Pakistan: The burgeoning crisis

Even by Pakistani standards the turbulence taking place in the state and society is exceptional. The economy is floundering and forecasts by the experts are bleak and scary. It is not without reason that the economy is hardly discussed in the media networks and amongst the dominant intelligentsia. The experts and the strategists running the economy do not have a clue how to come out of this mess. To be honest, it is not their fault. The prevalent capitalist economic system has reached a state where it is incapable of achieving, never mind maintaining, a steady growth rate or enhancing production.

The main problem is that the ruling elite and their regime refuse to accept the historical obsoleteness of the socio-economic system they are thrusting upon society. The statements that the system is in crisis on a world scale do not absolve the rulers from the crimes this system is inflicting against the teeming millions living in absolute poverty and misery. The social and physical infrastructure has crumbled. Health and education are now in the hands of private sector vultures who are extracting exorbitant profits from these basic provisions that are vital to a civilised human existence. The conditions of the railways, the energy sector, transport, water, sanitation and other sectors have deteriorated with rapidity in the last few years. This democracy of the moneyed classes and the mafia has wreaked havoc upon society. Discontent, insecurity, deprivation and apathy amongst the masses are unprecedented.

The ramifications of this burgeoning socio-economic crisis on the state institutions and the regime are further fuelling uncertainty and malaise. The frequency with which the scandals of the ruling elite are unfolding has reached proportions unforeseen. The state is in dire conflict between its institutions and relentless contradictions that are sharpening by the hour. Most institutions are creaking from within. The media is trying to side with different warring sections of the ruling elites, trying to impose them upon mass consciousness. However, all the factions of the ruling classes are weak and none is capable or has the confidence to replace the incumbents. They have exhausted the options and the intensity of the crisis does not provide much room for the rulers to manoeuvre.

This permanent flux has made the situation so critical that any change at any moment will not be a surprise at all. Yet this change would not alter anything fundamentally. The catastrophe will continue to exacerbate. Even the cycle of military rule and bourgeois democracy under the crushing domination of the financial oligarchy that was practised by the ruling classes in the past to perpetuate the rule of capital cannot be easily invoked. The top brass of the army has lost confidence due to the faltering cohesiveness of the chain of command and the increased intrusion of the parallel economy into the structures and the elite of the armed forces. The judiciary, which in the past used different manoeuvres to diffuse the threats and crisis faced by the ruling classes, is losing that capability. It is still trying to wrap the scandals of the elite in the garb of judicial mockery but such is the ferocity of these conflicts that they unravel even beyond the control of this institution of the oppressive bourgeois state.

The story in the political field is no less pathetic. Having lost or abandoned any ideological bearings that some political parties once had, the politics of today’s Pakistan is now an outright crusade of looting and plundering. Being historically and economically bankrupt, most political actors of the ruling classes change loyalties and parties so frequently that one loses track of their political affiliations. Due to their comprador nature, the ruling elites have to be in political and state power to maintain their financial and social status. Without corruption and crime, Pakistani capitalism cannot exist. State power is a necessary weapon for the elites to perpetuate their rule. In return, the state indulges in the orgy of plunder that has resulted in the weakening and corrosion of its structures.

In the last period the imperialists cobbled together a setup in which they tried to compensate different sections of the ruling classes to share the loot, but imperialist exploitation and plunder itself have depleted the economy to such an extent that the dearth of resources has reignited the conflicts between the different factions of the ruling classes. Most political forces that shared power in the last period through the reactionary policy of reconciliation are now badly discredited. Now Imran Khan has been launched as an alternative. However, his policies and programme are no different from those of the incumbent ruling parties. His economic policy is the same. He believes in direct foreign investment and neoliberal capitalism. If he is ever brought to power, he would prove to be an even bigger disaster. His comparison with the rise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is totally erroneous.

Z A Bhutto’s meteoric rise was due to a programme of a complete socio-economic transformation through a socialist revolution. He was propelled into political power on the crest of the revolutionary wave that swept the country in 1968-69. Imran Khan’s rise is not based on a mass upheaval but through the media that wants to maintain the capitalist system. His support base is mainly the petit bourgeoisie and his right-wing populism is shallow and reactionary. The streaks of chauvinism and autocratic despotism are visible in his politics and character. His repressive regime could provoke a mass revolt.

The masses are bewildered and seething with revolt given the appalling conditions of their existence. Four years ago, on December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in the wake of a mass upsurge that erupted on her return from exile. The election campaign that had turned into a militant movement of the masses was beginning to threaten the state and the system. This was in spite of the compromises Benazir had made with the rulers and their system through the auspices of imperialism. When the state failed to quell the uprising by other means, their last resort was the elimination of the point of reference of the movement itself.

Her assassination was a fatal blow for the mass movement that was crushed by a counter-revolution led by right-wing cronies at the helm of her party. Paradoxically, it was also the PPP that became a tradition of the masses after the 1968-69 revolution. That setback allowed the elites to rule and aggressively unleash cuts and attacks on the working classes. The masses suffered in agony in this period. Now that pain is transforming into anger. The oppressed classes are on the verge of a new revolt. Nothing less than a socialist revolution can emancipate them.