Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [9]
The nineteenth-century British colonial official Sir Thomas Metcalf described the traditional villages of northern India as ‘little republics’, administering their own justice, deciding their own affairs, and paying only what tribute to the ‘state’ could be extracted from them by force. This independence has been very greatly reduced over the years, but compared to any Western society a good deal of it still exists in many areas, if not specifically in the village, then in local society generally. Society is strong above all in the form of the kinship networks which are by far the most important foci of most people’s loyalty.
For those readers who are really interested and have a few brain cells to lose, a brief description of the horribly complex subject of kinship terms and groups in Pakistan is appended to the end of this introduction. Suffice it to say here that the language of kinship – even among people who are not in fact related – permeates most of Pakistan as it does most of South Asia, whether it is a matter of affection, responsibility, asking for favours or asking for protection. The most wonderful expression of this, which perfectly sums up India’s mixture of kinship, democracy and hierarchy, is the term with which you may wish to address a relatively menial person in northern India who happens to be in a position to help or harm you (like a bus-conductor): Bhai-sahib, or ‘Brother-Lord’.
Kinship is central to the weakness of the Pakistani state, but also to its stability, above all because of its relationship with class. Because the Pakistani political elites, especially in the countryside, rely for their strength not just on wealth but on their leadership of clans or kinship networks, kinship plays a vital part in maintaining the dominance of the ‘feudal’ elites and many of the urban bosses.
By helping to enforce on the elites a certain degree of responsibility for their followers, and circulating patronage downwards, kinship also plays a role in softening – to a limited extent – class domination. Kinship is therefore partially responsible for Pakistan’s surprisingly low rating of social inequality according to the Gini Co-efficient, which I will discuss further in Chapter 6.4 In both these ways, kinship is a critical anti-revolutionary force, whether the revolution is of a socialist or Islamist variety.
The importance of kinship is rooted in a sense (which runs along a spectrum from very strong to very weak depending on circumstance and degree of kinship) of collective solidarity for interest and defence. This interest involves not just the pursuit of concrete advantage, but is also inextricably bound up with powerful feelings of collective honour or prestige (izzat) and shame; and, indeed, a kinship group which is seen as ‘dishonoured’ will find its interests decline in every other way. A sense of collective honour among kin is thus reflected most dramatically in preventing or punishing any illicit sexual behaviour by the kinship group’s women, but also in working to advance the political and economic power and public status of the group.
This is a cultural system so strong that it can persuade a father to kill a much-loved daughter, not even for having an affair or becoming pregnant, but for marrying outside her kinship group without permission. You don’t get stronger than that. As Alison Shaw and others have noted, the immense strength and flexibility of the