Class, Power, And Patronage Landowners and Politics in Punjab

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Class, Power, and Patronage:

Landowners and Politics in PunjabHassan Javid

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Punjab, History and Anthropology, 22:3, 337-369, DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2011.595006

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Class, Power, and Patronage:Landowners and Politics in Punjab

Hassan Javid

In the century following their conquest of the province, the British in Punjab erected an

administrative apparatus that, like those of precolonial regimes, relied heavily upon the

support of the provinces landed class. The relationship between the landed class and

the colonial state was one of mutual benefit, with the latter using the former to ensure

the maintenance of order and collection of revenue in exchange for state patronage. In

this paper, it is argued that this administrative framework gave rise to a path-dependent

process of institutional development in Punjab, allowing for the different fractions of the

provinces landowning class to increasingly entrench themselves within the political orderin the postcolonial epoch. This paper outlines the mechanisms underlying this process of

institutional development, focusing, in particular, on the strategies adopted by the

landowning class to reproduce its power. This paper also considers the potentialities for

institutional change in Punjab, allowing for the creation of a more democratic and

participatory politics in the province.

Keywords: Land; Colonialism; Patronage; Class; Institutions

Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.Adam Smith

Following the conquest of Punjab in 1849, the British were faced with the task of

erecting an administrative apparatus that would ensure order and accumulation.

Over the course of the century that Punjab remained in the hands of the British,

the construction of this framework for control and extraction took place through a

Correspondence to: Hassan Javid, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science,Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK. Email: [email protected]

History and Anthropology,

Vol. 22, No. 3, September 2011, pp. 337369

ISSN 0275-7206 print/1477-2612 online/11/03033733 # 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2011.595006


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series of incremental adjustments, with institutional change and adaptation occurring

in response to changing societal contexts, political exigencies, and shifts in colonial

policy. Having aligned themselves with the provinces rich peasantry and traditional

aristocracy, recognizing that these elements of the Punjabi elite were instrumental to

the effective exercise of state authority, the colonial government actively undertookinstitutional interventions that protected the interests of its landed allies. Under

colonial rule in Punjab, elements of the landowning class were able to virtually mon-

opolize politics in the province, using their privileged position within the colonial

administrative schema to bolster their own position relative to other groups and

classes in society, while simultaneously using their influence and power to pursue

the interests of the colonial regime.

At one level, the British reliance upon Punjabs rural elites was not entirely unex-

pected. When the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh established their rule over Punjab in

1799, following decades of instability, war, and peasant rebellion directed againstthe Mughals (Alam 1986; Gupta 1996), the potential had existed for a complete trans-

formation of the political order. Instead, while the upper echelons of the political

hierarchy were reshaped, the hereditary landowning elites who had formed the core

of the Mughal administrative system at the local level were incorporated within the

new regime (Grewal 1990: 95). Similar opportunities for radical political change

arose as a result of the dislocations that accompanied the transition to British

control and the creation of Pakistan. While formal control over the state may have

shifted as regimes were replaced, these transitions were marked by a significant

degree of continuity as the co-optation and co-operation of Punjabs landholders

remained central to systems of governance instituted by successive unrepresentativeand largely authoritarian regimes. The enduring strength of this relationship

between the state and these large landowning classes, and its ability to reproduce

itself over time, is evinced by the fact that after partition, despite a range of economic,

political, and social changes, Punjabs rural power-holders continue to play a

significant role in Pakistans politics (Waseem 1994: 313).

This paper seeks to provide the start of an explanation for the persistence of this

landed power in Punjab. It will be argued that this persistence is a result of the repro-

duction and reinforcement over time of an institutional framework of politics

premised on a bargain in which Punjabs landholders have provided support andother services to authoritarian regimes in exchange for state patronage. It will be

shown that this bargain has allowed the landed class to entrench itself within a domi-

nant position in the political, social, and economic structure of Punjab. The concept of

path dependence is used in this study to understand this process of institutional evol-

ution, showing how the institutions that emerge out of key founding moments can

come to shape future interactions between actors negotiating the distribution of

power within society, creating incentives for adhering to established institutional pat-

terns while increasing the costs associated with alternative institutional paths. While

this paper will provide an overview of landlord state relations in the colonial

period, it will also provide one on the postcolonial period in order to identify and

338 H. Javid


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examine some of the causal mechanisms that have given rise to this path-dependent

trajectory of institutional development in Punjab.

This paper is divided into five sections. The first section will elaborate on the

concept of path dependence and the ways in which it can provide insights into the per-

sistence of landed power in Punjab. The second section will attempt to create a typol-ogy of class in rural Punjab, showing the differences between the landowning class and

other classes in terms of their economic, political, and social capacities. The third

section provides a historical overview of the period of colonial governance in

Punjab, describing in brief the evolution of the relationship between the state and

the landed class. The penultimate section will then briefly explore the mechanisms

through which landed power has been reproduced in the postcolonial context. This

paper will conclude with a section on strategies through which landed power could

be challenged in Punjab, allowing for the development of a more participatory

democratic politics.

Path Dependence

At the heart of path dependence is the assumption that institutions, as rules and

constraints governing human interaction (North 1991), are fundamental to under-

standing the decisions taken by actors in any given political context. Premised on

this framework, the concept of path dependence allows for an understanding of the

exact mechanisms underlying the evolution of the relationship between the state

and the landed class in Punjab. In the simplest sense of the term, path dependence

implies that events that take place at a particular point in history are likely to influencesubsequent events. Originally employed as a concept within economics to explain the

persistence of specific, often suboptimal, outcomes for a wide variety of phenomena

ranging from the adaptation over time of new technologies to the creation of

regimes for economic growth and policy-making, path dependence suggests that insti-

tutions, once put in place, become increasingly difficult to overturn as the benefits

associated with adapting to them outweigh the costs involved in switching to alterna-

tives (David 1985; North 1991). Path dependence works with the assumption that

adopting a specific path of institutional development at a key point in history

makes it increasingly difficult to switch to viable alternatives that may have been avail-able at that moment. This founding moment can be conceptualized as a critical junc-

ture representing a period of significant change, which typically occurs in distinct

ways in different countries (or in other units of analysis) and which is hypothesized

to produce distinct legacies (Collier & Collier 1991: 27). These events are crucial to

the analysis of path dependence because they constitute periods of uncertainty or

upheaval within which the conjunction of contingent factors or historical processes

yields specific outcomes from among a range of viable options (Mahoney 2000;

Thelen 1999). Additionally, for any given historical juncture to be critical, it must

have a generative element that gives rise to change, and it is the outcomes emerging

from critical junctures that subsequently trigger path-dependent institutional trajec-tories. Rejecting the rival paths present during a given critical juncture automatically

History and Anthropology 339


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narrows the range of future choices available to actors within the selected institutional

framework, and the increasing returns associated with adhering to the chosen insti-

tutional path contribute to the persistence of that particular configuration.

One of the most fundamental methodological points about path dependence that

need to be addressed is the question of constant causes and the extent to whichpath-dependent explanations of institutional development are able to outline mechan-

isms of institutional reproduction that are distinct from traditional historical narra-

tives. In a nutshell, constant causes can be said to operate when the persistence of

an institutional framework can be attributed to the same factors that endangered

that particular framework, as opposed to distinct processes of reproduction rooted

in other mechanisms (Collier & Collier 1991: 37; Schwartz 2004). For a process of

institutional development to be truly path dependent, it would be necessary for the

mechanisms that produced a set of institutions to be distinct from those that perpe-

tuate it. Mahoney (2000), therefore, emphasized the need for critical junctures to becharacterized by a high degree of contingency and indeterminacy in order to show

how relatively random, small, or exogenous factors can lead to the selection of

particular institutions (from among a cohort of equally viable possibilities) that are

subsequently perpetuated due to the ways in which they subsequently shape events

and structure interactions between different actors.

