Feudal traditions in Pakistan may be an obstacle to democracy there. The World's Laura Lynch reports on how wealthy Pakistani landowners with strong political connections still wield a great deal of power over the rural people.
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MARCO WERMAN: I'm Marco Werman. This is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. A group of nations ranging from the US to Iran, and calling themselves Friends of a Democratic Pakistan, have pledged 5 billion dollar in aid to the beleaguered government in Islamabad. The money's supposed to provide health care and education, and help build democracy. It will be a big challenge. In Pakistan, political power is wielded largely by a wealthy elite. Most are big landowners controlling both property and people. The World's Laura Lynch reports on how they hold back Pakistani democracy.
LAURA LYNCH: The midday sun throws a harsh spotlight on weathered faces. Women crouch low, searching for, then plucking out barely ripe tomatoes. Every crease and crevice in their feet, their hands, even on their faces is dusted with dirt from the fields they farm. They work from dawn to dusk - and the landowner gets most of the income. Nearly two thirds of Pakistan's rural population are sharecroppers. One of the male workers, Abdul Aziz, says they all owe their livelihood to their boss - so they support the political party he supports. He has always voted for the Pakistan People's Party he says; the party of the late Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto and other wealthy landowners like her had always been able to count on the loyalty of those who toil for them in the fields. At her gracious home in Islamabad, Syma Khar traces her lineage - both familial and political - through the photographs she keeps in the cupboard.
SYMA KHAR: Yeah, here I am. These are all the women who come to meet me. This is my house in the village. This is all this area. This is all my house.
LYNCH: Khar is a member of the provincial assembly of the Punjab - the largest province in Pakistan. She is also a member of one of Pakistan's most powerful families. The pictures are from the Khar family estate just outside the city of Multan. The sprawling property includes fisheries, mango orchards and sugarcane fields. Thousands of people work there - most are loyal to their masters. Syma's husband, his father, brothers, nieces and nephews have all turned that to their political advantage to gain office. The workers are by and large, poor, landless and uneducated. Pervez Iqbal Cheema of Pakistan's National Defence University says that's the way most feudals want to keep it.
PERVEZ IQBAL CHEEMA: A feudal, in order to maintain his influence, will be probably not very happy for extension of education or health facilities because as long as they have a minimum interaction with the outsiders then the chances of new ideas germinating or causing some trouble are relatively less.
LYNCH: The country's political class is made up largely of the landed gentry or those who marry into it, like Syma Khar. She believes part of the reason the feudals - as they're called - continue to dominate is because they are revered.
KHAR: We like stars, we like superstars, we don't like normal people. In India they have Bollywood - everybody's talking and discussing about the stars over there. Here you see the television, they're all politicians. So we choose the best star, political superstar.
LYNCH: That star power was evident when Benazir Bhutto staged her return from exile in Karachi in October of 2007. Though it was later marred by a suicide bomb attack, the Bhutto power base in rural Pakistan bussed thousands of loyal followers in to cheer her arrival and dance in the streets. Even after she died, Bhutto's political machine ensured her husband eventually became President. And her son, Bilawal, inherited the party leadership even though he's only 20 with no political experience. In a back alley off a busy road in Rawalpindi, boys are just starting a late afternoon game of cricket. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, rights activist and professor of colonial history at Lahore University of Management Sciences, keeps an office a few floors up. Akhtar sees the staying power of the feudals - and gives credit to the military. It is Pakistan's other power centre - staging four coups in the country's 62 year history. Akhtar says the military, interested in holding onto its own sphere of influence, finds a willing partner in the feudal class.
AASIM SAJJAD AKHTAR: And these guys fill the role well because, as I said, they're historically rooted, they've got links with the administrative apparatus at the local level and they're willing to do it. Because they know that in some ways they're losing that social and economic power they once had. So they're quite happy to, in some ways, to play the role of junior partner to the military if and when the need arises.
LYNCH: Syma Khar knows both worlds well. She grew up in a military family before marrying into the feudal clan. At first, Khar admits, she had a hard time adjusting to the sometimes arrogant attitudes she witnessed in her new relatives. Eventually though, she came to believe that's exactly what Pakistanis need from their ruling class.
KHAR: If they don't' keep that attitude then people will be doing daytime robberies because they are illiterate people. They will, you know, kidnap the daughters they will take away the children they will take away the properties, they will kill each other. So a boss has to be a boss. He has to have that sort of attitude.
LYNCH: Still, even Khar believes things are slowly changing. A new generation is bringing a new mindset - and the growing popularity of a new breed of aggressive journalists is also breaking down old barriers. Professor Akhtar thinks change is coming too - but very slowly.
AKHTAR: I don't think this is going to be dramatically transformed anytime soon. And I think if the power structure was to be transformed that even then you would still see some entrenchment whether it be cultural or otherwise because of the fact so many people rely on land for their livelihoods.
LYNCH: As a farm worker empties her bucket of tomatoes into a crate there is no smile of satisfaction - the day's work is still far from over. There's little chance her life will change soon. Several land reform programs have failed to change rural life in Pakistan. And failed to loosen the grip of Pakistan's large landowners on the country's politics. For the World, I'm Laura Lynch, outside of Karachi, Pakistan
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