A news item in a 1973 issue of the now defunct English daily New Times (published from Rawalpindi), reported that the government offices in Karachi had been ‘swarmed’ by Sindhi-speakers arriving from Sindh’s towns and smaller cities. In 1970, Karachi had become Sindh’s capital again.

The report also alluded that Karachi’s locals (probably its Urdu-speaking majority) were feeling a sense of being invaded. A Sindhi-speaker, Z.A. Bhutto had come to power and his party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) enjoyed a majority in the National Assembly. Bhutto encouraged Sindhis to enter the bureaucracy and join the manufacturing and service sectors in Karachi. 

Sindhis who came, settled in the city. Their upward-mobility was directly linked to the politics and influence of Bhutto’s PPP. Many also became part of the city’s middle classes that were otherwise dominated by Karachi’s Urdu-speakers (Mohajirs). Meanwhile, a new middle class had risen in Punjab. It included people who had migrated from small towns to the province’s main cities, especially from the late 1970s onwards. Their growth and prosperity was largely dependent on the Gen Zia dictatorship (1977-88), and then on Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). 

Historically, the middle classes have been agents of democracy. When this class began to expand in various Asian countries, Western political scientists believed that regions that had experienced multiple dictatorships would begin to witness democratisation. Nothing of the sort happened. At best, what did appear were either ‘illiberal democracies’, or ‘hybrid regimes’ headed by civilians groomed by state institutions such as the military. These regimes were largely navigated by the military and the judiciary. 

Competition between the middle classes for political and economic stability is often the reason for political crises in a country

The Asian middle classes actually facilitated this. The growth and prosperity of this class were mostly linked to the policies of authoritarian regimes. They were therefore suspicious of democracy because political parties in developing countries often concentrate on formulating programmes aimed to attract votes from the working classes, small farmers and peasants. In these countries, ‘pro-poor’ electoral tactics by parties threaten the middle classes. They fear they will be swarmed by the classes below. So they desire the kind of stability which, they believe, only authoritarian set-ups can provide.

Political scientists have now become acutely aware of this. Their continuing exploration of this phenomenon is also producing various other oddities. India, for instance, the world’s largest democracy has never witnessed a military coup or regime. Yet, its once liberal democracy has taken an illiberal turn. There is now enough evidence to claim that the rise of right-wing Hindu nationalist outfits in India was facilitated by the country’s rapidly growing middle class voters. 

India’s once largest party, the Congress, had focused on eradicating poverty. It was a successful electoral ploy in a country where the majority of people were poor. The party’s programmes did bear fruit when India began to witness a manifold increase in people who managed to climb the class ladder and became middle class. But often, once this happens, demands and expectations for better utility services, education, job security, etc., too increase. 

The pro-poor policies begin being seen as triggers of instability, despite the fact that it is because of these policies that many poor people manage to climb to become the middle class. But once there, they fear they will be dislodged by the same policies, and swarmed by those dreaming to climb the class ladder as well. Consequently, the middle classes begin to develop authoritarian tendencies. In India, the manifestation of these tendencies emerged in the shape of an authoritarian Hindu nationalist government. 

Political scientists are now reassessing their previous theories that were largely based on evidence of the post-18th century rise of the European middle classes that had ushered the democratisation of society. Clearly, this is not what happened in many Asian countries. But whereas political scientists are now advising political parties in developing countries to shape their policies to address middle class apprehensions, they are missing another factor that has emerged in the study of the authoritarian make-up of the Asian middle classes: there are deep fissures within this class. 

In 2001, Thaksin Shinawatra was elected PM of Thailand. Shinawatra’s policies focused on providing economic opportunities to the poor, especially in the rural areas. By the end of his term in 2005, a new middle class had begun to emerge outside Bangkok. Unlike the middle class concentrated in Bangkok that had gained prestige and wealth from its association with military regimes, the new middle class was more invested in Shinawatra’s policies. He swept the 2006 elections, but his government soon faced a violent protest movement. The movement was organised by middle class groups centered in Bangkok who accused Shinawatra of ‘corruption’ and invited the judiciary and military to intervene. Shinawatra was ousted. 

So a political crisis in this case was the result of conflicting interests of two middle class segments. In Pakistan’s Punjab province, a middle class was shaped by the Zia dictatorship and then cultivated as a vote-bank by Sharif’s PML-N. It had roots in rural and peri-urban towns. During the Gen Musharraf dictatorship (1999-2008), the more urbane middle classes who had felt ‘invaded,’ applauded Musharraf’s coup against the Sharif regime. They saw PML-N as a party of regional middle class upstarts and themselves as being more cosmopolitan and ‘enlightened.’ But whereas PML-N exhibited its commitment to safeguard democracy, the more enlightened lot detested it. The so-called ‘regional’ middle classes in Punjab struck back by returning Sharif to power in 2013. Their association with the military had weakened and their interests were now squarely based on the political fortunes of PML-N. 

The ‘cosmopolitan’ middle classes cultivated by Musharraf were offered a charismatic populist, groomed by the military as their man. He was Imran Khan. He led multiple protests against Sharif’s ‘corruption,’ until Sharif was debarred from politics by the judiciary. In Karachi, the Mohajir middle classes that had benefitted from Musharraf’s policies gradually dumped the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a party they had been voting for since 1988. They too decided to adopt Khan as a bulwark against the ‘Sindhi invasion.’ 

In Sindh outside Karachi, a Sindhi middle class had developed. It had been facilitated by the province’s largest party the PPP. The interests of this middle class are thus tied to the electoral fortunes of the party. But their interests clash with those of Karachi’s Mohajir middle classes and this is why Khan’s party could only manage to win a tiny number of seats in Sindh outside Karachi. Like in Thailand and even Turkey, Pakistan’s political crisis is the result of a growing middle class with multiple factions competing against each other for political and economic influence.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 28th, 2022