In many cases, however, the extent to which critical junctures can be contingent or

indeterminate is necessarily limited, due to the way in which an array of broader struc-

tural factors provide the context within which specific institutions emerge out of criti-

cal junctures (Schwartz 2004). In circumstances where critical junctures may not be

characterized by high degrees of contingency, the existence of constant causes doesnot necessarily preclude the possibility of subsequent institutional developments

taking place along path-dependent trajectories. This is because responses to constant

causes can adopt a variety of different forms, particularly when the constant causes in

question are relatively abstract. For example, the need for different regimes to collect

revenue in a particular agrarian context could potentially represent a constant cause

independently influencing institutional development and change. Depending on the

conditions during a particular critical juncture, however, a variety of institutional

options could be available to actors seeking to address this imperative. Given that

there can never be pure contingency during any critical juncture, the presence ofconstant causes does not preclude the emergence of path-dependent institutional

trajectories, provided actors are presented with at least two possible policy choices

(Pierson 2000).

Pierson (2004) used the notion of increasing returns to illustrate how institutions

and political processes subject to path-dependent developmental trajectories persist

due to the creation of self-reinforcing feedback loops that increase the costs, over

time, of adopting alternatives. As actors invest in the skills required to work within

a particular institutional context, and as corollary institutions emerge within the

extant framework, institutional reproduction tends to occur as a result of the increas-

ing costs associated with switching to adopting alternative institutional choices. Giventhat political processes are also often characterized by asymmetrical power relations,

340 H. Javid


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actors who derive greater benefit from their position within an institutional frame-

work can then use the resources at their disposal to impose constraints on the

actions of their rivals while endeavouring to maintain the institutional status quo

(Khan 1995; Pierson 2004). The increasing returns approach within path dependence

can be contrasted with a focus on reactive sequences (Mahoney 2000). While theformer focuses on how institutional paths once selected are reinforced over time

through processes of positive feedback, the latter emphasizes how the emergence of

particular institutions can influence subsequent actions by unlocking responses,

often unintended, that may not have otherwise occurred. The transitions from one

event to the next in a reactive sequence need not necessarily be marked by institutional

continuity, with institutional consolidation eventually taking place as a result of the

outcomes of several sequential events. What is important to note about increasing

returns and reactive sequences is that both approaches to path dependence allow

for the emergence of new social actors that can become sources of support or opposi-tion for existing institutional frameworks. The two approaches are not mutually exclu-

sive since path-dependent processes can be characterized by both increasing returns

and reactive sequences at different points in time.

Thinking in terms of the increasing returns made available to dominant actors over

time is a persuasive explanation for institutional reinforcement and stickiness.

However, as argued by Schwartz (2004), few institutional arrangements are able to

constantly provide increasing returns to actors and can potentially lead to diminishing

returns as resources are exhausted and avenues for further development exist. In situ-

ations where actors are confronted by diminishing returns, explanations rooted in

path dependence are unable to account for institutional persistence given that thecosts associated with sticking to an established institutional path may outweigh

those that would be incurred by switching to an alternative framework. First, as

suggested by Greif and Laitin (2004), the possibility of institutional change is often

dependent on the coordinative power of different actors, as well as on the degree to

which existing institutional rules provide actors with the necessary tools and knowl-

edge required to facilitate such change. Even in situations where actors may be

confronted with diminishing returns, the above-mentioned factors can potentially

constrain their ability to initiate substantive change. Secondly, this criticism of path

dependence can be addressed by properly conceptualizing what is meant by increas-ing returns. Actors entrenched within extant institutional frameworks can use their

power and resources to derive benefits in a number of ways, ranging from material

rewards to more intangible goods such as access to political power and privilege. Inas-

much as powerful actors within a particular institutional setup would have an interest

in maintaining their dominance, the ability to constrain rival factions and groups

would represent a constant benefit resulting from the maintenance of the status quo.

In such a scenario, the capacity to continually exercise power over rivals or subordi-

nates would represent a concrete benefit associated with the extant institutional frame-

work, even if this level of power were to remain relatively static. Similarly, constant

access to specific resources, material or otherwise, could provide sufficient incentivefor actors to invest in particular institutional configurations despite the presence of



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diminishing returns or even increasing costs. As such, the presence of diminishing

returns would not, by itself, necessarily be sufficient cause for actors to adopt alterna-

tive institutional strategies. Theoretically, it would only be when costs outstripped

returns, increasing or otherwise, that actors would be induced to switch to different

institutional frameworks.While increasing returns and reactive sequences do provide an explanation for insti-

tutional persistence, some of the criticism of the path dependence suggests that the

approach places too much of an emphasis on the mechanisms that underlie insti-

tutional reproduction. The notion that institutions may be locked into particular

historical trajectories often obscures the degree to which they are contested, and

path dependence sometimes fails to provide plausible accounts as to why alternatives

are selected despite the costs associated with such choices (Thelen 1999: 396399).

Focusing on the role of agency within processes of institutional development,

Crouch and Farrell (2004) argued for the need to examine the ways in which rationalactors can, within their societal contexts, calculate the potential benefits and pitfalls

associated with institutional switching and, based on the resources and information

available to them, choose alternative options even if the short-term cost is high. A

similar approach to understanding the mechanisms underlying the selection of par-

ticular choices by actors in path-dependent processes conceptualizes events within

causal sequences as constituting episodes of problem-solving (Haydu 1998). Following

this logic, actors at crucial points in time can draw on their various historically con-

stituted power resources, capacities, and experiences to arrive at updated solutions for

recurring problems, triggering institutional transformations and the adoption of

alternative institutional paths. Using a game-theoretic model, Greif and Laitin(2004) argued that endogenous institutional change can be explained by the extent

to which institutions possess mechanisms for self-reinforcement. As these mechanisms

strengthen or weaken over time, due to exogenous shocks or changing preferences,

actors can modify their behaviour and use their resources to influence processes of

negotiation and contestation leading to institutional change.

Thelen and Streeck (2005) provided additional insights into the processes of insti-

tutional evolution by providing an account of how endogenous, incremental changes

can, over time, lead to substantial institutional change. They argued that in addition to

the transformations engendered during critical junctures or other periods of upheavaland crisis that receive emphasis in the literature on path dependence, institutions can

also change through processes of contestation in which established institutional rules

are contested and reinterpreted by different actors (Thelen & Streeck 2005: 1315).

As a result of these kinds of small, but significant changes, substantial institutional

transformations can take place, resulting in the development of new institutional

forms based on the legacies of the old. This model of institutional change, when

employed within a broader framework of critical junctures, increasing returns, and

strategic decision-making, provides a compelling explanation for the way in which

actors and institutions adapt and modify over time.

In the case of Punjabs landholders, complementing the role played by exogenousshocks in shaping the colonial order, much of the institutional innovation that

342 H. Javid


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happened took the form of laws and bills that were incrementally implemented by the

colonial state. Even as they derived returns from the institutional framework of colo-

nial rule and continued to invest in its reproduction and reinforcement, the Punjabi

landed class and the colonial state constantly refined the mechanisms through

which they exercised power, introducing changes through legislation and politicalreform as part of a broader process of institutional tweaking. Similar processes of

adaptation took place after partition, with the landholding class using the idiom of

party politics, as well as their mutually beneficial ties to military regimes, in order

to perpetuate the power they wielded in the countryside.

