On the Inside

Bina,
I am afraid this is a rather simplistic and feeble attempt to defend feudalism. Actually, you are not defending the feudalism but the mid to small land holding class. The mid to small land holding class though referred to as Wadera or feudal are not feudal in any way. I too belong to a mid level landholding family. I share your sentiments but there are many inequities and problems in the countryside that come from the feudal mindset of even the mid size land holding families.

There are just a few large-scale Landowners (the true Feudal) left in Sindh, all of them are heavily in debt, and their lands mortgaged to the tilt. Actually, banks own their properties. They are supporting large families but still want to look big and spend borrowed money on politics, parties, and marriage ceremonies.

Unfortunately, Sindh is so far behind in social development that sometime I feel the Sindhi land owning or even the Haris would never come out of the rut.
Whenever I go to Pakistan, I find the same set of people sitting in clubs, in their homes in Karachi or Hyderabad just drinking, looking to buy cars from loan sharks or begging bankers to get some more loans.
Most of them wanna spend time in the cities and leave the lands to Kamdaar. Of course, there are some exceptions but really very few.

Shikarpur, once the pride of Sindh is nothing more than a dirt city now. Same situation with Larkana and many other cities.

I hate to say this but Sindhi nationalism has actually hurt Sindhis the most.

If ``things in pakistan are amiss`` as the author puts it, then the two overwhelming reasons are greed and stupidity, and these traits can be found in the entire population across the board , from elite to peasant.No personal malice is involved in the above statement.The feudals are a convenient scapegoat.

It is often quoted that feudalism started with Mughals. The society was pretty much agarian and egalitarian before that.

Your family`s (father`s) example is not reflection of feudality. Absolute power corrupts absolutely - feudalism is no exception. There are hundreds of cases against feudals oppressions for every defense like yours.

Probably (if youre speaking truth) your father`s attitude is different towards his workers from other feudals is because of his foreign education.

Feudalism, in Pakistan, is the height of the exploitation of labor. Sharecroppers have the fewest rights of any kind of labor in Pakistan. In fact, they are generally at the benevolence of the land-owner……….

The areas in Pakistan, which have the largest landowners, invariably, are the most backwards in the country. They have the largest discrepancies between poor and rich. They have the most backward customs, like honor killings. They have the least opportunities for upward mobility. They have the lowest literacy rates. The statistics are right there for everyone to see………Most of all, they have one family, which controls the destinies of many other families. This article validates that. It actually makes an attempt to justify it. It tries to divide feudals into, “good” feudals and, “bad” feudals.

The easiest way to judge the progressiveness of an area, a system, or organization is to see what kind of possibilities of upward mobility it provides to its residents. Jehlum is an area, which has no feudalism. It has traditionally been poor. It has no good agricultural land. No industry. It is not a major (or even minor) center of commerce. And most of all it has no powerful politicians. It has small farmers based in villages.

Based on the author’s description, Jehlum should have rolled into the sea by now, without the protection of large-scale benevolent landowners, like her family. Yet it is doing fine. It has the second highest literacy rate in Punjab (higher than even Lahore). It has low crime. You will never hear of honor killings, there. When there is an election there, the candidates have to beg everyone to vote for them. No family ever goes to a landowner’s house to plead for mercy, for anything. No single landowner, bestows his benevolence on the farmers, and builds a school for them. The farmers and villagers build the schools themselves, because they own their own land……..Due to the progressive nature of the area, people have gotten educated enough to go abroad as laborers and professionals, into the Army as soldiers and officers etc.

The sole reason Jehlum has been able to do so, is because it has not large-scale (or even mid-scale) landowners trying to provide their benevolence to the peasants and farmers.

Kashmir is the same way. There are girls from my village, who have grown up there and have gone onto higher education and civil services and even abroad. Such luxuries are not reserved for just the daughters’ of the large landowners. My family is one of the wealthiest (relatively speaking) from the village. Yet when I go there, I am no one special. I don’t bestow my benevolence on the local farmers and laborers and workers. I don’t have, “notions of coming back to “lord it” over the poorer members of our society.” Not because I am a nice guy. But because there is nothing to lord over. And if I did try to lord over someone there, they would give me a good kick on my rear end. Even if they were dirt poor. We are all equals.

As long as people do not own their own assets, they will never be able to progress upwards. And the whole basis of feudalism is to ensure that no one, other than a small group, is allowed to own the assets of the area. This is why there are no areas/countries of the world, which have progressed, where feudals are a cornerstone of politics and society…………..

