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A Tale From Sahiwal

Allama Syed Zia Ullah Shah Bukhari is an emerging scholar and a leader of the Jamiat Ahle-Hadith, based in Sahiwal. His life revolves around 3 basic acts - giving sermons, going for a Hajj or Umrah every year, and opposing the PPP. Allama Syed Zia Ullah Shah Bukhari has on several occasions labeled Zaki Chaudry - the party's district president, his leaders, and his party as a whole, as the collective voice of Satan in Sahiwal.

Two weeks ago, when Allama sahab came back from his yearly trip to Mecca and Madina, he appeared to be under considerable stress. Many around him inquired as to what exactly seemed to be on his mind and how they could help. Allama sahab, in return, asked his many, many supporters to prepare the stage for a public gathering on the 10th of September.

*****

Invitations were sent, the tent was put up, the stage was set. Allama Syed Zia Ullah Shah Bukhari was due to speak in 45 minutes. The front row of the audience, red sofas, whilst everybody else squatted on the floor, was occupied by the President of the Anjuman-i-Tajiran Sahiwal city, the proprietor of a major ghee mill, and a local landlord. After recitation from the Holy Quran and a Naat, Allama Syed Zia Ullah Shah Bukhari came to the stage, and began to unburden his mind.

*****

"I walked out to the courtyard of Masjid-e-Nabwi, and fell asleep on the marble floor. In my dream, I saw a woman with her back to me, she was dressed in a white abaya, with white gloves, and white shoes. As I approached her, she turned, and smiled. It was none other than Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed. 

(silence in the crowd). 

'Allama Sahab', she said, 'This is not the time; I will visit you again'. 

I woke up, my forehead clammy, my arms and legs trembling. I did not understand what was happening. Two hours later, she visited me again. Mohtarma, dressed in white, smiling, asking me to gather my strength for an arduous task. TO GATHER THREE PEOPLE!

(he names two out of the three sitting in the front row, adding that he's forgotten the name of the third person Mohtarma had mentioned, his volume rising with each word)

TO GATHER ALL MY OTHER FRIENDS FOR A LONG FIGHT AGAINST DARKNESS, INJUSTICE, AND KUFR, ALL FOR THE GLORY OF ISLAM; TO OPEN AN ELECTION OFFICE IN SAHIWAL CITY ANDDDDD TO SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF ISLAM WITH THE HELP OF THE PAKISTAN PEOPLES PARTY!!! "

NAAARAAAAA-E-TAKBEEER!!!!

Morality and Justice in Pakistan

And so another tumultuous chapter in Pakistan’s political history draws to a close. The Court has ruled, the Election Commission has notified, and the PM has been told that his services are no longer required. In the coming weeks, we’ll read a lot about the judgment, the factors that led to the judgment, and the political implications of the judgment. Media reaction will be scrutinized, the PPP will be put under the microscope, and a few anchors will wail about how all of this ignores the woes of the common man. Ruckus and shor-sharaba aside though, one thing worth noting in the immediate aftermath of Gilani’s disqualification was pervasiveness of the ‘well done Supreme Court’ sentiment on television, and more starkly, on social media platforms.

Even the strongest critics of our higher judiciary, and the most ardent of PPP loyalists will have to admit one thing:  the Supreme Court, and its Chief Justice are immensely popular within certain segments of the population.

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Between 2008 and now, the Chief Justice and the rest of the higher judiciary have obtained a status that can only be classified as supra societal. The romanticism associated with the judiciary - in the public imagination - sets it apart as a functional institution in a dysfunctional society. A symbol of salvation in an otherwise dog-eat-dog world. The last resort, the long awaited savior, the ultimate arbiter. Interestingly enough though, if our history was anything to go by, such lofty praise and sentiment shouldn’t have lasted for this long. The army would know, they’ve been on the receiving end of this arsh se farsh treatment on at least three occasions. Yet here we are, 5 years on from when a group of boisterous (later on, rowdy) lawyers took to the streets to protest the arbitrary dismissal of their spiritual leader, and the reputation is not only intact, it glows more brightly than ever before thanks to support from some mainstream political parties. It’s a testament to this unblemished character that even a dubious son and a shady billionaire couldn’t uncover the inherent humanness and corruptibility of the higher judiciary. The popular response to the allegations leveled by Malik Riaz, most notably from the PTI and the PML-N, was that street action is required to save the Chief Justice from such malevolent attacks.

