Feudal Slavery in Pakistan
By Riaz Haq CA
The return of democracy in Pakistan last year has once again put feudal
politicians firmly in charge of the nation's affairs. Both major parties, the
PPP and the PML, are heavily dominated by the country's biggest landowners, who
are voted into power by their poor landless peasants making up the majority of
the electorate in Pakistan.
British writer William Dalrymple has accurately described the politics in Pakistan as follows: "There is a fundamental flaw in Pakistan's political system. Democracy has never thrived here, at least in part because landowning remains almost the only social base from which politicians can emerge. In general, the educated middle class - which in India seized control in 1947, emasculating the power of its landowners - is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process. As a result, in many of the more backward parts of Pakistan the local feudal zamindar can expect his people to vote for his chosen candidate. Such loyalty can be enforced.
Many of the biggest zamindars have private prisons and most have private armies."
The Pakistani landlord's "private prisons" came in sharp focus recently with the news of 170 peasants being held against their will by Sindhi landowners, in violation of court orders.
Responding to questions about the situation during Hilary Clinton's recent visit, Luis CdeBaca, President Obama's ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, told Time magazine, "We are exploring ways we can help Pakistan to confront the scourge of captive workers, to deliver freedom for these workers and realize the promise of Pakistan's 1992 emancipation law."
Though Pakistan has been in the news lately for its continuing practice of slavery, it is not alone. Bonded labor in South Asia is considered the problem in modern slavery affecting the most people. The UN believes 20 million people are enslaved worldwide, the majority of whom are in South Asia, according to a BBC report.
A recent report by US State Department for 2009 said that "India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation."
India is listed with 52 countries on the watch list of nations that have failed to meet the minimum standards against human trafficking but are making efforts to do so. The blacklisted countries are subject to US sanctions if they don't make greater efforts to fight trafficking.
The Philippines, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan have recently been added to the US "watch list" because of what the report calls a worsening trafficking record in those countries.
"This is modern slavery. A crime that spans the globe, providing ruthless employers with endless supply of people to abuse for financial gain," Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said as she released the report. For the first time, India, China, Russia, Sri Lanka and Egypt and other countries that have been on the on Tier 2 watch list for two years, face the prospect of being automatically moved to the Tier 3 blacklist next year without a presidential waiver if they fail to improve their trafficking record, the State Department said.
A 2004 study by the International Labor Office (ILO) estimated that there are up to a million haari families in Sindh alone, the majority living in conditions of debt bondage, which the UN defines as modern-day slavery. Last fall, Pakistan's Daily Times quoted the labor minister of neighboring Punjab province as saying that landlords hold millions of forced laborers in "private prisons" across the country.
Amidst all the cries for democracy, independent judiciary, human rights and social justice in Pakistan, nothing has fundamentally changed during the last year under "democracy", except the worsening economy, much longer power outages and a growing sense of insecurity. Regardless of the party labels and promises, the feudal power continues to endure in the name of democracy.
The choices remain narrow for Pakistanis: Choose between the military and the feudal class. There is no third choice as long as the middle class remains small and unable and unwilling to exert strong influence to bring about much-needed reforms.
The only hope for real democracy and necessary social, political and economic reforms lies in continued robust growth of the middle class over an extended period of time of another decade or two. There are no guarantees that the current feudal rulers will permit that. www.riazhaq.com