It is thus, quite sad, to see people defending this system, while simultaneously criticizing its consequences, like honor killings, poverty, peasantry etc. It’s the equivalent of someone defending a system, which enables rapes, and justifying their defense by stating that they and their family are not rapists………

The author has tried to sugar-coat and jusfity feudalism. As will nearly all children of large landholders. Doesn`t matter what kind of social and political affiliations, they may have - secular, religious, liberal, conservative, those for honor killings and those against it, pro-USA or anti-USA etc. Somehow or the other, when it comes to their system of land ownership, they are usually all on the same page........Since it is the bread and butter of their social status...........

But before people get overly enamoured by the romantisiced picture of the foreign-educated feudal and his family, trying hard to benevolently assist their poor sharecropper, one should first see how all of this is viewed by International organizations.

Following is a report on bonded labor in Pakistan, by Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Pakistan.htm

``II. THE NATURE OF THE ABUSE

``Reema`` and her husband ``Ali`` live in the interior of Sindh where they work on a sugarcane plantation. For most of their lives they worked for a landlord who beat them frequently. They were confined to his property because he claimed that they were financially indebted to him. ``Reema`` and ``Ali``, however, were convinced that the landlord owed them money as all they received in exchange for their many years of work was food and lodging. Whatever money was needed for basic necessities was extended as a loan from the landlord.

One day in 1990, while working in the fields, ``Reema`` was summoned to the landlord. Upon arriving at his house she was raped. She chose not to register a case against the landlord as she knew it was unlikely that the police would arrest him. Moreover, there was the possibility that by claiming that she was raped, ``Reema`` could be charged with adultery.1

Later that year, unable to live under such unbearable conditions any longer, ``Reema`` and ``Ali`` attempted escape, only to be detained by the local police and jailed in Mir Pur Khas for one month under false charges. Eventually, the police forcibly returned them to the landlord.

In 1992 the couple and their children were sold to another landlord who owns mango orchards. ``Reema`` and ``Ali,`` forced out of their original home,continue to work long hours, cannot leave their place of work, and are subject to vicious beatings. ``Ali`s`` leg was broken in one such beating.

The experience of ``Reema`` and ``Ali`` exemplifies the fate of bonded laborers in Pakistan. Their lives are marked by a consistent pattern of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by their employers who control their labor. This exchange of labor for loans, in a context where a worker is not allowed to negotiate the length or term of his or her employment, constitutes debt-bondage.

Debt-bondage is one of the forms of slavery proscribed by the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956. Pakistani laws, such as the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1992, are consistent with international laws which seek to eliminate the bonded labor system. But those laws are not adequately enforced.

Bonded labor is most widespread in agriculture, particularly in the interior of Sindh and southern Punjab where land distribution is highly inequitable. Bondage in agrarian regions involves the purchase and sale of peasants among landlords, the maintenance of private jails to discipline and punish peasants, the forcible transference of teachers who train peasants to maintain proper financial accounts, and a pattern of rape of peasant women by landlords and the police.

Bonded labor in agriculture often emerges from historically hierarchical relationships between landlords and peasants. These relationships are reinforced by contemporary agricultural policies which give landlords privileged access to land, resources, and credit. In many cases peasant children inherit the debt, and thus the working conditions, of their parents.``

Bina Shah, as long as the `feudals` reject `feudal-mentality`, they are no longer feudals and hence are simply land-owners.

Have you seen the nature of the estates in the U. S. of A? Their Pakistani counterparts look like chicken-feed in comparision.

Btw Romair, industrialists control the lives of thousands of people directly via their factories, and indirectly the lives of alot more who are also involved in indirect changes brought about the certain factory.

The fact of the matter is, the land-lords of Pakistan are our citizens, and scape-goating them is only going to result in more turmoil. They are our citizens, and they have every right to maintain their lands, as long they do not undermine the supremacy of the Pakistani constitution and the federal.

Any one who undermines that, irrespective of his caste, creed, religion, or ethncity, should be brought before our judicary.

Look, the thing is that we can not focus on one thing and blame it for all our ills. European farms are relatively small sized compared to Australian and American farms.

I don`t agree with Bina Shah that the land-lord class will finish in a generation or two. Their power has been reduced significantly as of late but I think they have received the wake up call. They are putting their childern in the best Pakistani educational institutions, and they are advising their childern to seek higher education abroad as well. The land lords, like many other groups in Pakistan ,are mostly loaded with cash, and they will invest this many in industry and other projects in order to retain their former glory. The land-lords are entering into the industrial and commerce realm as well now. They are establishing their feet in both realms, essentially increasing their stake in the development and evolution of Pakistan.