To argue that the Court’s popularity is limited to a particular province, or a particular class would be infinitely lazy. From Chitral to Quetta, and all the way down to Karachi, you will find people - poor, middle class, or rich - who feel that the Chief Justice and his robed brethren are the only bulwark in preventing society’s spiral towards complete socio-economic and moral breakdown. But what is worth pointing out, however, is that a particular class, mostly hailing from a particular province is responsible for developing, upholding, and propagating this narrative of salvation. It is the Punjabi middle and upper-middle class, (the professionals, the commercial groups, and the intelligentsia), that was most vocal and active during the lawyers’ movement, and remains the most active in seeking political redress through the higher judiciary. Little surprise that the two parties most organically linked to this societal strata were also petitioners seeking the Prime Minister’s disqualification.

Knowing which groups and classes are responsible for defining the judiciary’s political and social capital is hardly sufficient for understanding intra-state tensions and the changing nature of political contestation in the country. The key to understanding these phenomena lies with recognizing the ideological, cultural and socio-economic ethos of the core pro-CJ, or as someone recently said, jaan nisar camp.

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The idea that Pakistan needs saving is probably as old as the country itself. It was the driving sentiment behind the dismissal of the constituent assembly in 1954, behind Iskander Mirza’s coup in 1958, and behind every similar act from that moment on. This concept of salvation, in turn, emerges at the junction of morality, economics, and politics, and finds voice through middle class groups, such as the intelligentsia and educated professionals. Little surprise that when Pakistan’s moral fabric required saving in 2007, it was members of the middle class that came out on the streets, many for the first time in their lives.

So what was it about the Chief Justice that made people shed two decades of political disassociation and turn to the streets in a bid to support Him? Part of the explanation is that the middle class, especially in Punjab, is far less provincial and far more nationalistic than those found in other provinces. Punjab, being the most privileged province out of the four, partially by default and partially by design, plays host to an ethos of technocratic superiority that aims to transcend the messiness of Pakistan’s democratic process. Talk to any educated Punjabi, especially from the northern and central districts, and you’ll get a run-down on how ‘narrow thinking’, ethnically charged, and law-evading leaders are preventing Pakistan from progressing. Hence the CJ at that point in time represented all that was good and moral about upholding rule of law, overriding any doubts that might be cast on the basis of his previous act of constitutional abrogation.

Coupled with this disdain for politics, is a moral code that borrows heavily from religious notions of justice, fairness, and public behavior. While nobody actually ascribes to these notions on a day-to-day basis, they end up serving an important purpose as a standard of public morality, and hence a yardstick for measuring who is ‘fit’ to govern. By this calculus, politicians who are perceived to be venal and corrupt are not only incompetent, they are also religiously amoral.

Viewed in the light of this middle class culture, the religious references, and moral proclamations in judgments by the Supreme Court contribute further to its popularity. The moral middle class, while being small in absolute size, manages to make its impact felt on the larger polity through its presence in the media, in public sector universities, and increasingly over the last five years through professional associations like the bar councils.

A change in the intra-state dynamics, one that’s seen the steady assertion of the Supreme Court in political affairs would not have been possible without the cultivation of a powerful constituency in society. The problem for Pakistan is that while this constituency seems willing to back a political party like the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), it still prefers a supra societal institution, like the army or the courts, in the role of an all-powerful guardian, undertaking interventions to rectify perceived political and moral excesses. With an environment like the one we have now, it’s fairly plausible to question whether parliament can substantively function in the shadow of another institution that claims to represent the will of the people.