Class in Punjab

The concept of class is crucial to understanding the social structure of Punjab not only

due to the economic stratification of rural Punjab, but also due to the enduringrelationship between class and political power in the province. Historically, control

over land formed the core of political authority within rural India, with the ability

to control cultivators and lay claim to the product of the land being of central political

significance during the Mughal and, indeed, subsequent epochs (Fuller 1982). At the

local and regional levels, political power inevitably came with control over land and

was buttressed by the fact that control over land was also often accompanied by

considerable amounts of prestige and loyalty from village- and regional-level kin

groups (Neale 1969).

In order to capture the different attributes and dimensions of class power in Punjab,

this paper draws on the work by Ahmad (1973), Patnaik (1980), Bhattacharya (1983),and Prakash (1984) to create a typology of class that distinguishes between different

classes on the basis of three main features: capital/property ownership, labour exploi-tation, and social status. Fundamentally, the concept of class derived from these attri-

butes is one that recognizes how class is not merely an economic category, but also a

relational one. Hence, while the ownership of capital/property may indicate economicwealth, income and consumption alone are not sufficient for understanding the

constitution of a class, even though they may be important determinants of class

position and status. Instead, the ownership of capital/property is important precisely

because it implies the existence of a particular relationship of exploitation anddomination within the broader context of economic production. As such, in the

case of the Punjabi countryside, the ownership of land, or lack of it thereof, does

not just simply provide a basis by which to differentiate between different classes on

the basis of incomeit also suggests that those with ownership of land are in a

position to exploit the labour of those who lack property of their own. It is this

capacity to exploit and subordinate labour that guarantees the power of the different

elements of the landed classes in Punjab, particularly in the period preceding partition

in 1947. In addition to providing the landholding class with economic strength,

the control over labour that comes with the ownership of property enables the

landholding class to more effectively dominate political and social life in thecountryside.



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Using data obtained from Calvert (1925) and Khan (2006), Tables 1 and 2 show the

evolution of landholding patterns in Punjab, showing changes in land ownership and

concentration over time. Table 3 indicates the number of landless households in

Punjab as a percentage of the total number of households, while Table 4 displays

trends in the use of wage labour in rural Punjab.

It is possible to arrive at some conclusions based on the data given above. Purely in

economic terms, there is a definite tendency towards the concentration of land own-

ership and the consolidation of the economic power of the different elements of the

landowning class relative to other segments of the population. Between 1925 and

2000, the number of landholders owning less that 12.5 acres increased significantly,

even as those owning more than this amount became fewer and fewer in number.

The declining number of medium and large landholdings can be explained by

taking into account land fragmentation and the operation of market forces after inde-

pendence (amidst the elimination of laws enforcing primogeniture and the restriction

of land ownership to particular segments of the rural population). Indeed, the increasein the number of marginal and small holdings points towards the increasing impov-

erishment of medium-level landholders over time, implying the emergence of an

increasingly large ownership divide between the largest landowners and everyone

else. The increase in the size of the landless in the same time period, as well as the

increase in the amount of casual labour employed in Punjab, points towards the

growth of wage labourers as a category in Punjab. The rise in wage labour, and the

increasing number of small and marginal holdings, can be attributed to a number

of factors, ranging from increased mechanization to land fragmentation and even

diversification away from agriculture, but the overall picture remains clear. The

Table 1.Land distribution among landholding households in Punjab.

Size of landholding 1925 1972 1980 1990 2000

Marginal holdings (up to 5 acres) (%) 58 46 47 54 61

Small holdings (between 5 and 12.5 acres) (%) 26 30 30 28 27

Medium holdings (between 12.5 and 50 acres) (%) 12 21 19 15 11

Large holdings (more than 50 acres) (%) 4 4 3 2 1

Table 2.Landholding types as a percentage of the total farmed area.

Holding type

Percentage of farmed area

1925 1972 1980 1990 2000

Marginal holding (up to 5 acres) 12 5 7 11 16

Small holding (5 12.5 acres) 26 30 33 40 47

Medium holding (12.5 50 acres) 35 50 46 41 39Large (more than 50 acres) 25 20 21 29 14

344 H. Javid


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agrarian economy continues to be dominated by a small class of landowners who, as

the main sources of employment within the village, continue to wield a tremendous

amount of economic power in the countryside.

In addition to the criteria of property ownership and labour exploitation, it is also

necessary to understand the role played by social status in forging class identities. In

this context, social status broadly refers to the position of a given class in the rural hier-

archy and can be said to approximate to membership within abiraderi.Historically in

Punjab, the distinction between those who did and those who did not have access toland formed the basis of the biraderi1 system that structured social relations in the

province. Agriculturalist biraderis, namely those with de facto ownership over land,

or those who cultivated land, occupied an economic and social position that was

completely different from that occupied by thebiraderisof the artisans who performed

non-land-related services in the village. At the bottom of the hierarchy were the

landless poor who were not members of the artisanal biraderis. Although biraderi

also regulated social life in a wide variety of areas, ranging from marriage to dispute

resolution, it was primarily a means through which to enforce occupational specializ-

ation and stratification.

In the precolonial and colonial eras, membership within land-controlling biraderisbrought with it political benefits. Seeking to co-opt the dominant elements of the pea-

santry with a view towards ensuring order and accumulation, these regimes actively

cultivated the support of landed biraderis like the Jats and the Rajputs. Indeed, the

majority of the provinces traditional aristocracy was drawn from these biraderis,

and the rich peasantry comprised almost entirely the biraderis. Linked through

bonds of kinship and, often, common economic interest, biraderis often formed the

basis of the political mobilization of Punjabs landholders and were instrumental in

consolidating the collective power of these actors.

What must be borne in mind when discussing biraderi, however, is that it does notact as a completely perfect proxy for economic class. While biraderi did often deter-

mine a persons occupation and degree of access to land,biraderiswere not completely

Table 3.Landless households as a percentage of total village households.

1972 1980 1990 2000

Landless (%) 48.2 50.0 55.4 50.3

Table 4.Types of labour employed in agricultural households.

1972 1980 1990 2000

Family workers as percentage of family members (%) 55 60 29 37

Permanent hired labour (%) 7 4 2 3.4Casual labour (%) 30 45 50 44



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bounded categories. As such, members of a non-agriculturalistbiradericould poten-

tially own land and vice versa. Related to this is the fact that differences could exist, in

terms of status and economic power, within biraderisoccupying similar positions on

the occupational scale. Thus, for instance,Jats,Rajputs, andArainswere all agricultur-

alistbiraderis, but they did not enjoy equal levels of prestige and power. More oftenthan not, the social dominance of any given biraderi would be dependent on geo-

graphical and demographic factors, like the region in which the biraderi was located

and the number of members it had in that particular area. At a purely political

level, however, particularly under the colonial regime, these nuances were of little sig-

nificance. Notwithstanding these variations, biraderi membership was a reasonably

accurate indicator of land ownership and social position, and it was on this basis

that colonial policy was eventually constructed. The institutionalization ofbiraderi

as political power that took place under colonial rule would have an effect on devel-

opments in the postcolonial context.Taking the different determinants of class togetherproperty ownership, labour

exploitation, and social statusit is possible to then identify two different sets of

capacities that can be used to further refine the distinction between different classes

and, indeed, fractions within classes. Broadly, and to varying degrees, classes can

possess the capacity to impose sanctions on rival groups and to engage in collective

action. Sanctions here are understood to be of two types. Negative sanctions are

those that impose costs, such as the use of violence or economic dominance against

rivals and subordinates. Positive sanctions, on the other hand, can include the pro-

vision of services such as access to the state and dispute resolution. The ability to

impose sanctions of either type depends on the economic strength of a class as wellas on its social status. In the case of the landowning class in Punjab, the capacity to

bring sanctions to bear against other classes in society forms the basis of its importance

to authoritarian regimes.

