Adil Najam
The Pakistan Kisan Conference met in Lahore this Sunday and (again) demanded an end to feudalism.
My first reaction to reading the news was to remember Faiz (remembering Faiz, by the way, is my default mode in just about all matters):
youN arz o talab say kab aiye dill, pathar-dil paani houtay haiN
tum laakh raza ki khoo Dallo, kab khoo-i-sitamgar jaati hai
But this was tempered immediately as I read of a new World Bank report that highlights the troubling inequity in land ownership in Pakistan.
Before saying more about both, let me just put my own views on the table. First, I think that the ‘feudalismâ €™ card is a favorite boogie of the urban educated elites of Pakistan. It is a very convenient thing to blame all our problems on. Why have we not had democracy? Feudalism. Why does the economy not flourish? Feudalism. Why did we lose to South Africa yesterday? Feudalism. Feudalism and the so-called ‘unparh, jahil awam’ are our scapegoats of choice. It is a very easy way for us urbanites to disown ourselves from many of our own sins.
Having said that, I have long held that feudalism is a critical challenge, and one of the biggest ones. It is not the problem we often make it out to be, but it is a huge problem that needs attention, and urgent attention. It is not a problem because it makes life difficult for the urban rich, it is a problem because it makes life impossible for the rural poor.
It is for this reason that I wholeheartedly support the call from the Pakistan Kisan Conference and the findings of the World Bank report.
On the Kisan Conference, it was mostly a political event but its politics and political rhetoric was uninteresting. The substance of the message, however, was spot on. According to the Daily Times (5 February, 2007):
Speakers at the Pakistan Kisan Conference on Sunday demanded the government eliminate feudalism and introduce land reforms to bring about development in the agriculture sector.
âà¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã‚¨ Around 5,000 farmers and labourers attended the Conference organised by the Kisan Rabita Committee at the Minar-e-Pakistan in collaboration with the National Workers’ Party (NWP)…. The speakers said feudalism was a hurdle to the farmers’ interests. They said land reforms could help strength the agriculture sector. They urged the farmers to adapt to the innovations and changes taking place in the agriculture sector. 
ââ ¡Ã‚¬Ã‚¨They urged the government to provide land to the landless farmers. “Allocating agriculture land to the military and civil officers should be stopped,â€Â? they said, adding that the government should give ownership rights to the tenants at the military forms in Okara and Khanewal.
On the World Bank study, the Daily Times (5 February, 2007) reports:
Pakistan has extreme inequality in land ownership and the enforcement of several laws on tenants’ eviction, says a World Bank (WB) study. The study also says that sharing of crop outputs and costs between a landowner and tenant is practically non-existent. Authored by Hanan G Jacoby and Ghazala Mansuri, the WB Policy Research Working Paper says the fraction of tenanted land is high. More than one third of the land is tenanted and about two-thirds of land is under sharecropping, a form of farming where outputs are shared by the landowner and tenant… Sharecropping is the predominant form of tenancy in Sindh where the land ownership distribution is particularly skewed. According to the study, a median landlord in Sindh owns 28 acres of land, whereas nearly 80 percent of the share-tenants are landless farmers. Big landlords in the province often employ labour supervisors (kamdars) to manage their tenants. In Punjab, tenancies are split more evenly between share and fixed rent contracts. Landlords in Punjab are much smaller than those in Sindh, with a median holding of only seven acres of land, and are more likely to be residing in the same village as their tenants, the study says.
Is it time for a new set of meaningful land reform with a view to stamping out the residuals of feudalism? Yes, it is and it has been for quite some time.
The least important reason to do so is that it will rid the urban elite (i.e., urban feudals) of their favorite boogie and hopefully force them to accept their own responsibility. The most important reason is that it will make a real difference in the lives of the rural poor; the poor that no one even talks about anymore.
Feudalism job required being descended of late fief Sir Sardar Khan of Shadiwal feudal, Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan. By profession i am a doctor but by alas I am disabled diseased person, educated in Army situation. I was punished in Army in 1983-84 AD during study time in Army Burn Hall School while being childhood. Due to punishment I got brain trauma and development of sickness occurs. Dear Sir help to look for work opportunity in mentioned feudal (Shadiwal). I have an idea of one work being onsite PunjabI interpreter in Medical field both inside and outside country. Please reply me as soon as possible. I will be greatly thankful to you at your earliest convenience.
Yours,
Dr. Anees Ur Rehman,
Mohalla Kalra Kalan, Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan, 50700.
Photo ID: 34201-3478658-1
Mobile phone: 03006457360
Land reforms will solve many many problems in our country. Two major issues addressed will that democracy will flourish like it should in our rural areas, plus middle class will expand reducing the difference between the very rish and very poor.
Here is government new move to offer state owned land for lease rather than distributing among the poor.
‘Land bank’ of millions of acres on ECC agenda: http://dawn.com/2007/02/26/top3.htm
I agree that excessive power over others is one of the defining features of feudalism, but my understanding is that the term feudal was initially used for the agrarian pre-industrial european society where power and land went hand in hand.
The term was extended over time and also applied to non-European agrarian settings where a small elite had vast control over the people on their land or feifdoms, some parts of rural Pakistan fitting that kind of description. Since land ownership generally continues on the basis of inheritance, such a set up provides very limited opportunities for class mobility.
It is not just power that defines and characterizes feudalism. Referring to an industrial society as feudal or calling the military a feudal institution is totally out of place because feudalism relates to a particular mode of production and societal arrangement. The military is not even a mode of production and hence the question of using the term feudal for it does not even arise, its role in power politics not withstanding.
[quote comment=”33300″]I do not think that feudalism is defined just by land ownership. It is about excessive control and exclusion of others. Feudalism is about some controlling teh destiny of others because of some special place of privilige that they supposedly have… in many cases large land holding and servitude.[/quote]
Irfanullah, you are correct but control and excess power extends from land ownership. Out of all the things you can invest in, real estate has probably been the most versatile since the beginning of mankind itself. If you have much more wealth compared to others surrounding you, you are naturally going to have control over them…and once you get wealthy, it’ll get easier and easier for you to get more money.