Originally published in The Friday Times on 22/06/2012

Urbanization and its Discontents

Liaquatpur is a settlement of approximately forty thousand people, located half an hour away from Rahim Yar Khan city. The town’s economy is largely dependent on the retail/wholesale sector, and on transport and storage businesses, which in turn, are closely linked to its main produce market. The town center houses a public sector degree college, three private commerce and information technology colleges, an English language training center, at least 2 gyms (for men), 3 beauty parlors, 1 snooker club, and what appears to be the indigenous version of a popular fast food chain. All of this, obviously, is over and above the countless number of grocery and produce retailers, mobile phone vendors, arhtis, and cloth merchants.

Based on what little of Punjab I’ve seen, there is nothing about Liaquatpur which distinguishes it from countless other settlements located all over the province. Take a trip from Rawalpindi to Lahore on the N-5 and you’ll encounter Liaquatpurs of varying shapes and sizes after every 15 minutes. Turn west towards Sargodha, and the landscape might change, the dialect certainly becomes harsher, but the small town with its garish IT institute and commerce college billboards maintains an ubiquitous presence. So much so, that a friend of mine who once left Lahore, for a weeklong trip to discover the idyllic, untouched, and mostly imaginary plains of rural Punjab, came back thoroughly disappointed.

Ali Zafar, he told me, is inescapable. He’s selling cellular connections everywhere.

---------

On paper, Punjab’s urbanization stands at approximately 30%, which basically means that 3 out of every 10 people live in areas that folks at the statistics bureau classify as urban. This figure, according to urbanization experts like Reza Ali, is grossly underestimated thanks in part to the continued usage of outdated definitions and partly due to a seemingly infinite intercensal period. Hard distinctions, (never easy to develop), are now impossible to create as countless rural union councils (and there are around 2486 of them) have developed urban pockets over the last 15 years, and now stand contiguous with those classified as completely urban (978 by the end of last year). What’s harder to capture, and infinitely more interesting, is how the ethos of the province has changed from peasant proprietor haven under the Raj -  (the Punjabi peasant is a hard-working, content subject who wants nothing more than an acre of land and a fresh stream of water) - to an upwardly mobile, rabidly consumerist market in more contemporary times.

To account for more qualitative changes, it’s easy to divide them into two distinct (but not mutually exclusive) categories. On one side, lies the development of new sub-cultures in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas. Changing dietary preferences, and an association with what are perceived to be ‘urban’ trends like western dressing, mobile communication, and even educational choices, mark recent investment in towns across Punjab. Only a week ago, a popular domestic fast-food chain based out of Lahore advertised franchise opportunities in 26 locations across Punjab. Most of these locations, like Chichawatni, Kharian, Wazirabad, Jauharabad, and Sadiqabad, are those that have seen mini population booms in the last two decades. Similarly, private colleges guaranteeing ‘market-based’ education in the English language (for a reasonable fee) are now seen as functional alternatives to the less expensive, but more competitive public sector institutes. Mian Amir’s Punjab Group of Colleges, with campuses in 13 districts for example, is one such flagship example.

20 years ago, the thought of a shawarma outlet, or a shopping mall, or even an IT college in some of these locations would’ve seemed preposterous. In 2012 however, these ideas are not only relevant, but businessmen are busy making millions off this new consumerist ethos.