Social status and economic power are also linked to a class ability to undertake

collective action. As mentioned earlier, biraderinetworks can form the basis for pol-

itical mobilization, and the resources available to dominant classes can allow them

to use these means of informal organization to interact with the state and pursue

common interests. Collective action can also assume the formation of and partici-

pation within formal organizations, such as political parties and civic associations.The Unionist Party and the Zamindar Association in colonial Punjab would be

examples of this, as would be association through political parties in the postcolonial

period. Ahmad (1973) suggested that economic independence is fundamental to the

capacity to organize collectively in Punjab and argued that the ties of dependence

that link the landless and poor to the landed in Punjab severely circumscribe the

extent to which the former can mobilize on a common platform.

Based on the attributes and capacities discussed above, it is possible to arrive at a

more nuanced picture of class in Punjab than one based solely on economic criteria.

While the primary determinant of class is property ownership, there are important dis-

tinctions to be made between different fractions of the landed class. The traditionalaristocracy, who have historically been at the apex of the rural hierarchy, are large

346 H. Javid


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landholders possessing tremendous social status. The heads of regionalbiraderigroups

and large jagirdars would be examples of individuals belonging to this grouping.

Similar to the traditional aristocracy are the rich peasantry who, like the aristocracy,

possess both land and status, but not to the same degree. Village-level lumberdars

and chuadhris would be examples of the rich peasantry. Both the aristocracy andthe rich peasantry possess land beyond their capacity to engage in self-cultivation

and, hence, engage in labour exploitation either through the employment of wage

labour or by taking on tenants. Broadly speaking, these actors can also be conceptu-

alized as constituting the dominant element of the landed class in Punjab, historically

enjoying the greatest access to the state, and control over politics, in the countryside.

Subordinate to the aristocracy and rich peasantry in Punjabs rural hierarchy are the

middle peasantry, defined as such by their possession of enough land to subsist

through self-cultivation (usually between 12.5 and 50 acres) without having to

exploit the labour of others. The bulk of the grantees in Punjabs canal colonieswould exemplify this group of autonomous peasant proprietors. By virtue of their

economic independence, this group also possesses the capacity for independent collec-

tive action and political mobilization, despite lacking the means through which to

impose any kind of sanctions on other classes in the rural political economy.

Finally, at the bottom of the rural hierarchy are the poor peasantry (possessing

small amounts of land that are insufficient for subsistence agriculture) and the land-

less, both of which are dependent on, and necessarily sell their labour power to, the

landed classes, consequently lacking both status and the capacity to engage in collec-

tive action.

One additional point about the class typology presented in this section is that itallows for capturing changes in class attributes and composition over time. One of

the arguments presented in this paper is that actors and institutions adapt to

change over time. The transformation of the dominant elements of the landowning

class from coercive owners using labour-intensive techniques of cultivation to capi-

talist farmers represents such a process of adaptation. While the fundamental

sources of class stratification, namely property ownership and social status,

remain largely unchanged, differences arising from changed processes of economic

production can be incorporated within this framework. Similarly, the increase in

wage labour over time amidst the decline of the middle peasantry represents aquantitative shift that does not bring into question the validity of the concept of

class that is used in this paper. Different types of tenancy arrangements are also

captured by this typology, in that the capacity to exploit the labour of others is

not restricted to the hiring of wage labour. Although landholding size does not

necessarily imply the presence or absence of tenancy (since members of the poor

peasantry could, for example, choose to engage in sharecropping or lease out

their land in order to explore alterative economic opportunities), it is assumed

that tenancy assumes a qualitatively different social relationship depending on

the size of the landholding. Members of the landed class, possessing land in

excess of their subsistence needs and their capacity to self-cultivate it occupy aneconomic position that is different from that occupied by those entering into a



13/34

tenancy arrangement in order to guarantee subsistence due to an inability to do so

through self-cultivation alone.

At this point, it is important to remember that the class structure of Punjab has not

remained static. Over time, particularly with the development and spread of capital-

ism, changes have taken place in the class structure of Punjab, leading to the introduc-tion of new political actors over time. In the rural arena, changes had begun to take

place by the end of the nineteenth century with the increasing emergence of rural

wage labourers as a result of the decline of traditional artisanal occupations. This

change was accompanied by a more formal stratification of the hierarchy of landow-

nership. As land grew scarce in the face of demographic pressures, and as access to it

was increasingly restricted and controlled by government policy premised on the colo-

nial understanding of Punjabi tradition, a clear divide began to emerge between the

traditional aristocracy, the rich peasantry, and small peasant proprietors possessing

enough land to sustain themselves and their families. As the process of capitalist devel-opment progressed, and as colonial controls on the sale of land were relaxed in the

postcolonial period, the stratification of landholdings increased even further. Land

fragmentation over time and capitalist development also impacted the rural class

structure, widening the gap between the landed and the landless while also resulting

in the further development of a rural proletariat (Ahmad 1977).

Nonetheless, while there is evidence to suggest that a significant class divide

continues to exist in Punjab on the basis of ownership of, and access to, land, it is

important to acknowledge how the process of capitalist development has created a

new class of capital-owning businessmen and entrepreneurs in the province, spread

across dozens, if not hundreds, of small towns and cities. Distinct from Punjabssmall class of large capitalists, this new middle or intermediate class has been

the subject of considerable debate, not least of all because of the way in which it is

conceptualized as being key to economic flows and politics within the province

(Alavi 1998; Cheema 2003; Sayeed 1996; Zaidi 2006).

At a fundamental level, the emergence of the middle classes in Punjab is represen-

tative of the broader economic changes that have taken place in the province. Yet, while

it is possible to identify actors in Punjab who fit the economic criteria used to identify

these middle classes, it is difficult to argue that these actors constitute a single class

with clearly defined interests. For one, while these actors may be interested, at anabstract level, in the transfer of land, capital, and state patronage away from the

more dominant economic classes (Sayeed 1996), it is necessary to recognize that the

middle classes in Punjab engage in a wide variety of economic activities that can

give rise to differing sectoral interests and political inclinations. Indeed, rather than

articulating themselves as a consolidated class, the middle classes tend to pursue

their interests strategically, aligning themselves in a fragmented fashion with the

classes and political groupings that can provide them with the most opportunistic

gain (Ahmad 1985). Thus, while the middle classes may occupy a substantial economic

and even demographic position within the calculus of power and politics, particularly

given their economic independence and corresponding capacity to engage in collectiveaction free from the constraints imposed by rival classes, their tendency towards

348 H. Javid


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fragmentation weakens their power as a class (to the extent that the label of class

accurately describes these actors).

