From the Editor
Rebuilding the Left
May Day 2019 came and went this year with the usual labour
rallies throughout the country. However, as has been the case for several years
now, the rallies were relatively small (especially when compared to the mammoth
rallies of the working class movement at its apogee in the 1960s), lacking the
passion that characterised the movement in the past, and may be considered to
reflect the weakened situation the movement finds itself in. The concern is
that May Day, the biggest day for the working class in Pakistan and around the
world, now runs the risk of being reduced to an annual ritual and not much else.
The trade union movement has been pushed back immeasurably
and incrementally over the last four decades. A combination of repression, laws
that circumscribe or deny the right to organise unions for collective
bargaining, restructuring of capitalist production through outsourcing, labour
contractors and home based workers has left less than two percent of the
working class in the formal sector unionised. The informal sector hardly has
any scope for unions so far. All this means the working class and trade unions
do come together on May Day every year, but their ranks are depleted and,
despite local struggles, are unable to make a significant dent in the current
situation.
The rollback of the trade union movement in the early 1980s
(under military dictator General Ziaul Haq) unfortunately coincided with the
collapse of the Left and the virtual liquidation (one or two localised
struggles notwithstanding) of the peasant movement. The Left collapsed and
fragmented into small parties and groups not on major ideological/political
issues but, as is known to have happened in history in periods of defeat and
retreat, on petty ego, personality, and other similar differences. The result
is that currently we are passing through one of the worst periods for the Left
in Pakistan. Why we have arrived at this pass bears explication.
After the Communist Party of Pakistan was banned in 1954 in the
wake of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, the Left sought to survive and fight on
under the umbrella of the nationalist-progressive National Awami Party (NAP). When
NAP, after many ups and downs, splits, etc, was finally banned in 1975, the
Left within its factions was orphaned, left rudderless, and became
incrementally and increasingly irrelevant, a situation that continues and is at
its worst today. The New Left of the 1960s also sought the ‘umbrella’ of the
newly formed Pakistan People’s Party, and when that party’s fortunes declined
from the 1980s onwards, they too collapsed. The remnants of these scattered,
disparate Left groups are today reconstituted in a number of Left parties and
groups, but these are individually and collectively ineffective. Even the
formation of the Left Democratic Front of 10 parties in 2017 did not change
this miserable scenario, in which the Left has neither any meaningful presence
nor voice in national politics.
The collapse of the ‘umbrella’ strategy by the 1980s exposed
the absence of any alternative, more autonomous or independent option the Left
could come up with. The Left as it exists today seems to be broadly constituted
of three tendencies. The Trotskyites are regrouping at one end. In the middle
are Left parties, groups and individuals who claim to be revolutionary
socialists but in practice are no more than social democrats. At the other end
of the spectrum are groups or individuals inspired by the post-Cold War
currents of postmodernism, identity politics, and the assertion of
individualism over the collective, all summed up in the tendency to drift
towards liberalism.
In this seemingly unpromising landscape, there are chinks of
light. One, Pakistan’s population has 65 percent people under the age of 30.
This is a vast, largely untapped reservoir of idealism. Two, Pakistan’s crisis
of state and society shows no signs of improvement. With the advent of the
military establishment-backed government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, the
economy is in recession, inflation, stoked, amongst other factors, by the free
fall of the rupee has deprived millions of three square meals a day, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 22nd programme will further dampen
demand, slow growth to around or less than the population growth rate (2-3
percent) and increase the immiseration of the people. It remains to be seen how
long the people of Pakistan bear this burden, informed by the ‘politics of
common sense’ (see the review of Asim Sajjad Akhtar’s book below), before they
arrive on the barricades.
The Left will have to gear up if it is to play a role in
this looming confrontation between the people and Imran Khan’s government,
backed by the military. First and foremost, the Left has to update its analysis
of the world and Pakistan to reflect the contemporary reality of capitalist
imperialism that dominates the globe (see Rashed Rahman’s article below). Two,
the mass fronts, working class, peasantry, women, religious minorities and
oppressed nationalities will have to be energized, brought together in a mighty
stream before it can put pressure on the ruling elite for change. This seems
the only viable path at present towards 21st century socialism.
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