I was gonna write how Omair was gonna kick up a storm over this article..but he`s already done that!

Anyway a comment I have always made goes like this: Feudalism is a mentality..a culture of impunity that comes from power restricted to that specific family or by it`s extension relations or friends, used for the purposes of patronage. This is not unique to landlords..(and landlords while influential are no longer the be all and end all of Pak politics) ..you have Industrial Feudals (Nawaz Sharif and the Chorys of Gujrat being excellent examples) you have military feudals (Okara, Fauji Foundations heads?, Military heads of cantonment boards?), Civil servant feudals (previously DC`s and Commissioners)

Thank you! Zak, for that thought-provoking reply.

The `feudal-mentality` is a mindset, which is a cancer to our society. It needs to be eradicted. Nepotism, cronyism, patronage system, and a multitude of other such retroggressive practices all need to be stamped out.

Bina

I agree with you. You are an insider and are factualy correct.

`Fuedalism` is one of those cliches/slogans that refuses to die. Just like `Pakistan was created for Islam`.

Ayub reduced the land holdings to 20 squares. Bhutto reduced them to 6 squares. However, the calculations were based on the Produce Index and it was done during the British days when Sind was a desert. It was never revised. Canals came to Sind making it green. So Sind did end up with bigger land holdings than Punjab.

There are no more fuedals in Punjab. There are a few big land holders in Sind but they can be counted on the finger tips. They are certainly not the biggest problem that Pakistan is facing.

And with every generation, the cake automatically keeps becoming smaller automatically. Zamindar-Muzzarah is a centuries old system. It is a dying a slow natural death. Let it die the natural way. Or do the people prefer a cultural revolution and kill a million innocent souls?

Most of the criticism comes from the city dwellers who see a Zamindar in starched white clothes with a few servents around driving a shiny new car. These city dwellers do not realize that the car was bought through a tractor loan and those servents are the simple folks who love to move around and hang out for free. Zamindar-Muzzarah relationship is not of an employer-employee. It is more of a social relationship of obligation and kinship. The Muzzarahs get free housing or at least land to make their house. Wood for roof is provided by the Zamindar. In most cases, they get the fodder free from the Zamindar for cattle. Zamindar helps them out in their marriages. He provides them medicine. Even pays fees for their children in schools. He gets them jobs in the cities. Zamindar is a part of the social system that is value-based and not cash-driven.

The Muzzarahs in villages live a much fuller life than the city poor. They live in clean air, drink pure milk and water and eat fresh food. They live in a familiar friendly community and have a social support system unlike the lonely life of the city poor in the shanty towns.

Back to the wealth of a Zamindar. That Zamindar in starched clothes with servents can be purchased a couple of times by that small realter at the corner of the street or the Aharti in the Jooria Bazaar. Every owner of the multi-storey building along the miles and miles of the Shahrah Faisal is many times richer than these Zamindars.

The Zamindar puts all the equity into his profession unlike the industrialist who puts only 30% or less. The Zamindars have twice gone through these land reforms giving away their property for free. How would you like if the State took away 50% of your bank balance just to reduce the size of your bank balance or took away half of your shops, industry or business!

Only those Zamindars/Fuedals have spare cash on hand who are into the industry or business or lucrative professions.

As you said, it is a mindset. It is pointless beating this `fuedalism` horse again and again. The only thing they have is `Votes` provided they are worth it.

Having said all the above, there are indeed some rascal Fuedals - just as there are some rascal industrialists, businessmen, beauracrats, faujis etc etc etc.

nhk

Bina Shah:

By reading your article I don’t seem to have a clear possible solution to get rid of Feudalism and miseries associated to the poor labors and workers Hari who are stick and bound to self created miserable traits. By making yourself a worthy Landlord who has awareness that things are not going on right but fiscally attached to the same wheel of making money which makes poor 10 feet away more poor is good romantically not honestly.

And your argument that Pakistan is turning into industrialization by Land Owners is not a true statement. Exporting the rich breeds outside country whilst implementing some test control systems for quality insurance rather assurance to meet the international trends of the global market of even Asia to earn Capita still makes the Feudal richer and thus making an average Pakistani deprived from good food.