The other category of qualitative transformation has been in the political sphere -  specifically in terms of how people vote (patronage based or autonomous), the relevance of primordial identity (clan, ethnicity, language), and the emergence of new political actors. Like the Janus-faced nature of capitalistic development elsewhere in the third world, the vibrant consumerism of Punjab’s new middle class hides a number of more sinister changes. For starters, the linearity of modernization theory, which posits a change from traditional social organization to more individualized existence, has failed to materialize in any meaningful way, except maybe in some suburban parts of the biggest cities. In a bargain between the new and the old, hybrid forms of social organization and interaction have emerged that use both economic and cultural means to form patronage networks. One such manifestation of this trend has been in the vastly informal sector of secondary manufacturing and retail in Punjab, which relies on the fragmentation, co-option and oppression of labor through a variety of economic and cultural means. Labor agents, colloquially referred to as jobbers, use a variety of biraderi and clan-based ties to market and sell off unemployed, unskilled workers to small-scale manufacturing concerns, and in some cases, to employers in the Gulf.

It is these small-scale businessmen, traders, transporters, and retailers that have emerged as a political force over the last 30 years - both as the backbone of the PML-N and as an independent ‘civil society’ formation. Collective groups like the All Pakistan Anjuman-i-Tajiran (APAT) and All Punjab Transporters Association (APTA) have exerted their political influence on policy-making - most recently exemplified in their successful efforts to remove Form D from the Income Tax return document.

But perhaps nothing gives a better indication of the mix of cultural, political and economic changes than the entrenchment of religious groups and movements throughout the province. Whether it’s the popularity of the Al-Huda movement within upper-middle class females of Lahore and Rawalpindi, or the more class-cutting, revivalist appeal of the Tableeghi Jamaat, or even the militant interpretations of fundamentalist organizations, Islam has formed an almost organic relationship with the process of transformation. Trader groups patronize religious organizations in return for both divine favor, and worldly assistance during elections and public demonstrations. In parts of South Punjab, the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) cadre has found common cause with elements within the Seraiki province movement, using religious and linguistic denomination as another wedge in a society already divided along socio-economic and native (muqami)-settler (abadkar) lines.

Enhanced mobility, communication, and outreach – all of which are characteristics of rapid urbanization – serve as catalysts in exacerbating socio-economic, religious, and cultural differences. While Punjab’s emerging middle class boom remains a fascinating phenomenon, it is worth noting that it masks a number of deeper, structural problems - such as ethno-linguistic tensions, militant fundamentalism, and labor oppression. It remains to be seen whether a corrective form of politics can emerge within the province, which ultimately seeks to counter the more worrying aspects of its transformation. 

Originally published in the Friday Times on 15/06/2012

The Provincial Question

At the time of writing, 12 people were reported to have been killed, and another 29 injured, after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a rally protesting against the idea of a Muhajir province. While the spontaneous, and now seemingly endemic, nature of violence in Karachi remains a pressing matter, what is perhaps even more telling is that the violence erupted on an issue that doesn’t exist in any meaningful form. 12 people, most of them innocent by-standers, have been killed over anonymous graffiti advocating a separate province for the Muhajir population of Sindh.

This is Pakistan – where wall chalking is enough to paralyze a city of 20 million people.

The concepts of autonomy, identity, and spatial claim, which dictated both the graffiti and the Sindhi nationalist reaction, have characterized Pakistani politics since independence but the issue of new provinces has become an important rallying point for sub-national political actors over the last 3-4 years. More than that, these last few years have seen a steady, and complementary rise in the formal acknowledgement of this debate - by mainstream political actors, by the media, and by the intelligentsia in general. Depending on where you find yourself, the sanctity of having just 4, constitutionally ordained provinces has ceased to exist in the public realm.

The Historical Roots of Provincial Politics in Pakistan

Like many other things in this country, the demand for sub-national political autonomy can be traced back to the politics of the colonial era, and to Partition itself. India, till formal colonization in 1858, had historically existed as a loose confederation of semi-autonomous fiefdoms, connected to a distant center through taxes, and a vague idea of allegiance to an Emperor. All of this changed after colonization as the British got to work installing a modern, hierarchically arranged system of political and administrative organization, while still using the village as a basing building block. The major difference, apart from the codification of law, and property rights, was that the village now found itself within a much-expanded domain of politics. Above the village was a tehsil and then, ultimately, the district. For many matters, such as revenue, rights-based mobilizations, and litigation, the district, and finally the province, became the new frontiers of the Indian political imagination.

