Arslan
Moderator
In cyberspace and sections of the press and political commentators keep referring to Imran Khans populism. Here, one even finds comparisons between him and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The great man is a beginner, says Thomas Carlyle. In the words of Russian theoretician Georgy Plekhanov (1856-1918), This is a very apt description. A great man is precisely a beginner because he sees farther than others and desires things more strongly than others. This explains the enormous significance in history attributed to great leaders. But Plekhanov insists, and rightly, that the leader is merely an agent of a historic necessity. That necessity gives birth to its agents when the need arises.
Therefore, one must be comparing the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf, instead of Bhutto and Imran Khan. However, both Bhutto and Imran appear larger than their respective parties, especially in the latter case, and therefore political narratives remain mired in comparisons between individuals. Ironically, in describing populism one has to assign an important role to the individual. It is because in the case of populism, the caudillo, the popular leadership plays an essential role in the formation and staying power of the movement, says Michael Lowy, a French scholar.
This brief article will draw heavily from Lowy. Besides the caudillo in the driving seat, populism has the ability to mobilise masses. It is, perhaps, in view of these two attributes that certain analysts have superficially drawn comparisons between Bhutto and Imran Khan. Superficially, because characterising the PTI as populist is highly flawed as comparing Bhutto with Imran Khan is.
Populism is not merely about a political project spearheaded by a caudillo, it is also about redistribution of wealth, at least in its Latin American version where it emerged most strongly 1944-1964 (Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Gen Juan Dongo Peron in Argentina, Joao Goulart in Brazil, Rojas Pinilla in Colambia).
Interestingly, some of the Latin American scholars of the dependentist school have explained populism as an accumulation strategy of the local elite through redistribution of wealth. While this economistic approach is useful in understanding the class character of populist movements, populism is too complex to be reduced to either economistic interpretation or a precise definition.
The concept of populism sprang in Czarist Russia and the US South Midwest in the late 19th century. Ever since then, a host of phenomena have attracted the tag of populism. From socialist and fascist populisms, scholars have pointed out urban and agrarian and Western and native populisms. However, all such analyses whereby Hitler, Mao and Peron appear as variants of the same phenomenon ignore the specificities of each phenomenon tagged to populism. Even if populism is a vague term, it carries certain specific features.
Besides the caudillo at the spearhead, the class character of the leadership is elitist or petty bourgeois. The leadership does not emerge from the working classes. Its social base is predominantly urban, but in certain Latin American cases (Mexico and Bolivia), it also included broad peasant layers. Populism may take an organised form (Peronism, for instance) but in general its influence remain electoral. The caudillo provides unity but organisational structure remains top-down authoritarian.
Ideologically, it is a mishmash of middle-class nationalism and anti-imperialism, but definitively anti-communist. Populist ideology addresses the people as a whole or the nation as a whole, and workers are manipulated in various ways. However, homogenising role of the caudillo does not exclude the ideological heterogeneity. From crypto-fascists (right-wing nationalists, staunchly anti-communist) and centrists (reformists) to crypto-socialists influenced by Marxism, one may find various tendencies in a populist movement. This ideological diversity sometimes provokes splits, according to Michael Lowy, particularly through the departure of the left.
Though some of these aspects are common between Bhuttos PPP and Imran Khans PTI for instance, both spearheaded by caudillos providing organisational unity, employing anti-imperialist rhetoric (reduced to anti-Americanism), staunchly anti-communists, etc. yet judging Imran Khan as being populist, one may argue, will be premature.
It is because the true character of populism is exposed once it assumes power. Populist regimes are Bonapartist by nature. By Bonapartist regime one implies a regime that poses as arbiter above the classes, relying sometimes on employers and the army, sometimes on the working classes and popular mobilisations. Such a regime aims at industrial development, particularly through import substitution and the expansion of the domestic market. This may lead to conflicts with the landed gentry and rivalries with imperialism. While land reforms may annoy landlords, restriction on extraction of resources or trade barriers may provoke imperialism. To win the support of the workers, reforms benefitting them may be introduced. This can generate conflict with the capitalist class whose interest populism serves in the final analysis. But any independent activity of the working classes is subverted, through violence if necessary.
Having conceptualized populism thus, characterizing PPP (Bhutto) and PTI (Imran Khan) becomes convenient. Even if PTI is yet to reach the corridors of power, certain indicators are there. For instance, unlike Bhutto Imran Khan does not speak of any wealth redistribution. There is no hint of land reforms, end to privatisation, foreign debt, or nationalisation in his economic programme. Similarly, he has not attempted in any meaningful way to engage either the peasantry or the trade unions, even in populist fashion. Populism at least relies and encourages a system of patronage to win over union and peasant leaderships. While any illusions of meaningful change in populism are bound to be dashed anyway, Imran Khan is not even a populist. The PTI insists on collecting more taxes. But this is what the IMF and World Bank also want Pakistan to do. Better tax collection will help retire Pakistans international debt. Refusing debt repayment is a populism Imran Khan does not even hint at.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-129255-Bhutto-and-Imran
