Caste plays dominant role in Pak elections

Sameer Arshad:The Times of India

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a four-time Pakistan Muslim League (N) parliamentarian, downplays the importance of biradari (caste) factor in the May 11 elections and counts on his party's popularity to see him through. Yet as a hardnosed politician, he has the biradari breakup of his Murree-Kahuta constituency near Islamabad at his fingertips - Rajputs 30% and the rest Jats, Arians, Gujjars etc

The arithmetic is crucial as the factor has a strong impact on elections particularly in rural Pakistan and more so in Punjab that accounts for 55% national assembly seats. Rajputs are dominant in northern Punjab, where Abbasi's constituency is located, followed by Jats in central and Balochs in the province's south. The Peoples Party (PPP)-led government had a Rajput prime minister and a Jat as his deputy before it demitted office in March. The Bhuttos, who founded and have led the party, are of Rajput ancestry.



Abbasi, who spoke to TOI from his constituency in the middle of an election rally, is facing a tough contest. He is pitted against PPP's Ghulam Murtaza, a Satti Rajput, and two others from his Abbasi clan that accounts for 25% voters. Abbasi had lost to Murtaza in 2002, but wrested the seat back five years later due to Rajput vote division.

Murree-Kahuta is instructive of how kinship-based politics works in Pakistan. Military ruler Zia-ul-Haq's ban on political parties and the 1985 non-party elections are blamed for re-entrenching the biradari system.

In an item headlined 'Caste plays a surprising role in Muslim Pakistan's elections' Barbara Crossette of the New York Times described it as an unlikely factor that plays a role in a party's choice of candidates ahead of the 1990 elections.

Little has changed since then. A Gallup survey ahead of the 2008 elections confirmed the existence of biradari as an important civil society institution. "Thus, 37% rural voters and 27% urban voters claim(ed) they had gathered in a meeting of their biradari to deliberate on whom to vote," said the survey report.

Biradaris in fact have an all-encompassing role. "...biradari makes decisions of every aspect (political, social) and an individual is bound (by it)," Mughees Ahmed and Fozia Naseem note in Berkeley Journal of Social Sciences.

Political analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi adds, "The biradari link becomes weak in urban centres, although not completely irrelevant."

Durham University's Shaun Gregory lists biradari system among the influences that have hobbled democracy and says leading political parties in particular will continue to use it to maximise votes. "(It is done) by harnessing wealthy land-owners with power over the neo-feudal rural peasantry, the wealthy mine and energy field owners with control of their large workforces, and the factory and industry owners who exert great influence over many of urban poor."

Gregory noted the iron grip of the biradaris, which underpin the rule of elites such as the Bhuttos and the Sharifs, explains why it is difficult for emergent parties to flourish.

This makes Imran Khan's emergence as a political force interesting. Gregory notes Khan cannot draw on the traditional power structures dominated by the biradari and instead has made his appeal nationally and offered hope of reform and change.