Given the way that the British devolved administrative authority, it comes as little surprise that the initial bursts of political demands were organized at the local and provincial level, and sought avenues for provincial participation. The Congress, while boasting a strong All-India presence, ultimately relied on its provincial and district cadre for its actual politics, and in the the case of the Muslim League, the demand for Pakistan, and its eventual success was premised on the provincial elections of 1946, and the strength of the party in the provinces of Punjab, NWFP, Sindh, and Bengal.

The provincial nature of the independence movement ultimately gave way to a new contradiction in the post-1947 scenario. Pakistan found itself in the rather uncomfortable position of balancing out the exigencies of a seceding state – as determined by a migrant elite, which had no geographical base in the new country - and the demand for greater resources, autonomy, and recognition by the various provincial and indigenous ethnic groups. Between 1947, and the secession of Bangladesh in 1971, the language of politics revolved around ethnicity, representation, exploitation, and the demand for greater autonomy. Fighting the center, both in terms of its socio-economic reach, and its cultural hegemony (Islam, anti-India, Urdu) became organic outcomes of the political landscape in Pakistan.

The Legal Roots of Provincial Politics in Pakistan

Despite peddling centralizing legal and socio-cultural frameworks, each military regime has been unsuccessful in killing off the confederative essence imbedded in Pakistani politics. Just because the state wanted to imagine a unified Pakistani nation - huddled under religious slogans, the Urdu language, and united in its dislike for India - into existence, didn’t mean that it would be particularly successful at this task. If anything, the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the nation-building project was drastically exposed by the secession of East Pakistan.

Since then, various governments have attempted to reign in sub-national sentiment through a variety of means – all of which have proven to be mostly unsuccessful. The fact remains that the constitution, even prior to the 18^th amendment, clearly delineated Pakistan as a federation, and now with provinces being granted a much fairer degree of fiscal, legislative, and administrative authority, and with provincial political stakes much higher, there exists an added incentive for provincial and sub-national movements to exert their demands.

The Demand from Below

If you talk to people belonging to the middle and upper middle classes in North and Central Punjab, they’re most likely to reduce the Seraiki, Hazara, Muhajir or Bahawalpur movement as a product of elite manipulation and instrumentalization. ‘they’re making fools out of simpletons for their own gain’, they’ll say, without hesitation. There are multiple reasons for this dismissive reaction, chief amongst them being this particular demographics’ adoption of the statist narrative regarding Pakistani identity. Some of the more earnest ones will respond by saying ‘but why can’t we just forget all these primitive divisions and just become Pakistanis…’. In either case, cynical belligerence or earnest ignorance, one can see exactly why movements that stand in opposition to such views become genuinely popular and, ultimately, confrontational.

The popularity aspect is built on two main strands of reasoning found within each of the provincial movements currently active in Pakistan. The primary strand, emotive and suitably vague, focuses on cultural and historical reasons for a new province. The Seraiki movement, for example, uses a narrative of foreign subjugation, Sufi culture, their language, and civilizational homogeneity to construct its case. The much more recent Bahawalpur movement has a some-what distorted view on history as it calls for a ‘restoration’ of its provincial status. This particular understanding is patently false - Bahawalpur was subsumed under the one-unit as a princely state and never enjoyed provincial status -  but it remains widely popular in both Bahawalpur and Rahimyar Khan district. The Muhajir movement, once popular during the early 90s, and threatening to re-emerge again, is premised on a narrative of migrant sacrifice, patriotism, and the projection of a strong, middle class ethos.

The secondary strand, i.e. the crass, reality driven one that ultimately determines the movement’s viability, is based on the contestation over political and economic resources. In Rahim Yar Khan for example, the business community, most of which is non-Seraiki, is very mindful of exactly what it stands to gain if Bahawalpur is declared a province. Similarly, economic interests, whether they are ruthless business related pursuits, or noble quests for eradicating poverty and underdevelopment have become important determinants in the Seraiki province movement, the Hazara movement, and as has always been the case, in Muhajir nationalism.