This is a picture that is complicated by a further observation on the nature of the

middle classes and one that is more directly relevant to the argument presented in

this paper about landed power in Punjab. First, capitalists are not new to Punjab.During the colonial period, a predominantly urban class of capitalist moneylenders

was an important source of credit for the rural economy and continued to grow

increasingly economically powerful until it was constrained by the intervention of a

colonial state that was wary of the ability of this class to disturb the rural social

order. While this class otherwise remained marginal to the political interests of the

colonial state due to its lack of mooring within the countryside itself and subsequent

lack of political and social power, it nonetheless constituted a class not dissimilar to the

middle classes present in contemporary Punjab (Banga 2005; Daechsel 2006). Once

this class had been constrained by the colonial state, however, the provision of ruralcredit was a task that was taken up by large landholders with a surplus of capital.

This illustrates a second important point about the middle classes in Punjab. In

addition to being geographically and economically fragmented, it is necessary to

recognize that, particularly in the agro-industrial sector, many of the new capitalists

in Punjab are old landholders (Alavi 1998: 2930). In addition to the class of capitalist

farmers that emerged in the 1960s during the Green Revolution, dominant elements of

the landed class (both the aristocracy and the rich peasantry) were also able to situate

themselves within the processes of industrial diversification and accumulation that

were initiated in this period, cementing a coalition of class fractions that existed

during the colonial period as well. Indeed, in the 1960s, the government itself ident-ified big landlords as being key to the development of industry in the province due

to their possession of surplus that did not necessarily have to be re-invested in agricul-

ture.2 Rather than creating a dichotomy between a new class of capitalists and an

older class of feudals, the process of capitalist development in Punjab blurred the

distinction between these two types of propertied actors. While it would certainly

be overstating the case to suggest that the entire middle class in Punjab can be charac-

terized in this fashion, particularly when bearing in mind the fact that not all of the

middle classes have roots in the countryside, just as many elements of the middle

class in the countryside may not have landowning antecedents, it is nonetheless impor-tant to recognize how a significant portion of this new class is not new at all and simply

represents another example of how the elements of the traditionally dominant landed

class are able to adapt to changing societal circumstances.

The implications of this for the exercise of class power in Punjab are clear. Instead

of representing an emergent class carving a niche for itself in an economic and pol-

itical terrain dominated by the parochial interests of the traditional rural order, the

new middle class in Punjab, particularly in the countryside, may simply represent

the adaptation of the old elite to the new conditions of capitalist accumulation in

Punjab. As such, given their antecedents, many elements of the new middle class

may also be able to call upon historically evolved sources of power, similar tothose employed by the members of the landed class, to further expand their interests



15/34

and entrench themselves within the institutional framework of Punjabi politics. Also,

while the propertied classes may engage in real conflicts of interest, between land and

capital or between the urban and the rural, they remain united in a common need to

continue the domination of the subordinate classes. In the final analysis, the interests

of the middle classes are not as antagonistic to the traditional order as might other-wise be expected.

Finally, with regard to the typology of class presented in this section, it is necessary

to qualify the class structure that has been put forward by acknowledging that class in

Punjab has never been a closed category. The boundaries of class often overlap and

intermesh, and it is by no means the case that individual members of any given

class will always act in similar ways or indeed have similar class attributes. Further-

more, within Punjab, the considerable variation in landholding patterns and economic

development from district to district makes it difficult to generalize about class. None-

theless, class remains a key to the analysis of power in Punjab because of the way inwhich it has been institutionalized, over time, as a political category. The relationship

between the landholders and authoritarian regimes in Punjab has been premised on

the ability of the former, as a class, to provide support to the state, and this is a role

that the landed elite have, on the whole, been able to perform with considerable effec-

tiveness. When it has come to the question of pursuing their own interests, and those

of their patrons within the state, the landed class has historically shown considerable

ability to mobilize as a relatively homogenous collective.

The Antecedents of Landed Power in PunjabHaving established the criteria by which to determine the different class forces at work

in Punjab, it is possible to chart out the trajectory of institutional development that has

allowed dominant elements of the landowning class to consolidate and reinforce their

power over time. Following the logic of path dependence, understanding this process

of entrenchment and adaptation necessarily requires an understanding of how these

actors were initially incorporated within the formal apparatus of state control and

power. In precolonial India, where agricultural surplus formed the primary source

of revenue and wealth, control over land and, more importantly, cultivators and

their produce was of central significance to any ruling authority (Fuller 1989).Lacking the infrastructural capacity to centralize control over land, the Mughal emper-

ors in India relied upon a complex chain of intermediaries, ranging from provincial

governors and jagirdars to local-level clan leaders and zamindars, to provide the

means through which indirect rule could be established over the empire (DSouza

2002: 810; Hasan 1969). In addition to collecting revenue for the empire, these inter-

mediaries also performed another incredibly important functionthe suppression of

dissent and rebellion. Recognizing the need to curtail the potential for revolt, either by

the peasantry or by disaffected local and regional power-holders, the Mughal emperors

actively sought to accommodate powerful allies who could use their own social and

economic influence, as well as military force, to ensure the stability of the system.In return for these services, actors aligned with the Mughal regime received a share

350 H. Javid


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of the revenue collected and also acquired the political legitimacy that was borne out of

association with the Mughal emperor (Alam 1986; Habib 2000).

The systemic accommodation and incorporation of actors possessing land, and

controlling those who cultivated it, led to their being made an intrinsic part of the

ruling apparatus of the state. Effectively employed to pursue the economic and politi-cal interests of the state, these actors were able to enforce the writ of the regime and

strengthen its authority. As a corollary of this process, these landholders were also

able to consolidate their own economic and political power. The jajmani system

that enforced the division of labour between different castes and clans in the villages

of India ensured the existence of different occupational groups, each of which had

discrete links to the productive process (Fuller 1989). Thus, a clear divide existed

between landless workers, artisans, and landowners, which, in tandem with ties of

kinship and caste, provided the basis for the creation of strong group identities.

Within this social hierarchy, landholders tended to enjoy the most prestige and wereoften able to buttress their power through the use of their influence within the

village and through their association with other landholders. In Punjab, the presence

of this village-level division of labour was the foundation for thebiraderisthat would

subsequently come to form part of the basis for social stratification and political

mobilization in the province. To the extent that landowners in this phase of history

represented a class in themselves, being part of the formal state apparatus afforded

a means through which class power could be strengthened and exercised.

The British annexation of Punjab in 1849 represented a critical juncture in which

the possibility was opened up for a radical renegotiation of the entire institutional

edifice of politics in the province. Significantly, the new regime was one that differedsubstantially from its predecessors in terms of the infrastructural power that it osten-

sibly had at its disposal, giving it considerable institutional capacity, logistical reach,

and ability to penetrate society. By eventually setting up a formal, modern bureaucracy

that closely regulated and controlled agricultural production in the province on a scale

that had simply not been possible under previous regimes (Ali 1988: 9) and by putting

in place a legal system that could implement and enforce a plethora of laws designed to

protect the interests of the British government and its landed allies, the British govern-

ment was able to engender an institutional transformation that greatly expanded the

power of the state and its ability to monitor, and respond to, developments at everylevel of government. Linked to the growth of the states infrastructural power was

the increasing centralization of its military capacity. While the Mughal and Sikh

regimes had depended on local and regional allies to provide troops for campaigns,

the British Indian Army existed as a unified force under the sole command of the

central government. Given the colonial states increasing ability to micro-manage

governance through the expansion of its infrastructural power, and its military

independence, there was apparently little need for the British colonial government

to align its interests with those of the landowning class in Punjab.

