Above photo: Ammar Ali Jan speaks at the Jhang Kissan Conference, which brought together various farmers movements in the region. HKP/X.
Pakistan has for decades been a foot soldier for advancing the interests of US imperialism.
At the hindrance of its own development.
Pakistan is one of the largest countries in South Asia. Ever since its formation in 1947, it has been politically dominated by a coalition of landed and military elites who rule over millions of impoverished citizens mainly by force. Attempts to break this dominance and establish a truly popular government independent of the military establishment have mostly failed. Meanwhile, the ruling classes in Pakistan have been unable to industrialize and democratize the state. Their deep dependence on rent and the interests of the imperialists are in complete opposition to the popular aspirations and sentiments of the people.
Throughout most of its history, Pakistan has been a close junior ally of the US. Carrying out its proxy wars in Afghanistan while maintaining little to no relations with its neighbors, India and Iran. Though Pakistan developed close economic relations with China, that relationship has also been subjected to the fluctuations and pressures due to US meddling.
Ammar Ali Jan, member of the left-wing Haqooq-e-Khalq Party and a well known historian, spoke to Peoples Dispatch in detail about the overall political and economic situation in Pakistan. He discusses the possible role that left and progressive forces in the country can play in pulling Pakistan from its present destructive path and onto the path of developmentalism, making it a part of the global axis of resistance against imperialism.
The following is the second part of a two-part interview in which Ammar Ali Jan discusses Pakistan’s security situation, sectarian and ethnic violence, its regional role, and the historical presence and recent revival of the left in the country.
Peoples Dispatch: A key issue that you have spoken about a lot is the security situation, which has hotspot regions outside the major cities in Pakistan. One response, perhaps by the ruling elite, has been the deportation of Afghan refugees. There has also been retaliation against certain ethnic communities. How do you make sense of this situation? How has the government responded to this?
AAJ: The Afghan refugee crisis is a reminder of the criminal policies of the Pakistani state and the US state. Afghanistan–with all its flaws–was a modernizing state in the 1970s and 1980s. This was both prior to the communist revolution and afterwards. It’s a small landlocked country. America and Pakistan spent billions of dollars to promote war and Jihad. In the name of Jihad they set up base camps for Jihadists across Pakistan. They brought in all these “good” folks like Osama Bin Laden and many other terrorists who became known globally after 9/11. That devastated the entire country. They destroyed any chance that Afghanistan had of modernizing and developing. When the country is devastated, its infrastructure is devastated. Remember that in the 1980’s, the primary target of both Contras in Nicaragua and Jihadis in Afghanistan was infrastructure that they thought was built with the help of the Soviet Union. They were targeting schools, hospitals, bridges, highways, trains, buses, anything that could modernize society. It was basically a counter revolution aimed at imposing regression on society.
When infrastructure gets destroyed people don’t have an anchor to thrive naturally. That is why people leave their homes. Many people settled at the best option they had, which was Iran and Pakistan. Since then they have faced racism in Pakistan. They have never been accepted as citizens, even those who have been living in Pakistan for 40 years, those who were born in Pakistan. The deportations happen in waves, but last year they decided they are going to make life hell for Afghan refugees until they leave. Many of them ended up leaving.
The only refugees that Pakistan never kicked out are the Taliban, as those are the “assets.” During the Afghan wars, both in the 1980s but also after 9/11, Pakistan kept the Taliban as a kind of “blackmailing chip” with the US and Afghan government. Our position on that was clear. Of course, if Afghans could settle in Afghanistan that would be great for them but the point right now is that the Afghan refugee crisis was a crisis made by the Pakistani ruling class and the US. Putting all of the blame on the Afghan refugees is just a cheap mimicking of Trump’s rhetoric. I am very happy that a lot of progressive activists spoke out clearly and there was a lot of support for the Afghans that was aired on social media and among some political quarters. But the overall tendency of the policy has been to send the Afghan refugees back.
One more thing is the very popular movement among Pashtuns which has the same identity as many Afghans. It is called the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). They have been organizing in mass in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They have had some massive rallies in recent years. It’s a movement against the militarization of Pashtun land. They are calling for demilitarization. The military wants to cut off the links between Pashtun in Pakistan and Afghanistan because it is paranoid about another separatist movement.
PD: What is your assessment of the left’s advance in Pakistan’s politics in recent times? What are the challenges faced by the left in mobilizing and organizing people in Pakistan? What is its agenda for Pakistan?
AAJ: The leftist tradition in Pakistan is a glorious but weak tradition. It is glorious in the sense that it has faced immense hardships because the Pakistani state joined the US camp very early on in the 1950s by signing the SEATO and CENTO pacts. We were part of the anti-communist alliance and the Communist Party was banned in 1954, before it could take off as a mass organization. Yet a lot of comrades persisted, a lot of them were arrested, tortured, and killed. Despite all the repression they were able to build very large trade unions, very large student unions and farmers committees and women’s movements. The left was involved everywhere despite this oppression. They did not have a center because the Communist Party was operating as a banned organization that was underground. But they still had a very good presence in all the social movements.
After 1991 that situation also changed and the communist movement became weaker than before. The legacies in terms of the ideas–pro-democratic and progressive ideas–generated by the communist movement, they stayed on. They lived on, but the movement itself collapsed. In that sense it was a very weak tradition. For example, there is no left representation in the parliament. That has been the case for the last 40 years. There has been no representation from the left in the Pakistani parliament. Similarly the trade unions are very weak. Only one percent of the workers are unionized in trade unions. The student unions are banned so even that avenue is closed for the left. The left is facing all of these challenges.
