Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [43]
Bhutto was, however, also a child of his era, one in which left-wing nationalism was at its height in the ‘Third World’. When Bhutto founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1966, Nasser was in power in Egypt, Sukarno in Indonesia, Nkrumah in Ghana, and Mao was the darling of the left-wing intelligentsia in much of the world. In neighbouring India, Mrs Gandhi was preparing to break the hold of the old Congress bosses on her father’s party by a populist campaign much of which was very close to that of Bhutto. Bhutto’s slogan of ‘roti, kapra aur makan’ (‘bread, clothes and housing’) was echoed by Mrs Gandhi’s of ‘gharibi hatao’ (‘abolish poverty’). So Bhutto seemed to himself and others to be riding the wave of the future – though even before he took power Nkrumah had fallen and Nasser had been crushingly defeated by Israel.
The basic dynamics of Bhutto’s strategy were simple enough, and familiar enough from many such regimes elsewhere in the developing world. The intention was to bring about a socio-economic revolution from above in Pakistan, and to create rapid economic growth through the nationalization of industry and state-directed development. In the process, the support of the Pakistani masses for Bhutto and his party would be consolidated, and the PPP would become the permanent party of power, with Bhutto as the lifetime charismatic national leader who would then pass on this power to his descendants. Unlike the military rulers, Bhutto was therefore a would-be ‘sultanistic’ dictator, personal and dynastic rather than institutional.15 For Bhutto to achieve his goals, the grip of the existing elites on politics, the economy and the bureaucracy would have to be broken, when necessary by ruthless means.
It was highly unlikely that this programme could ever have worked in terms of developing the country – as so many other international examples demonstrate. However, as these examples also demonstrate, Bhutto’s approach might have worked much better when it came to consolidating his own power and that of his party; he could have ruled for a generation, instead of fewer than six years.
The two differences between Pakistan and more successful examples of authoritarian nationalist populism are that for such regimes to succeed in gaining a real, semi-permanent grip on power they have to create powerful, organized parties staffed by new men and not the old elites; and, even more importantly, they have to control their armies. Very often indeed, like Peron, the populist leaders come from the ranks of the army themselves. Bhutto did not come from the military and, as will be seen, the military itself does not allow personal dictators from its ranks to establish dynastic rule. Nor was Pakistani society capable of generating a true mass political party, independent of kinship loyalties and local power elites.
On the side of social and economic change, however, Bhutto acted rapidly and radically. In 1972, all major industries and banks were nationalized. This created a hostility to the PPP on the part of the capitalist classes which has continued long after the PPP abandoned every shred of real left-wing economics, and which largely explains business support for the PPP’s opponents in the new Muslim League.
Much more importantly, nationalization was economically disastrous. The move led to a flood of capital flight from Pakistan and a drastic fall in private investment for which the Pakistani state did not have the resources to compensate. Private investment in manufacturing dropped from an average of Rs992 million in 1960 – 65 to Rs682 million in 1971 – 6, while public investment rose only from Rs57 million to Rs115 million.