Despite its considerable bureaucratic and infrastructural power, however, the power

exercised by the colonial state was never completely totalizing. The development of itsinfrastructural power was a process that continued over the course of several decades,



17/34

and while its reach exceeded that of the regimes that preceded it, the colonial state was

always unable to completely enmesh itself within the society it ruled over. As argued by

Seal (1973) and Bayly (1973), the strength of the British colonial state in India was

often exaggerated and its hold over society remained tenuous at best, dependent

always on the collaboration of indigenous elites and classes who played an instrumen-tal role within the colonial system of governance. Though the state had a degree of

autonomy from social forces and pressures, its autonomy was circumscribed by its

reliance on the traditional power-holders that supported it. In the case of Punjab, a

number of potential factors explained the interest the British colonial government

had in nurturing the support of indigenous landholding elites. First, unlike the

Mughal state, which had been able to legitimize its rule through ideological appeals

to religion and tradition (Hintze 1997: 50), the British colonial government was

never able to successfully legitimize its occupation of the Indian subcontinent both

within India and even in England itself (Metcalf 1995). The absence of any kind oflegitimizing ideology complicated the task of governing a province with a long

history of peasant revolt and opposition to exploitative rule. Secondly, the need for

cost-effective and efficient administration efficiency, long a concern of the British in

India (Stokes 1980), lent itself readily to the outsourcing of particular functions to

indigenous collaborators, particularly in the areas of revenue collection and law enfor-

cement. Local allies in Punjab, possessing both economic and social power through

their access to land and position within traditional networks of caste and kinship,

provided a means through which the colonial administration could overcome some

of the limitations it faced when governing the subcontinent. That these imperatives

guided the colonial state in Punjab was made abundantly evident as, over thecourse of British rule in the province, members of the landowning class increasingly

formed the bedrock of the local government, judicial, and revenue administrations.

The relationship between the landowning class and the colonial state was not,

however, one that emerged spontaneously out of some kind of institutional

vacuum. Indeed, the foundational years of colonial rule in Punjab, particularly

between 1849 and 1868, represented a juncture in which the new institutional order

was negotiated and implemented in the context of the interests of the British coloni-

zers and the shifting circumstances of Punjabi society itself. It was in this initial period

of uncertainty that the first steps were taken towards setting in motion the path-dependent trajectory of institutional development that would come to inform

Punjabi politics and society in the later decades. Initially interested in emulating the

experience of the North-Western Provinces, where a system of independent peasant

proprietorship had been used to displace the traditional landed aristocracy in order

to guarantee more effective and efficient revenue collection, the British set about

affecting a revenue settlement that granted land to the occupancy tenants and small-

holders who constituted the bulk of the rural cultivating population. While this

measure was undertaken at the expense of the traditional aristocracy, many of

whom had already been displaced as a result of the AngloSikh Wars, it was believed

at the time that the support of a large number of peasant proprietors would be suffi-cient to guarantee the stability of the new regime.

352 H. Javid


18/34

This logic was called into question by the events of 1857, when a revolt spearheaded

by disaffected members of the traditional aristocracy in Oudh and the North-Western

Provinces impressed upon the colonial state the value in having the support of large

landholders who, in addition to commanding a tremendous amount of economic

power, could also call upon traditional sources of social and political status toensure the maintenance of order in the countryside (Metcalf 1962). In Punjab, this

translated into a reappraisal of colonial policy in the years following 1857, as well as

in 1857, resulting ultimately in the granting of titles, concessions, and patronage to

members of the traditional aristocracy who had supported the colonial state in its

struggles against the Sikhs. Where the colonial state had previously supported the

less dominant members of Punjabs landholders, it now threw its weight behind the

historically powerful members of this class.

While the debates that informed the eventual revenue settlement and adminis-

tration of Punjab were often confused and contradictory,

3

the regime that emergedin the aftermath of 1857 events was one that was premised on the co-optation of

both the provinces landed aristocracy and the self-sufficient proprietors who consti-

tuted Punjabs middle and rich peasantry. As early as 1857, the constraints imposed by

path dependence on the colonial state can be made evident by considering how, having

granted land to the peasant proprietors of the province, the state could not fully revert

to a model of control and power that relied exclusively on the traditional aristocracy.

Dispossessing the new peasant proprietors would have resulted in a backlash the colo-

nial state may not have been able to contain and necessitated the inclusion of these

actors in the emerging framework of colonial rule (Hambly 1964). As such, despite

some official opposition to the move, the Punjab Tenancy Act of 1868 guaranteedthat the rights of extant peasant proprietors would be protected from the predations

of the traditional aristocracy, even as it was made clear that subsequent revenue settle-

ments would explicitly seek to accommodate members of this class fraction as well.

The passing of the Punjab Tenancy Act in 1868 essentially enshrined the form that

would be taken by the colonial order in Punjab. Rather than being dependent on either

the rich and middle peasantry or the traditional aristocracy, the new dispensation was

one that created a coalition of these class fractions. Landed power was, thus, institu-

tionalized by the colonial state, but at different levels involving different elements of

the landed class. Consequently, the traditional aristocracy would continue to dominatepolitics at the provincial and even national levels, exercising the greatest amount of

power while enjoying the most preferential access to state patronage. The rich peasan-

try, in turn, formed the core of the colonial states institutional framework at the local

level, operating mostly at the village level and the lower tiers of formal colonial

government. The middle peasantry, while largely excluded from incorporation

within the state itself, nonetheless benefitted from legislative and institutional inter-

ventions aimed at protecting the interests of landowners and remained loyal to a colo-

nial state whose interests coincided with theirs. Like the Mughals and Sikhs before

them, the British administration relied upon the services of a chain of landholding

intermediaries. Once implicated in the exercise of colonial governance, the differentfractions of the landowning class benefitted tremendously from their association



19/34

with the British. In turn, they provided the colonial government with recruits, revenue,

and stability, using their position within kinship networks, village-level informal insti-

tutions, and the state, to ensure the maintenance of order in the countryside.

The mechanisms of path-dependent institutional reproduction and adaptation that

were at work during the colonial period can be observed by examining the imperativesthat underwrote the different legislative and political interventions that were made in

this period. Having linked their fortunes to the continued well-being of the landown-

ing class, the British were constrained in their ability to undertake any measures that

could alienate these landed allies. Given the premium placed by the state on stability,

particularly as Punjab became an increasingly important military asset due to its

steady supply of recruits to the colonial army (Yong 2005), agrarian discontent rep-

resented a cost that outweighed any potential benefit that could have accrued to the

state as a result of institutional change. The controversy that resulted over revising

the revenue settlement in Punjab in the 1860s posed a dilemma for the colonialstate precisely because it ran the risk of dispossessing a potentially volatile constituency

of peasant proprietors that it itself had created during the first round of settlement.

Faced with the prospect of resistance in the countryside, the colonial state decided

to retreat, choosing instead to continue favouring both the provinces peasant proprie-

tors and its landed aristocracy. A similar situation arose in 1907, when revolts by gran-

tees in the canal colonies over property rights threatened colonial interests (Barrier

1967). Once again, the effort invested by the British in co-opting Punjabs landed

class, and using it to guarantee stability, essentially ensured that the state could not

risk losing its allies by choosing a course of action that could have resulted in an

alternative outcome. Even when it came to dealing with rival classes, the colonialstate intervened decisively in favour of the landed class. When urban moneylenders,

the kernel of an emerging bourgeoisie, threatened the stability of the countryside at

the turn of the century, the colonial state intervened by implementing the Land Alien-

ation Act of 1900, effectively eliminating the market for land while simultaneously

guaranteeing the continued support of its increasingly powerful rural allies. When

deciding between the status quo and radical change, the costs associated with the

latter ensured that the colonial state would choose to maintain the extant institutional

arrangement. Ironically, as the power of the landowning class itself grew in response to

the favour it continually received from the state, the capacity of the British to defectfrom the arrangement decreased. The bureaucratic authoritarianism of the colonial

state came to become structurally dependent on the Punjabi landed class.

