A long line of thinkers, going back to Aristotle have spoken of the middle class as an enforcer of democracy and the rule of law. The middle class is the backbone of Pakistan. It provides the social glue that holds society together. By “middle class”, I mean people who are neither at the top nor at the bottom of their societies in terms of income. It means people who are relatively well-educated, own property and are technologically connected to the outside world. They mobilise easily as a result of their access to technology. The chief instigators of the Arab Spring were well-educated Tunisians and Egyptians whose expectations for jobs and political participation were stymied by corrupt, authoritarian rulers.
In the course of its evolution, the capitalist society necessarily becomes polarised into two classes the rich and the poor. This is what is happening in Pakistan today. The country has bifurcated into these classes. The yawing gap between the two is increasing, with a tenuous common culture linking them. There was always a gap between the rich and the poor in this country, but it wasn’t this big. What is worse, the salt of the earth poor are preyed upon by a decadent, nefarious financial elite. The rich live in gated, affluent enclaves, segregated from the poor who live like animals in disorganised slums lacking drinking water, electricity, gas and other necessities of life. You might say the two live on different planets.
The rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer and rapidly increasing in numbers. Among the contributory factors of this process of proletarianisation are the fast disappearing middle class and large increases in population relative to the possibilities of employment in traditional vocations. The day is, therefore, not far off when the poor will constitute the overwhelming majority of the population and surround the affluent enclaves. No nation has ever lost an existing middle class but Pakistan is in danger of losing it. If the middle class withers, what might Pakistan look like? The middle class should be the barrier that protects the citizens from the howling winds of revolution. If it withers away, who will be able to stand the winds that follow?
The middle class has always played a major role as a stabiliser and harbinger of change in the politics of Pakistan. All the uprisings against elected or unelected rulers in the history of our country were bourgeois democratic revolutions, not real revolutions – not simply the removal of a ruler but the complete overthrow of the social, economic and political structures. Revolution is like fever. It passes through different stages. That is what is happening in Pakistan today. Lawyers belong to a well-informed section of the middle class. Together with the civil society, they constitute the cutting edge, ready to face the challenges and issues that weigh so heavily on this great country. Four years ago, on March 9, 2007, to be exact, a judicial earthquake remade the political terrain. From that day and from that place (the Army House), began a new epoch in the history of Pakistan.
March 9, 2007, also saw the return of political passions which had long been dormant. This was the moment when Pakistan lifted its head and began to fight back against the military ruler. The Bar and the Bench joined hands, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, and triggered a revolution. The middle class revolted and joined hands with them. The protestors on Jinnah Avenue were not established opposition groups but an adhoc amalgam of the youth, civil society activists and urban professionals who found common cause in opposing pervasive corruption, bad governance, spiralling inflation, sky-rocketing prices etc. I was enraptured by being amongst them.
The presence of thousands of enthusiastic lawyers and civil society on the Constitution Avenue, protesting against the suspension of the chief justice and demanding his reinstatement, supremacy of the constitution, independence of judiciary, rule of law, was indeed exhilarating. They were not led by political leaders. Their struggle was not a contest for power. It was an unprecedented struggle, with Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary as its symbol, to challenge despotism and restore the independence of the Judiciary and Rule of Law.
After the restoration of the deposed judges, the clock of history had stopped. Now it has started again. While political leaders are dithering, the middle class is preparing for another showdown. Today, they are, in the words of Marx, the bulldozer of history and are writing a page of history that would one day be read and admired by their children. Unlike the Arab Spring which produced flowers of a decidedly Islamist hue, the political awakening in Pakistan is driving the middle class into the arms of Imran Khan with his clarion call for corruption-free politics, good governance and change – radical change, not cosmetic change. In Imran’s public meetings, one can see a clean, neatly-dressed crowd, a variegated mixture of people with faces that betray intellectual pursuits lawyers, clerks, professors, students, engineers, school teachers, civil service employees, shopkeepers and traders. The predominant element in the picture is the “de-classed” middle class, creatures visibly down at the heel, spiritually crushed in the struggle with everyday reality, distraught under a perpetual worry about the indispensable necessities of life. They are mostly young.
One thing is clear the youth of today, the new angry ones are the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Today Imran alone represents the passionate optimism of the youth. There is an authentic feel to him. Let us hope he bends history’s arc back toward justice. This will be the year of elections. The time has come for change. Pakistan is on the cusp of a new era. So let the chips fall where they may. But there are some caveats who would ensure that voting would be free, fair, impartial and would reflect the will of the people? Who would ensure that voters would be allowed access to polling stations and would be able to cast their ballots free from fear, intimidation and coercion? Elections held under Zardari and his cronies will be neither free, nor fair, nor impartial. The result will be a foregone conclusion. Our only chance is a revolt against the practitioners of grand larceny who are challenging the Supreme Court and desperately clinging to power.
In the current political debate one hears only two words. The first is leadership. The second is change. The rest, as the French say, is du blah – blah. If the people decide that clean, honest, dynamic leadership in sync with the spirit of the times, is more important, they will elect Imran but if they decide that tried and trusted leadership should be given another chance, they will, as Dr Samuel Johnson said of second marriages, embrace hope over experience and re-elect Nawaz Sharif or Zardari.
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