The added advantage of such projections is that they appeal to segments of the middle class population in these areas. Bahauddin Zakariya University, for example, has seen a strong surge in the total number of students who openly advocate for the bifurcation of Punjab. The identity question, coupled with growing disenchantment with a sinking economy, fortifies their view that a new province could very well be the most appropriate panacea. The question of provinces, it seems, has become closely tied with the middle-class demand for better services, more jobs, and fiscal justice.

Conflict and Compromise

There is no way of predicting whether we’ll see new provinces in a few months, next year, or ever. The movements, especially in South Punjab, are strong, have popular appeal, and strong economic backing by the business and agrarian elite. The demands, in this specific case are mostly legitimate, and can be backed by a degree of indicators, which show a clear core-periphery pattern between North/Central and South Punjab. Yet its actualization is hostage to the codified process of bifurcation, which is tedious, requires an incredibly broad-based agreement, and has important consequences on the political framework at the federal level.

That aside, the news around in the South is that a compromise might be obtained between the Bahawalpur and Seraiki movements by making the former the capital of a unified South Punjab province. That in itself does not fully address the palpable tensions between Seraiki and non-Seraiki speakers (abadkars) in the entire region, but could potentially prevent the emergence of conflict.

Processes, compromises, and politics aside, people all over Pakistan have made one thing very clear: the coerced consent to a centralizing state, at any level or in any domain (cultural or economic) is well and truly over. Devolved authority, and localization remains the natural impulse of politics in many parts of the country, and will continue to be so, regardless of whether these existing movements become successful or not. All of this tells us one thing, which is that the language and boundaries of democratic politics in Pakistan have transformed rapidly over these last few years, and most certainly for the better.

Originally published in the June edition of Pique Magazine

A Chapter From the Nineties

Yesterday, while Hafeez Sheikh was attempting to give the budget speech, a group of opposition parliamentarians attempted to accost him and the Prime Minister in an act of protest. In the accompanying ruckus, a short-lived fist fight broke out, which regardless of its length and significance, prompted some commentators to whine about the lack of evolution in our political, and specifically, parliamentary culture since the 90s.

Now to put this into perspective, people usually remember that particular decade (88-99) as being the lowest point for democratic politics in the country - what with 4 elections, 4 unwarranted dismissals (5 if you count Junejo's), constant interference by the military, political victimization, accountability witch-hunts, and constant party fragmentation. The more one reads about the dysfunctionality and the pettiness  of it all, the clearer it is as to why Gawalmandi witnessed mithai distribution in 1999.

A week or so ago I realized that apart from the big headline events (elections and dismissals), the entire 90s remain a fairly understudied and murky era, full of shabby intrigue and backdoor politics. One of the few accounts from that time, Mohammad Waseem's 'The 1993 Elections in Pakistan', documents the fall of Nawaz Sharif's first government, the role played by different institutions and political parties, and most of all, of political machinations by the establishment against one government or the other. Here are a few excerpts that highlight just how volatile things were back in those days:

(March-April '93: Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif is flexing his muscles against the President, Ghulam Ishaque Khan, and the rest of the establishment in a bid to increase his political power. In the most recent tussle - over the appointment of the new COAS after Gen. Janjua's death - the President gets his way and General Waheed Kakar gets the nod ahead of Mian sb.'s candidate. The leader of the opposition, Benazir Bhutto, has submitted a three-point agenda which includes the dismissal of Nawaz's government, formation of a national government, and fresh elections. Some members of the opposition have floated a call for the army to step in and conduct fresh elections)