Just as the state was dependent on the Punjabi landowning class, members of this

class themselves sought to gain little by withdrawing their support for the British.

As part of a framework of rule within which both the state and its allies derived

increasing returns from the deepening of their relationship, landowners would, over

time, come to enjoy an increasingly formalized and institutionalized role within the

colonial administration. Initially as revenue collectors and quasi-official headmen,

and then later as magistrates, commissioners, and politicians, the states landed

allies were able to exploit their relationship with the British to expand the range oftheir capacities as a class. Bureaucratic power complemented the existing economic

354 H. Javid


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and coercive power of the landed class, placing it in a position where it could effectively

utilize their resources and collective capacity to monopolize economic, political, and

social life in the Punjabi countryside. Essentially, its bargain with the colonial state

increased the capacity of the landowning class to impose sanctions on its subordinate

classes, as well as on its rivals.The bureaucratic incorporation of the landed class within the colonial state was

supplemented, towards the end of the nineteenth century, by the introduction in

the province of limited forms of electoral politics and representational government.

With elections to district-level boards beginning in the 1880s, and with legislative

councils featuring elected Punjabis being established in the first few years of the twen-

tieth century, the British used the rhetoric of liberal democracy to garner greater legiti-

macy for their rule. As always, however, the introduction of limited democratization

was part of a broader strategy of ruling more effectively, in part by granting greater

power to local collaborators (Washbrook 1997). Right up until partition, exercisesin electoral politics in Punjab were based upon a limited franchise that, while expand-

ing periodically, restricted the rural vote to relatively large landowners. Measures were

also taken to ensure that constituencies were drawn in ways that would allow local

influentials to utilize their biraderi connections to mobilize support. As a result of

these, and other interventions made to ensure the return of favourable electoral

results, members of the landowning classes were able to dominate elections in

Punjab. By 1937, repeated rounds of elections at the district and provincial levels

had continually returned candidates who were members of the Punjabi landed class

(Yadav 1987), with the elections of 1946 displaying a similar set of results despite

the fact that they had been won by the nationalist Muslim League.4

The introduction of electoral politics to Punjab represented an institutional inter-

vention, made by the colonial state, that reinforced its capacity to rely on its landed

allies for support. Members of the landed class themselves used this newly opened

political space to further their own agendas. In addition to bodies like the Zamindar

Association, which were formed by the landowners to lobby the government for

additional support, formal political parties such as the Unionist Party were set up

by this class to further its interests, and these parties would, in turn, remain the

most powerful force in Punjabi politics for decades to come (Talbot 1988). In a

very real sense, political parties and their associated organizations provided thelanded class with an additional means through which to bolster the power derived

through their membership within networks of biraderi and kinship. Horizontal

links between members of the traditional aristocracy were strengthened even as the

existence of a party machine allowed for a reinforcement of the vertical links

joining this class fraction to the rich and middle peasantry. Indeed, the formal

organs of representational government fulfilled a similar function. In addition to

the new legislative councils, assemblies, and boards that provided the landowning

class with the opportunity to more directly influence state policy, membership

within these bodies also allowed for the transfer of state patronage. The few dozen

members of the traditional aristocracy who occupied the highest tiers of governmentcould, thus, use their position to provide patronage to the thousands of rich and



21/34

middle peasants who were part of the district and tahsilboards in the province, as well

as to the local village-level administrative apparatuses.

The development of this multi-tiered model of governance would have three impor-

tant implications for politics in Punjab. First of all, it guaranteed continuing econ-

omic, social, and political returns to both the colonial state and its landed allies,who were able to use this institutional framework to pursue their interests and

reinforce their power. Secondly, it provided an institutionalized means through

which to ensure the continued cohesion of the coalition of landed class fractions

that underpinned colonial rule in Punjab. Given that the possibility did exist of

intra-class conflict between the traditional aristocracy, rich peasantry, and middle

peasantry, the provision of a method through which each class fraction could claim

state patronage reduced the need for intra-class antagonism. With the British acting

as the ultimate arbiters safeguarding the interests of each class fraction, the vertical

and horizontal linkages created by the administrative and electoral structure servedas a means through which class solidarity could be forged and resources could be effec-

tively distributed. Thirdly, the logic of electoral and bureaucratic politics under colo-

nialism also put in place the system of patron client politics that would subsequently

come to dominate Punjab in both the colonial and postcolonial periods. As the ability

to acquire state patronage was linked to incorporation within the state itself, land-

owners came to represent the only means through which the rural masses could

gain access to the state. This strengthened the ties of dependence that linked the pea-

santry to the landowning class and served as a means through which the colonial state

could guarantee the continued compliance of the non-landowning majority of rural

Punjab. It also, however, granted additional power to those landowners who couldsituate themselves as patrons within society, allowing them to more effectively

pursue their own interests. Public office under colonialism thus came to be associated

with personal gain, putting in place a formal culture of rent-seeking that was never

actively discouraged by the state.

The increasing power enjoyed by the landed class in Punjab represented the kind of

increasing returns that contribute to reinforcing path-dependent institutional devel-

opment. Just as the British colonial state continued to reap the benefits of landowner

support, so too did the landowning classes prosper by entrenching themselves deeper

and deeper within the apparatus of rule. The effects of colonial collaboration withPunjabs landowning class were made manifest by the turn of the century, when

India had begun to see the emergence of both an indigenous bourgeoisie and an edu-

cated elite that sought increasing representation within the state. At a time when

nationalist sentiment had started to envelop politics in much of the rest of the

country, Punjab remained largely undisturbed and stable. This was not least due to

the efforts of the landowning class, who used their influence and power to actively

retard the growth of nationalism in the province (Ali 1991). Cracks did eventually

appear in this arrangement, particularly in response to increasing government repres-

sion, the economic strain of the two world wars, and the logic of national electoral

politics (Jalal 1999; Puri 1985), leading to the eventual collapse of British rule inPunjab and the defection of the provinces landholding classes to the nationalist

356 H. Javid


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camp. Nonetheless, British policy with regard to Punjabs landholders had allowed for

a century of largely stable and profitable rule.

Class Power and Reproduction in Postcolonial Punjab

Since 1947, repeated bouts of military rule in Pakistan have paradoxically been

accompanied by rounds of electoral competition. From Ayub Khan to Musharraf,

military dictators in Pakistan have used elections to garner legitimacy for their

regimes. However, there is little evidence to suggest that these exercises in electoral

politics have ever represented a substantive shift away from authoritarianism and

towards a more participatory politics. As argued by Cheema et al. (2006), the non-

party basis of all these elections has served to create a local-level tier of government

officials and politicians directly beholden to the state and military for access to patron-

age and power. Similarly, it is also clear that more often than not, elections in Pakistan,particularly under military governments, have been dominated by the same tradition-

ally powerful political actors who have historically dominated the different levels of

government in Pakistan (Akhtar et al. 2007; Waseem 2005). In Punjab, despite some

important changes that will be discussed below, this has essentially meant that politics

in the postcolonial period continues to be the preserve of the same elements of the

landed class who exercised power in the colonial period. Indeed, when considering

the dynamics of electoral competition under military rule, it is also possible to see

how the mechanisms through which the authoritarian postcolonial state exercises

power do not differ very significantly from the strategies employed by the British.

