The bazaar and Mosque

A PERSISTENT puzzle for political scientists and sociologists working on Pakistan has been the lack of working class representation and mobilisation in formal politics over the past four decades. Apart from a brief interlude during the late ’60s and the early ’70s — when a left-wing dominated trade union and peasant movement challenged a dictatorial state structure — politics has largely remained ethno-nationalist, patronage-based, and dominated by authoritarian economic or military elites.

While this lack of working class representation is understandable during military regimes, (which have historically protected the interests of the affluent middle and upper classes), it is also a persistent theme during periods of democratic rule. This can be gauged by the fact that the policy agenda has not changed much over these past three decades, despite transitions back and forth between electoral and authoritarian governments.

The puzzle of the ‘silent poor’ becomes particularly salient in a polity such as Pakistan’s, where the median rural or urban voter is increasingly young, and overwhelmingly poor. Yet elites continue to garner votes (and thus some semblance of legitimacy) from the poor, without having explicitly pro-poor agendas. In fact, it is fair to argue that ‘economic class’ as a rhetorical or a political category has very little appeal in contemporary mainstream politics.

Some have argued that the presence of ethnic movements undercut the salience of class identity in Pakistani politics. People choose to, or are made to mobilise along ethnic/religious lines as opposed to economic class-based interests.

Other plausible explanations in this country’s case include the military state’s repression of working class organisations (unions and farmer associations) during the ’80s, the changing structure of the economy towards an informal, spatially diffused labour regime, and the overall decline in the ideological capital of the left after the Cold War. While all these historical explanations are important in understanding why Pakistan’s politics is persistently elite-heavy, they are made complete by an important addition — the role of continuous social and cultural domination.

It is fair to argue that ‘economic class’ as a rhetorical or a political category has very little appeal in contemporary politics.
Briefly put, the complete argument is that elites continue to hold power not only because of the way economic production takes place in society, ie because they have more money, resources, and access to the state, but also because of the way they reproduce this political-economic authority through social and cultural practices.

One of the most accurate examples of elite domination in the cultural and social realm is the relationship between bazaar traders and the mosque. Although this relationship is visible in cities and towns across the country, it has become particularly relevant in the everyday life of urban Punjab.

The bazaar, as a space of retail and wholesale activity, displays a clear socio-economic hierarchy: at the top are the big traders, merchants, and distributors, identified by their share of the market, the financial resources they possess, and the political and social connections they hold. In the middle are mid- to small sized retailers, who rake in a moderate living, while actively maintaining connections with the upper-tier of the bazaar. At the bottom is the bazaar’s working class — the sales staff employed in shops, the street vendors and cart-pushers, and the manual labour that works on daily wage.

The mosque plays an interesting ancillary role in the maintenance of this hierarchy. For starters, it provides a public space for businessmen to interact with each other, forge alliances, and pool in resources to influence the state. This much is apparent given the degree to which most markets in Pakistan are organised.

By creating strong, lasting networks with each other and with political representatives (also found in the same public space), the trader/merchant elite is able to create channels for collective action that are helpful in staving off unfriendly state policies and actions in the realm of taxation and land usage. Another major benefit of this upper-tier alliance formation is that it allows traders to fix labour wages across the market; hence ensuring lower operational costs, and higher profits, at the expense of the bazaar’s working class.

The second role played by the mosque (and by the ritualistic practice of religion in general) is through the advantages granted by an outwardly Islamic appearance. By playing a role in building or maintaining a mosque, or engaging in very public acts of giving zakat or providing free iftar during Ramzan, traders create an image of philanthropic piety, which helps them not only in attracting or retaining business clients, but also in commanding the respect of other individuals (both traders and labourers) in the same economic space.

Workers — many of whom are first-generation urban migrants — are often given sermons on their exact, ordained role in society, and how the travails and tribulations of poverty in the material world will be compensated for in the afterlife. In essence, class fatalism, and an acceptance of ‘the way things are’ is propagated by the elite using the mantra of religion and divine decree.

Finally, the cultivation of a pious appearance by traders and merchants subsequently play a useful role during election time. This acquired moral authority gives them local legitimacy to act as intermediaries, between parties and voters, or as candidates themselves.

The bazaar-mosque nexus is an example of how the economic relationship between the poor and the affluent is fortified by their participation in a shared moral framework. It explains the persistence of patron-client, or hierarchical politics — in both urban and rural areas of Pakistan — as more than just a function of economic differences and also a function of the social and cultural sphere, where inequality is ‘normalised’ either through caste/biradari relations, and increasingly through religion.

Published in Dawn March 16th , 2015