However, in the last five to ten years there has been a resurgence. For the first time after a very long time a lot of young people are moving towards the left. Leftist organizations both on the ground and on social media are enjoying a lot of growth. There are a number of young people who are becoming acquainted with the left. For the first time, there are some leftist celebrities including our comrade Taimur Rahman, and many others who have a following which a lot of former left-wing or communist parties never had. Thousands of young people are listening to some left leaders. This is a huge opportunity.
It [the resurgence of the Left] was reflected in the student movement that developed in 2018-19 that took the country by storm. It was not just a micro movement but in 2019 there were student demonstrations across the country in 54 districts of Pakistan. That eventually led to sedition cases against leftists, including myself. I face a sedition case as a result of that student movement. I was fired from my teaching position. Among students the left has organized itself. In the last two years or so the trade union movement has also picked up. There is a very good presence of the left in the trade union movement. There have been a number of strikes and workers struggles where the left has been involved and workers have won. Similarly we are doing a series of farmers’ protests, Kisan Conferences, as we call them. These are left initiatives to bring farmers onto the same page and do mass mobilizations against the problem of low support prices given by the government. Problems with seeds, fertilizers and the general immiseration of the peasantry and the farmers across Pakistan. That has become a major issue.
Similarly, we have the problem of ethnic tension in Pakistan. The more marginalized ethnic groups, particularly the Pashtuns and Baloch, are very closely tied to left-wing movements across the country. They have mobilized massively. PTM has done that, the Baloch have done that. Baloch and Pashtuns are very very active now. There are comrades in Sindh who are doing that. This is very heartening that you have progressive movements emerging in different areas. The other good news is that there is a dialogue happening between some of the progressive and socialist groups to form not just an alliance, but possibly form a party. That is something we are working towards. Hopefully we will have good news for the global left this year.
PD: How do you see Pakistan’s role in the region at large? Where does it stand in the changing global scenario? Is there any possibility of it moving away from its alignment with the West’s cold war politics and becoming a part of the global resistance?
AAJ: In terms of Pakistan’s international role you can see the map and see the troubles that Pakistan has. We have four neighbours, Iran, Afghanistan, China and India. We often joke about how the map gives anxiety to Pakistanis because of the conflict ridden region and Pakistan very early on decided that it will become a proxy state for the US for its wars in the region. What that did is that it created a political economy that was dependent on the US’s wars. The more wars the US fought in the region the more dollars flowed into Pakistan. The more they ended up in the pockets of the elites and the more consumptive lifestyles they could lead. Pakistani elites were living a lifestyle which was comparable to the elites of Japan and South Korea, India and other countries but without producing anything that they were selling to the world. It was an import driven consumptive lifestyle, a kind of ponzi scheme premised upon US dollars associated with US wars.
What is happening for the last few years is that with the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, we are like a heroin addict that is unable to get the heroin. The escalating crisis of the economy, with inflation reaching 40%, is basically a withdrawal symptom. The economy is in dire straits. We are spending about 50% to repay our loans.
On the other hand there is a major tectonic shift taking place over time. This is Pakistan’s relationship with China, which is now increasing and becoming more solidified with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Pakistani leg of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The US has been very punishing towards Pakistan over the last few years. This has been expressed through the IMF. The IMF, which controls the finance ministry, has pushed austerity measures that have led to negative growth in Pakistan. It is a very tough situation to be in when you have inflation and high unemployment. On the other hand, over the last ten years, China has been spending a lot of money to build the BRI. In the Pakistani leg they are not just building the port they are also building industrial zones, power plants etc.. That is one of the last opportunities that the Pakistani state has to industrialize.
However, because the Pakistani state is a rentier state, it has failed to capitalize on the opportunity and instead used many of the projects which China has started for rent seeking, for short term rent seeking. Now the debts are accumulating but we have not industrialized and that is a problem.
Similarly, a lot of Chinese engineers and teachers have been killed in Pakistan and the Chinese government rightly believes that the Pakistani establishment is in cahoots with the CIA to sabotage CPEC. Killings have taken place conducted by Baloch separatists, the Baloch Liberation Army. However, despite the fact that this is a proxy of the US, they do not have the capacity to carry out these attacks on their own unless there is someone within the security establishment that is supporting them.
It is increasingly clear that elements within the Pakistani state have been leaking information and making Chinese engineers and teachers vulnerable. That is a part of the Cold War dynamic. You have an elite that has an opportunity to industrialize. However, because of its tendency of short termism and speculation it is not able to build an industrial base. So it is now looking for another war. If the US gives a green signal for another Jihad in the region then maybe there will be sections within the establishment that would want to return to Washington.
The Cold War has very real potential. At one level Pakistan can stay a proxy of the US and create havoc in the region like it has done over the last 40 years. Destroy Afghanistan, mess with Iran, have wars with India, now become a kind of proxy against China. Or we can play the role of a bridge in the region connecting Iran, through Iran we can connect to the Middle East, through Afghanistan we can connect to Central Asia, through India we can connect to all of South Asia and through China we are connected to a new world of production and consumption that is taking place in this emerging power house. We can connect all these places together. I think that is the fundamental struggle, to actually transform Pakistan from a rentier state addicted to wars to a developmentalist state that wants to integrate with the region and push the political economy of the region towards integration and development. In that sense we could play a role against imperialism.
The job of the left is to hold on to that tendency and to push that tendency to its fruition. That means we have to push this line of integration into the region, into the axis of resistance, into the developmentalist model. We have to fight against the tendencies of the comprador classes who want to remain subservient to US capital, to US geo-strategic interests, and fight proxy wars on behalf of Washington. I think the choices are stark and the consequences of the decisions that are made will not just be felt in Pakistan or the region but across the world. That is why the Left has its work cut out for it.
We have to organize and build an alternative that can actually take state power or push state power into that direction.