Recent work by Cheema et al. (2009) demonstrates that the favour and patronagebestowed upon elements of the landed class in the colonial era have allowed for the

descendants of these actors to monopolize contemporary politics in the Punjabi coun-

tryside. The logic of path-dependent reinforcement and adaptation that underpins this

can be illustrated by the observation that areas lacking members of this class, primarily

due to the occupation of those areas by migrants and refugees after partition, are less

likely to have their politics dominated by traditionally powerful landholders (Cheema

et al.2009). From this, it becomes clear that in addition to the initial endowment that

is required for members of the landed class to acquire power, this power needs to be

reproduced and entrenched over time for it to be manifest in the present day. Aninsight into precisely what these mechanisms of reproduction might look like is pro-

vided by Nelsons (2002) study of local politics in Punjab. In attempting to explain the

microfoundational logic of postcolonial path dependence (431), Nelson argued that

the persistence of the colonial model of local-level politics cannot be traced to the

effect of formal administrative institutions. Instead, given the scale of agrarian trans-

formation in Punjab since the end of colonialism, Nelson suggested that the power of

the landed class stems from its ability to use political networks formed around access

to land, traditional village-level informal institutions, and relations of kinship to

provide local constituents with access to the formal institutions of the postcolonial

state, particularly in matters pertaining to dispute resolution and the inheritance ofproperty.



23/34

Although this explanation provides a compelling account of the dynamics of land-

based, factionalized politics at the micro-level in Punjab, it leaves largely unexplored

the way in which these local-level processes channel into the structure of provincial-

and national-level politics. Despite changes in the nature of state and society in the

postcolonial epoch, politics in Punjab remains determined not only by issues ofcontrol at the local level, but also by the crises of legitimacy that prompt an authori-

tarian state to buttress its rule through the exploitation of social networks dominated

by traditionally powerful landowners. The model of local politics in Punjab that

existed under colonialism continues to exist not just due to factional competition at

the local level, but also because of the historically embedded institutional continuities

between the postcolonial state and the regimes that preceded it, with the postcolonial

states search for legitimacy mirroring the quest for order and support that character-

ized the colonial epoch.

The initial endowments of the landowning class, in terms of economic and politicalpower, coupled with the authoritarian legacy of colonialism, are the key to under-

standing the persistence of landed power in Punjab after 1947 as well as the tremen-

dous impediments to democratization in Pakistan. As argued by Jalal (1995) and Alavi

(1972a), the transition to independence in Pakistan was characterized by the reproduc-

tion of an authoritarian state formation characterized by the presence of a military

bureaucratic nexus that was able to act as an independent political actor in the

presence of relatively less powerful social groups. However, while Alavi argued that

the postcolonial state is guided by the structural imperatives of peripheral capitalism

while acting as a mediator between the often contradictory interests of the different

capitalist and feudal fractions of the ruling class, it is necessary to understand theway in which the postcolonial states relationship with the landed class grew to

become one of mutual structural dependence. The postcolonial state in Pakistan has

historically been open to capture by a variety of different classes at different points

in time (Zaidi 2006), but the link between landed power and authoritarianism is

one that has been sustained for much of Pakistans history. Despite being in a position

to mediate between competing economic interests, the autonomy of the postcolonial

state is limited by its need to acquire legitimacy and support in the countryside

through the continued co-optation of the dominant landowners.

The foundational role played by Punjabs landholders in the postcolonial dispensa-tion can be understood by focusing on the different dimensions of institutional

entrenchment that have allowed for the reproduction of the power of the landowning

class over time. As stated earlier, the structure of colonial governance in Punjab was

one that was premised upon the incorporation of the provinces landed class. By the

end of the colonial period, this had been formalized by the inclusion of elements of

this class within every tier of the British administrative framework. From the village

level upwards, an array of officials ranging from lamberdarsto members of the legis-

lative assemblies provided the means through which the interests of the landed class

could be articulated and pursued. Following independence in 1947, initial attempts

at governing the new state inevitably relied upon the continued use of the same gov-ernment machinery that had underpinned the colonial state. Elements of the landed

358 H. Javid


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aristocracy had been instrumental in the Muslim Leagues electoral victory in 1946 and

continued to play a dominant role in provincial- and even national-level politics after

partition, as observed in 1951, when barely four years after the end of British colonial

rule, the traditional aristocracy and rich peasantry were able to use their economic and

local-level social clout to dominate provincial-level elections in much the same way asthey had under the colonial government (Maniruzzaman 1966). At the lower tiers of

government, particularly at the local level, members of the rich and middle peasantry

remained entrenched in positions of social and economic power and were able to

retain their political clout despite the tremendous transformations that had ostensibly

been generated by partition. Inevitably, and in line with the notion of increasing

returns embodied in the concept of path dependence, the different fractions of the

Punjabi landed class were able to expand their networks of influence and patronage,

enmeshing themselves even more deeply, both directly and indirectly, within the

apparatuses of the state.Focusing more on the formal electoral basis of landed power, Cheema et al.(2006)

and Waseem (1994) provided arguments to suggest that the landed class in Punjab has

been instrumental in making possible the non-party-based forms of electoral compe-

tition and governance that have been characteristic of military regimes in Pakistan.

Like the colonial state before them, military governments in Pakistan have deliberately

engineered electoral scenarios that, while conferring a veneer of legitimacy upon essen-

tially authoritarian regimes, have also continued to ensure the empowerment of

Punjabs traditional landed class. However, what is interesting to note is that even pol-

itical parties, working in periods of democratic rule, have bought into the logic of

landed power, making use of landed allies to garner political control in the country-side. Bearing in mind the predominantly rural electoral geography of the province,

as shown in Table 5, as well as the capacity of the landed class to acquire support

through a combination of sanctions and patronage, political parties in Pakistan

have actively sought to incorporate powerful landholders within their fold, continuing

the process that was put in motion by the Unionist Party and the Muslim League in the

colonial period. With patronclient politics being at the heart of political mobiliz-

ation, service delivery, and access to the state in Punjab, landed class actors with

extant linkages to the state apparatus, as well as economic power, are indispensable

to political parties seeking to acquire political support. In practice, this has, over

Table 5.Categories of National Assembly constituencies in Punjab.a

Type of voter Type of constituency

Percentage of urban voters 24 Percentage of urban constituencies 25

Percentage of rural voters 50.90 Percentage of rural constituencies 49.30

Percentage of semi-urban voters 25.10 Percentage of semi-urban constituencies 25.70

a

Constituency categories delineated by referring to constituency maps available on the website of the ElectionCommission of Pakistan http://www.ecp.gov.pk/Delimitation/ConstituencyMap/NA.aspx. Population figures

and constituency delimitation are both based on the 1998 census.

http://www.cerp.org/pk/paper_detail.php?id=100000007http://www.cerp.org/pk/paper_detail.php?id=100000007


25/34

time, resulted in political parties courting rival landlord factions within any given con-

stituency, limiting electoral competition to displays of strength between different

elites. Parties that do not conform to this established pattern of political mobilization

run the risk of losing out electorally, as the barriers to entry into politics erected by the

landowning class in Punjab would make it difficult, and politically costly, for par

Class, Power, And Patronage Landowners and Politics in Punjab

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