"The rising tension between the president and the prime minister over the issues of repeal of the 8th amendment (58-2b) and Ishaq's re-election as president made both of them woo the leader of the opposition. The PML president Junejo's death was followed by Nawaz Sharif's successful move to become the new president of the party. This alienated the Junejo group in the PML which made a common cause with President Ishaq. So did Chief Ministers of Sindh and NWFP. The three opposition alliances, PDA, NDA, and IDA, followed suit. Nawaz Sharif desperately tried to salvage the situation by nominating Ishaq as the PML candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections. However, it was too late in the day. Finally he addressed the nation on television on 17 April, 1993, and blamed the man who was a symbol for the federation, meaning President Ishaq, for conspiring against his legitimate government. The next day, the PPP leader presented the resignation of 41 MNAs to President Ishaq who soon after dissolved the National Assembly, announced fresh elections to be held on 14 July, and installed a caretaker government under Balakh Sher Mazari"

On its own, this paragraph provides an apt summary of just how arbitrary the entire process was. The more one reads about politician complicity and expediency, the easier it is to blame them for the entire mess. However, it's of paramount important to remember that Pakistan was still working under Zia's surrogate political framework, and that many of these politicians had emerged from the culture of atomized, patronage-driven politics which was prevalent during the 80s.

Coming back to the drama, Nawaz Sharif's dismissal led to a flurry of activities in the provinces, as well as in the courts:

"The dimissal of the National Assmebly for the 7th time in Pakistan's history, immediately led to the battle for Punjab. A motion of no-confidence against Chief Minister Ghulam Hyder Wyne, a protege of Nawaz Sharif, was tabled by 6 opposition MPAs. On 25 April, the no-confidence motion was adopted by 157 against 20 in a session marred by the worst pandemonium in Punjab's history. Later, Speaker Manzoor Wattoo secured a vote of confidence as Chief Minister by winning 158 votes. "

Soon after the dissolution, the then Speaker Gohar Ayub, who by the way is making his way back to PMLN after a 10 year sojourn with the PMLQ, challenged the dissolution of the National Assembly in the Lahore High Court (Pindi bench) as malafide and a result of personal vendetta. The court gave its short order on the 25th of May, 1993 and ruled that the reasons given for the dissolution (official corruption, partisan behavior of the speaker, and elections as a panacea for all ills) were invalid. Nawaz Sharif's government was restored by a 10 to 1 verdict in favor, with the dissenting vote being that of one Sajjad Ali Shah. 

(In Shah's defence he said that the reasons for dissolution were no different than the ones given in 1988 and 1990, and hence overturning the President's order would make the court appear contradictory).

"The post restoration phase of Nawaz Sharif's government was characterized by its gradual loss over things and, more significantly, its unimaginative and rigid approach towards the opposition. Its supporters in Punjab filed a no-confidence motion against Chief Minister Manzoor Wattoo, who quickly advised the Governor to dissolve the assembly. In response, a petition was filed in the Lahore High Court, which issued a short order on the 9th of June, nullifying the Governor's dissolution and restoring the assembly."

Reading up on all of this, and then comparing it to the existing situation shows real, substantive proof of democratic evolution in Pakistan. There may be several reasons for this change in politician and party behavior - like elite consensus on procedural democracy, changes in the legal environment (most notably the repeal of the 17th amendment), recognition of differences between establishment and politician interests, and a general rise in trust levels between opposing camps - but what's important is that they seem to be having an impact on the culture of parliamentary politics. Even with constant court petitions and that one incident of Governor's rule, nobody is asking anyone to intervene and dissolve the government, which a) wasn't the case during the 90s, and b) is a fairly positive step by all standards.

So like I said at the start, one fistfight in parliament, or one PMLN petition in the court asking to review the speaker's decision on Gilani's candidacy does not mean we're still stuck in the 90s. Things are moving forward it seems, and with another five or so years of uninterrupted and less volatile procedural democracy, we could see ourselves making some real gains towards establishing elected supremacy and towards increasing civility, openness, and common sense in our political space.

P.S.

