The educated classes assume that they are rational while
the illiterate are not. While that may be true in some spheres, such as health
practices, it is not necessarily true as far as voting is concerned. This does
not mean that I praise the uneducated in all aspects of life. I definitely do
not for they adhere to such male-dominating values as to approve of killing
women for honour and suppressing personal freedom in the name of the extended
family (the biradri). What I am saying is simply that in
elections the uneducated do not vote irrationally; they do not waste their
vote; they are, indeed, quite rational. This needs emphasis because the
educated often accuse the illiterate of having no voting sense. It is this
which I want to refute. Instead, I will argue that it is the educated class
which is irresponsible in its voting behaviour and some sections of it vote
less rationally than the illiterate poor of the country.
First, the educated classes vote far less than others. They do not
want to take the trouble to go out and stand in queues---in any case they are
used to the privilege of not standing in queues anyway---and wait patiently to
cast their vote. Moreover, going out to vote means rubbing shoulders with the
ordinary people, the hoi polloi (or the great unwashed as the British would
call them), and this is below their dignity. Above all, they do not care which
faces are paraded on the T.V screen. The most powerful sections of the
‘educated classes’---and ‘educated’ in Pakistan is a code word for powerful,
affluent and urbanized---have a way of getting around the law of the land so it
does not matter very much who makes the law for the time being. In any case,
the ‘educated’ have always known that to survive they should know individuals,
powerful individuals, without reference to which party they claim to represent.
They also keep on excellent terms with the military and the bureaucracy---in
that order---to keep prospering. Thus, for the most powerful members of the
‘educated’ classes, it is quite rational not to bother to vote at all.
Secondly, there are far more naïve educated voters than
uneducated ones. They do not belong to the very powerful, opportunistic, upper
level. Instead, they come from the middle classes. Having never starved they
are inclined to believe that the most important things in life are what the
school teachers taught them in schools. Now what the schools teach are a lot of
lies. They vote, therefore, for ideological reasons. They are precisely the
kind of voters who love to vote in anybody who makes a lot of noise about
Kashmir; threatens to go to war; promises to fill the country with nukes and
also promises education and jobs for all. This is the kind of voter who is
ready to lynch politicians for corruption and may vote, or at least aspires to
vote, for an honest person who has the right kind of nationalistic fervour.
Then comes the uneducated voter. This voter is from the
rural areas or from the slums of the city. The voter has been denied all the
good things of life by all powerful people throughout history. He has come to
suspect all slogans and he really cannot afford to wax sentimental about national
honour or Kashmir or Islamization. He is a Muslim, of course, but he does not
understand the issue of Islamization or, for that matter, secularization
either. What he does understand are basic issues: more money; health care;
better roads; schools; jobs; electrification of houses and so on. Above all he
is in dread of the police and wants himself, or members of his family, to be
freed of the clutches of the policeman if they are caught. Whether they are
innocent or otherwise matters little with him. With these realities in mind the
illiterate voter does the only rational thing he can under the circumstances
---he gives his vote to the person who is powerful enough to obtain, by hook or
by crook, these goods and services. This person has the ability to get people
out of jail and to get them jobs. Now whether those people deserved to remain
in jail and did not really deserve the jobs which were given to them is an
issue which both the rational voter and the even more rational representative
do not want to be bothered about. These are just the kind of issues which
intellectuals with enough to eat and drink come up with.
In the real world of the slums and villages of Pakistan
life is too hard to leave any time for moral niceties. The system is such that
it gives you nothing till you have power. Now your power is the vote. So you
exchange your vote to get what you need which may be a social good such as a
school or an individual good, such as a job for that idiot nephew of yours who
does not even know how to cheat in an examination. After all there is no
welfare state to feed idiot nephews so jobs are what they have to live on.
This system of patronage has been noticed by many
political analysts. Andrew R. Wilder, in his book The Pakistani voter (1999), tells us how widespread and significant
it is in our politics. Interestingly, he points out how Nawaz Sharif’s media
advisors reached the English-reading intelligentsia with messages on national
issues such as ‘who broke up Pakistan for power, and who gave up power for
Pakistan’. However, in the Urdu press they mentioned bread and butter issues as
well. But in the Urdu press too there
was much talk of the ideology of Pakistan and other high-sounding phrases. In
the door-to-door canvassing the politicians promised concrete things: roads, jobs, better price for grain
etc-etc. Dr. M. Waseem in his book on The
1993 Elections in Pakistan (1994) also tells us that, whereas Nawaz
Sharif’s economic policy was considered his weak point, his workers convinced
the voters that it was the strongest one. And, in fact, much of the business
community’s support for Nawaz Sharif came because he gave government loans to
them, gave them tax exemptions and privatized industries. The PPP’s support
came from the fact that the prominent workers got jobs. Within Sindh, right
form the time of Z.A. Bhutto, the party gratified the Sindhi nationalists by
giving them psychological support, pride and also some influence through
recruitment and other means.
In short, because the state is otherwise uncaring and
unjust, people go for patronage politics. They find it in their rational
self-interest to elect these who can manipulate the system to benefit them and,
in the process, also benefit themselves. This means that it is generally better
to elect a wheeler-dealer than an honest man who does not know how to get
things by hook or by crook. Corruption, in short, is built into the system.
The people of Pakistan have actually always voted
rationally. Earlier, in 1946, they had voted for the Muslim League precisely
for these reasons. They thought Pakistan would be a dreamland of affluence and
freedom. They would be rid of the Hindu moneylenders and their sons would not
have to compete for jobs with Hindu youths. Of course they would also have
religious freedom too---that too is a good worth aspiring too.
Then they were given the
chance to vote in East Bengal and they voted the Muslim League out. In doing so
they did not go for the rhetoric of the Muslims League which was all about
nationalism and unity and Islam. Instead, they went for the reality that West
Pakistanis were more powerful than them; the most powerful officers in East
Bengal were West Pakistan; their money from jute export and fishing went
largely to West Pakistan and so on. They, therefore, defeated the Muslim League
in a bid to defeat West Pakistani domination.
In the 1970 election the people of East Pakistan again
voted for the same things as conditions had not changed for them. In West
Pakistan, tired of poverty and oppression, the people voted for bread, clothing
and shelter’. They even dared vote
against their feudal masters. They thought Bhutto would abolish the landlords
who oppressed them and they would be well off. Always,
the common people have aspired for maximizing their power and, by dint of it,
their pleasures. It is the propaganda befuddled educated classes which have
voted for purely ideological reasons which may not have been rational at that
point of time. It is not the fault of the uneducated if the system we have is
such that they have to extract patronage in exchange for votes. It is not their
fault if, being deprived of even necessities which are the right of all
citizens, they are forced to vote for wheeler-dealers just to get their rights.
The creation of such a system is the fault of the powerful ruling classes and
not of the masses. The masses vote rationally but such is the irony of our
politics that this means they are forced to vote for manipulators rather than
leaders of vision.