric was mere window dressing. At the same time, the modernists idea of Islam in Pakistan was very different from the religious establishment and very different from what Zia sought to implement.
Land reforms - firstly, it is undeniable that land reforms largely failed in Pakistan. It is however questionable to see it as wholly successful throughout India. For example, Tirthankar Roy the leading economic historian of India talks of “the widespread failure of land reform in the region [by which he means South Asia generally].” Pakistan, however, was even less effective than India in implementing meaningful reform. This was due to the historical deep rootedness of landed power. There was a close collaboration between the rural elite in Punjab and the British rulers, arguably to a degree not matched elsewhere in British India. The dominant political party in the Punjab until late in the colonial day was the landlord dominated Punjab Unionist Party. It was only as late as 1945 that the Muslim League was able to turn the tide. Britain needed the rural notables to ensure a steady supply of men for the military. They also needed the rural elite to exercise their personal influence to ensure stability in the province.
In British India, Western Punjab was also transformed from 1890 with the commencement of the building of perennial, as opposed to seasonal, canals. This was a major event where vast swathes of arid land were transformed into areas capable of commercialised agriculture all year round. This was also accompanied with large-scale agricultural colonisation of previously uncultivated, or semi-cultivated, land. Irrigation provided a lucrative mechanism for Britain to provide patronage to the rural elite, by way of land grants and thereby bind Britain and the large landowners more closely together. But irrigated land also meant farmers from ‘stressed’ over-populated tracts could migrate to new land thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict which could have made the situation far more unstable for landlords in Punjab. Landlords were also given honours, nominated to darbars and local boards and were directly involved in administration by being appointed honorary magistrates and zaildars. The Punjab Alienation of Land Act in 1900, which forbade non-agriculturalists from acquiring land in the countryside, demonstrated how far Britain was prepared to go to protect agricultural interests. In 1919 they also granted agriculturalists with a preferential right of recruitment to government service.
In the end the Muslim League was able to overcome the Unionist Party. But many landlords, seeing the way the wind was blowing, jumped on the ML bandwagon. The ML was happy to co-opt them to maximise votes in the 1946 elections. However, post partition such elites by aligning with the dominant party ensured that their interests were protected. Compared with India, larger landlords constituted a far bigger proportion of the Muslim League than the Congress. Mian Iftikharuddin, of the political left, sensationally quit as refugee minister due to landlords preventing land reform. In March 1948, in the Punjab assembly, he would set out his reasons:
“Because I was sure the big zamindars would not allow me to levy agricultural tax and introduce any sort of reforms.… Our rulers say to impose tax on those landlords who own more than 25 acres is unfair; at the same time they claim that they would do their best for the settlement of refugees.… I asked them how they would do that … and those who call for new system are said they are spreading fitna [chaos] … [and they] are dismissed as the agents of Communist and enemies of the Government. Our rulers do fear that even to debate reforms would rag the landlords who might turn against the Government.”
Feudalism - I would question how useful this concept is to understanding contemporary Pakistan. Ayaz Amir’s once wrote ’Commentators who have never spent a night in a village or ever set eyes on a patwari, talk freely about waderas and feudal culture, ascribing all the country’s political problems to these two phenomena.’ Ayaz Amir went on to argue that feudalism was a ‘most overworked concept in Pakistan’. In his colourful piece, written in 1996, Amir derides the ‘urban misconception…that anyone who looks like a hick, dresses like one, has a rural surname, curls his moustache and rides a Pajero…is necessarily a feudal.’ As Ayaz Amir has stated large landholdings are now confined mainly to some parts of interior Sindh and the southern belt in Punjab as well as some districts in western Punjab. Pakistani economist, Mahmood Hasan Khan, who has written extensively on agriculture in Pakistan, reminds us that 96% of farms are below 10 hectares and that there has been a reduction in sharecropping tenancy and increased incidence of owner-operated farms. In 1960 there were 41.7% of tenant farms, whereas in 2010 this was only 11%. The growth in self-cultivation is important as tenant farming is more readily associated with feudalism. 78% of farm area is occupied by farm sizes below 50 acres according to the 2010 agricultural census.
..don't want to get banned.
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