Few random thoughts that occured whilst reading the book

1) Sajjad Ali Shah made the PPP happy, and the PMLN unhappy with his dissenting note. He got the Chief Justiceship under BB's second government, but had his court attacked by MSF and Muslim League thugs in 1997.

2) In a list of every nonsensical thing that has happened in Pakistan's electoral history, the two caretaker governments of Balakh Sher Mazari and Moeen Qureshi would have to rank somewhere near the top. The former's cabinet consisted of 58 members, which prompted The Muslim to call it a 'collection of "Saints and Sinners" led by an acting Prime Minister "every inch an elegant hair-dresser'. (lulz). 

The latter (Qureshi) is remembered in these ambiguous words: "On balance, Moeen Qureshi emerged not only as Mr Clean but also as a janitor who had come to Pakistan to clean the Augean stables." (double lulz)

3) Manzoor Wattoo. The man's a Punjabi legend, who deserves nothing short of 2 blog posts for his exploits during the 90s. Will get to work on those soon.

Beaconhouse and Lahore's Middle Class

Lahore's growing suburbanization continues to pose a number of interesting questions for people with an interest in urban sociology. For starters, it's one of the most definitive markers of Lahore's ever-expanding, ever-consuming population. Secondly, it tells us about upward socio-economic mobility within the city. Thirdly, it reveals preference patterns for a number of goods like housing, retail items, food, and perhaps most interestingly, education.

Back in the 70s, when the first major wave of suburbanization was taking place (under the aegis of the Lahore Development Authority), another complementary trend rode its tail-wind: private middle to upper-middle class education. The pioneer in this field - and this goes largely uncontested - is the Beaconhouse School System, founded and run by Mrs. Nasreen Kasuri (of ex-Foreign Minister's wife fame).

The Kasuris first opened up shop in their home on Main Boulevard, Gulberg, but the first proper campus they rented out was a house in Garden Town. Now that in itself is a fairly revealing piece of information. In 1983, Beaconhouse Garden Town (which happens to be my school as well), started selling relatively affordable English medium education to families whose preferences, social capital and fiscal constraints straddled the space below English medium upper class institutions like Aitchison, but above Urdu medium institutions like government schools or Central Model.

Their decision to start in a new suburban area, as Garden Town was, proved to be quite profitable in the long run.

To understand why, one needs to get a sense of how the process of suburban development kicked off in the city. Garden Town, one of LDA's earlier projects, lies on the edge of Lahore as it was in the 1970s, and Lahore as it is now. It was one of the first middle class suburban communities, and all subsequent suburbanization has taken place to its south or south west. Having a Beaconhouse in Garden Town meant that you would be able to attract, in due time of course, kids of families who've shifted away from congested parts of the city to their new suburban homes, or kids from new middle class families migrating to Lahore from other cities in Punjab. Another equally important determinant of the success of this new enterprise was the demand for English medium education, and its perceived importance within the increasingly aware, upwardly mobile classes - something that grew steadily in the 80s and the 90s. (this in turn was because of family members migrating abroad, VCRs and 'dish culture')

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the story of Lahore's middle-class led suburbanization can be told by using a simple map that charts out where Beaconhouse eventually decided to open up subsequent
 campuses:
View Beaconhouse in a larger map

The map is fairly self-explanatory, but a few things need to be pointed out. First, there's no Beaconhouse to the north of the city because there are few middle class people living there. Secondly, they opened up their Canal Side campus in 1995 on Raiwind road when there was literally nothing around it in a 10 km radius. At that time some parents thought it was a terrible decision since nobody in their right mind would send their kids to school in the middle of nowhere.

Aforementioned parents have been busy eating humble pie for the last 10 years.

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to show how a specific class, the middle to upper middle one in this case, can be spatially identified by mapping out desired commodities - like private education (or conversely, how commodity preferences can be gauged by mapping out middle class spaces). Can't say for sure, but i suspect if one were to mark out growth in mid-range food outlets, the results would be quite similar.