My Pakistan Diary: The Feudal

Shahid (not his real name) came to pick us up at our hotel in his chauffeured-driven Mercedes car. In his spotless, starched shalwar-kameez, he cut an impressive figure. Shahid lives in Lahore but still manages his ancestral land, which he visits once a week or more frequently. He was to take us to his village in the interior of Panjab. After the introductions were over, we got into his car and started our journey to his village.

The route to Lahore-Islamabad motorway goes through the pleasant environs of the Panjab University’s new campus. The parkway runs alongside a canal and is lined with trees on both sides. It took us about twenty or so minutes to get to the M2 motorway connecting Lahore with Islamabad. Once on the motorway, one feels that one has come out of Pakistan and is on a North American highway. The motorway is truly world class and Pakistanis can be justly proud of it. The achievement lies not so much in building the highway –it was built by the now-defunct South Korean giant Daewoo- but in how it has been maintained to international standards; the surface was smooth all the way with no potholes and the car could easily race at the maximum speed, and more, without any problem.

The limited-access Tollway consists of six lanes and runs through 338 kilometers of the Panjab heartland, crossing its all three rivers. The Tollway has service stations and rest houses on the highway and one need not get off the highway to access them. The washrooms at these service stations were quite clean and odourless; I saw an attendant pick up and throw away a cigarette stub in the trash can as soon as someone carelessly threw it on the ground.

The Tollway has a speed limit of 120 kilometres which is rigorously enforced. It is the only place in Pakistan where one has to wear a seat belt. A specially trained and adequately paid police force is equipped with cruisers to ensure that violators don’t get away by bribing or flaunting high connections. I happened to meet a young officer of the motorway in a hotel lobby and was impressed with his demeanor. It showed to me that, with proper training, incentives and equipment, our police forces can be as professional as those in any advanced country.

I also noticed that the Tollway did not seem very busy. Shahid told us that it was a lot busier than it used to be; the toll charges had been reduced from Rs. 400 to Rs. 200 to increase its usage. But I was also told that the usefulness of the Tollway should not be measured only by the intensity of its use; it had connected the economy of the hinterland with the major markets more efficiently; for example, it now takes Shahid just a few hours to ship his products from his village to Lahore as compared to a day or longer on the old highway.

About midway along the length of the motorway, we got off the highway and were back to the reality of Pakistan of some kutcha, some pukka, and some kutcha-pukka roads. We passed through agricultural fields where women were working and walking together without any hijab or burqa. After driving on such roads for about an hour or so, we reached Shahid’s village. His estate is spread over more than 400 acres of irrigated land. The land was purchased by Shahid’s astute great-grandfather. He was a patwari during the British time, patwari being the lowest official but a crucial lynchpin of the revenue administration system introduced by Raja Todar Mal, a minister of the Mughal emperor, Akbar, and adopted by the British Raj. When he learnt that the British were going to develop an extensive irrigation system of canals to link Panjab’s rivers, he had the farsight to purchase a large tract of the barren land for a very small sum. As the land became irrigated, it turned into gold and is now the most fertile area of Panjab.

We entered the village through acres after acres of orange groves, which is the dominant produce of Shahid’s estate. Shahid keeps in touch with the latest experiments at the Agricultural University and makes full use of them. In addition, the estate also grows vegetables, sugarcane, bamboo, wheat and other cereals, mostly for the consumption of the village. The village now consists of 70 or so people, although it was a lot bigger at one time. The Shahid estate was also bigger than it is now as he finds it harder to find people to work; the young men from the village are finding the city lights irresistible.

A short drive through the orchards of oranges and bamboo trees led to Shahid’s haveli. It was a large mansion built for an old lavish rural lifestyle. The original haveli is more than 100 years old but it has gone through extensive renovations, such as converting old horse stable into bedrooms. The family was apparently into horse breeding at one time and still owns a few horses. The living quarters are equipped with all modern amenities, such as hot and cold running water and air-conditioning. Still, the haveli retains its old world charm, with its large and spacious courtyard, kitchen with wood burning choolah-stove and a horse stable. Shahid took us around the haveli. It had two large rooms which stored old and antique furniture and objects, such as sandooks, trunks, gramophones, memorabilia and other knick-knacks. I got the impression that Shahid is perhaps not fully congnizant of the heritage he is preserving.

The word spread quickly about Shahid’s arrival and some people came and gathered to greet us. They seemed respectful to Shahid and us but there was no sign of groveling or demeaning humility one might associate with the wards of a feudal. Some old-style cots were brought out. They took their seats on homemade stools of somewhat lower height than our cots. We lounged comfortably on the cots with large gao-takiya cushions and were given home-made khes-comforters to ward off the cool breeze. We had tea and homemade savouries and started chatting with villagers, especially about how life has changed from the old days. We were told that the village was self-sufficient in the necessities of life and everything needed by the villagers, except salt, was produced in the village itself, even now.

The village economy in the old days worked on the barter system, or what sociologists call the ‘jajmaani’ system. In this system, everyone in the village, from mochi to maulvi, provided his services in exchange for grain. Everyone was given certain number of ‘topas’, a measure of grain, determined by the deemed worth of one’s contribution to the village life. Now, everyone in the village, including the local teacher and maulvi, works for Shahid and paid by him at the time of the harvest.

In the old days when the Muzaara system prevailed, the land was cultivated by muzaarays; however, that system was abolished, first by Ayub Khan and then by Zulqikar Bhutto. The size of land holdings that could be leased for cultivation by a landlord to his tenants was reduced to a maximum of 200 acres. Shahid’s family, like other landlords, then bought tractors and switched to cultivating land by themselves with the help of paid labourers.

We went to bed late by the village standards. I was awakened in the morning by a maulvi’s azaan while it was still dark, which seemed a bit early for the Fajar namaz. Another azaan followed an hour or so later. I was told on enquiry that, in addition to the five compulsory prayers, there is provision in islam also for an optional pre-dawn namaz. As the sun rose, my wife and I went for a walk in the village; a servant of the house followed along and soon we found a small crowd of children following us. The village life starts early in the morning and it was still a traditional life, with someone milking his water-buffalo and others starting their early morning chores. We went back home to have a heavy breakfast and went into the orchard to have our pictures taken among the high piles of oranges, presumably picked a day earlier. Thus ended our visit to a small feudal village.

It is not the purpose of this article to praise the feudal system, I have read too many books and articles on economics and sociology for that. However, since there is recurrent discussion at this forum on the evils of the feudal system, I wanted to put a human face to it. The question has been raised frequently as to why voters seem to elect feudal landlords again and again in preference to professional politicians. It seems to me that one of the reasons may be the strong personal bond that binds the feudal with his people. This paternalistic bond entails a set of mutual rights, obligations and loyalties; the feudal is as much bound in this relationship to provide for the social as well as economic well-being of his ward as the ward is bound by his loyalty to the feudal landlord. I met with some very old people who came to the village when they were adolescents and never went back to their old homelands.

When we went back to Lahore, we spent some time with a woman from another feudal family now staying in Lahore. She had brought all the household help she needed, from maali to chauffeur, from her husband’s village. Her chauffeur, who drove us to the Wagah border, told us with a sense of pride that his family has been serving the lady’s family for seven generations. These are strong bonds. If the professional politician has to penetrate those bonds and win the confidence of the people, s/he will have to not only make promises but deliver them in the way the feudal does.