And the situation doesn’t become good even if a Feudal drops his crown and becomes a Hari him/herself. The thing is that there should be a struggle to ensure land reforms thus utilizing efforts by government of Pakistan to establish rules to eliminate feudalism and take the land in its own custody and then all farmers are facilitated by adopting the modern techniques for irrigation. And given jobs and the money cashed from crops should be equalized between them. The farmers with basic education should be sent abroad to earn higher education in their technicalities and then they implement plans in there area with R&D support organization helps.

#9 by nazarhayatkhan

I am afraid there is no need to present even the mid size landowners as saints. They do horrendous things and majority of Hari live in deplorable conditions because of the Zamindar and his shenanigans.

There really is no excuse for the current system. We can argue about it as much as we want but the reality is no matter how small these land holders are, they attempt to perpetuate a system that is based of graft and utter disregard of human dignity.

Hari suffer throughout their lives and Zamindar small and large attempt to keep them tied down to the land by fake loans and as someone mentioned bonded labor based on loan system.

On the other side, many hari and their families have begun to take advantage of the free schooling and NGO’s presence in the areas to move for a better life. If this trend continues the system would reverse itself over a period of time.

re: Bina

I am sorry, but I will have to disagree with you on this issue. Please forgive my boorishness, but the fact that a rape can be argued as an act of love, does not make it an act of love! Feudalism is wrong. Period.

re: HP # 1 & 11

Good posts. Feudalism cannot be justifed and it will only be abolished once it starts to be considered as a sin against humanity. Presently, most of the politicans are representative of this class and even if they are industrialists or business professionals as Haroon Ellahi correctly states, they still have the enough nostaglic traditionalism left to seek its continued existence. There is no will or wish to end feudalism, but there is every indication to prolong it as seen in the behavior of the asemblies on the issue of honor killings and attempes to ban it.

re: haroonellahi # 6

Haroon, factually your post is accurate, but my concern is that itself does not spell an end to the institution of feudalism, as much as it explains the mutation of feudalism into a different form.

Ciao

Fuedalism would have been proved to be a progressive institution by now if children of all landowners (read fuedals) were good writers like Bina.

In this article the author desperately tried to defend her family from the feudalism tag even admitting being one of those, in a very ridiculous manner, I don’t know why? . Almost every line of the article represents her own feudal thinking, what can we say about her family. All praise for father represents only what he did for his own family and nothing is there what he did for the people. He stood in heat really a unique thing, he didn’t traveled in air conditioned jeeps I fancy what a brave thing to do, he sent his own children to study abroad what good does it carry for the haris. Did he provide fans and electricity to haris? Did he give them their due part of earnings so that they can get a decent life? Did he open schools to educate them? All of that is mentioned is only for his family in a typical feudal way. Sending their siblings abroad is also a matter of pride among some open minded feudal. Just the following sentences are enough to represent the feudal mentality of the author herself.

``But if you saw some of these people and how they lived, you would realize that owning their own land is an economic proposition that not only would be out of their reach, but would destroy the farming system of the entire nation.``

Where does his father earn from? Of course the lands and then invests that money on the lands to get more profit. What does make those people to live “the way” they lived? They lived so shabbily even working hard day and night because all of the profit is taken by the land owners. They will not live definitely “the way” if they are given their due part in profit. I agree that giving the ownership of the lands to haris definitely does not resolve the whole issue. It needs multidimensional long term reforms from the government to create the new working cycle. It involves education and training with initial funding to the haris to cultivate their own lands. Then of course these people will also live ``the way`` the respected author and her family live and she will be able to consider them humans.

Another observation in this context is that like in civil system the middle class group which is approaching lower middle class and are just tagged with the nomenclature the feudal system which is getting stronger on upper levels.In media too I saw that the ZameenDaar are addressed as Kashtkar…Cultivator
So the actual definition of Kashtkar in Pakistan is altered to the credit of the Land Owner and the peasent level has gone so much down under poverty line that diminished to exist to address in a formal way and deplored as Haris.
The privileges and the rights that should be accessible to peasants are inherited uproot by the Feudals.
This is an observation which I noted as I grew…
Remember :
First we used to listen for peasent policies: Kisan Bhayio.n kay liye Paigham
Now we listen: Kashtkaro kay liye Paigham

I agree with you HP.
Bina, I can`t understand how an educated urbanite like you fall for such feudal sentimentalism? This reminds me of Hamida Khuro, the former Sindh minister who used to write all these apologist articles regarding feudalism in the papers.