By Dr Mazhar Abbas
July 9, 2020
In an
agrarian society, possession of land means pervasive and extensive control over
people, especially those who directly depend on land either for their
livelihood or to access the state apparatus. Those who do not own land are
relegated to an inferior economic, social, and political status. In short, land
becomes a ‘bundle of rights’ rather than a simple patch of soil. As an
extension, the transfer of land—through land reforms—from landlords to tenants
means transfer of this ‘bundle of rights.’ Effective land reforms, therefore,
have the potential to reduce the position of existing landlords, land
inequality, and economic, social, and political inequality at large. However,
in Pakistan, the power of the landlords could not be curtailed and inequality
could not be reduced for several reasons—mainly due to Islamisation of land
reforms.
Soon after
the creation of Pakistan, the Muhajir (migrant) community, peasants, urban
classes, and professionals put forward demands for land reforms. In addition,
Mian Iftikharuddin—the Minister for Refugee and Rehabilitation in West
Punjab—argued that without radical changes in the socio-economic system of the
province (particularly with regards to the redistribution of agricultural
land), the resettlement of the refugees was impossible.
The state
responded to the demands by constituting agrarian reform committees to
investigate high concentration of land and to propose recommendations to
resolve the problems associated with the landownership, land tenures, and land
management. Agrarian Committee—headed by Mumtaz Muhammad Daultana and Pakistan
Planning Board—headed by Zahid Hussain proposed to impose ceilings: 150 acres
of irrigated land, or 300 acres of semi-irrigated land, or 450 acres of
non-irrigated land, coupled with tenancy and other agrarian reforms.
However,
these proposed land reforms met with stiff resistance from the landed elite on
the one hand and clergy on the other hand. It is believed that the landed
gentry resisted attempts at land reforms by mobilizing religious support for
their position. That is why the majority of the sects that were practiced in
Pakistan at that time, including the fundamentalist religio-political
party—Jama’at-i-Islami (JI), helped galvanizing support for the landed elite by
underscoring the sanctity of private (individual) property in Islam.
Why did the
clergy side with the landed gentry rather than common masses, mainly peasantry?
This question, probably, could be answered as: first, that the clerics, who
aimed at becoming the vanguard of Islam in the nascent state of Pakistan, tried
to realize the masses and to convince the ruling elite that Pakistan was
created in the name of Islam, so, an Islamic system (i.e., political, social,
economic, and administrative, etc.,) should be implemented here; second, that
some of the clergymen were landlords themselves (e.g., Khalifa Mirza
Bashiduddin); and third, that lucrative offers were made to the religious
leaders by the landed elite to speak for them and against the land reforms. For
example, a minister of Sindh government (from landed class), through a covert
lucrative offer to the clerics, successfully got a religious decree against
Muhammad Masud—popularly known as Khaddarposh.
The
clergymen criticized the proponents and advocates of land reforms by accusing
them of being communists (non-Muslim) and declaring their proposals as
un-Islamic. They tried to prove the sacredness of individual property by
arguing that an individual could own land up to maximum level, and neither
state nor individual has any authority to impose ceilings on that land. For
this purpose, they not only issued statements and religious decrees but also
published pamphlets and books. For example, Khalifa Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad
(second Khalifa of ‘Jama’at-i-Ahmadiya’ Organization), Syed Abul A’la Maududi
(the founder and chief of Jama’at-i-Islami), and Ghulam Ahmad Parvez (the
founder of Tehreek-i-Tulu-i-Islam) wrote books in the mid-1950s to resist and
counter the proposals for land reforms by highlighting the sanctity of the
individual property.
If
landlords were mediators between the state and the masses, religious clerics
were the mediators between the masses and God. Using their intermediary
position and power, the clerics propagated a distinct theological argument—that
it was the will of God that some were born as poor peasants and others as rich
landlords. It followed was that any protest or resistance to the existing
system would be a defiance of the Divine order. It was this theology that set
the conditions for two attitudes, commonly propagated by clerics—that land
reforms were anti-Islamic, and that the peasants have no just cause to revolt
against the landed elite.
Not only
religious clerics but judges too Islamised land reforms that, ultimately,
served the landed elite. For example, the Shariat Appellate Bench (SAB), in
Qazalbash Waqf vs. Chief Land Commissioner Punjab case, struck down land
reforms by declaring them repugnant to the Islamic principles on August 10,
1989 (with effect from March 23, 1990). However, the decision was not unanimous
but divided by 3-2. Both the groups, despite contrasting conclusions, resorted
to the Quran and Sunnah in order to conceptualise the property ownership
theologically rather than legally or rationally. This judgment deprived
thousands of poor peasants who were benefitted as a result of land reforms and
closed the doors for future land reforms in Pakistan.
Contrary to
this judgment, the Islamic concept of property ownership seems to be based on
the redistributive spirit that is manifested from the institutions of Zakat,
Baytul-Maal, and Waqf, coupled with the Islamic laws of inheritance.
By keeping
in view the Islamic concept of property ownership—redistributive, a critical
evaluation of the ruling suggests that the following windows were open for the
SAB: first, that the petition could have been reviewed in the context of an
endowment property and the decision could have been that the Waqf was not a
person, but a religious endowment and ceilings could not be imposed on the
endowment property; second, that it could have been directed that the
government should pay compensation for the acquired land, in excess to ceilings
because acquiring land without compensation was un-Islamic; and third, that it
could have been stated that if the Qazaqlbash Waqf was holding property for
public welfare, the state had also acquired land in the public interest. Had
they (or anyone of them) been considered, the fate of landlordism in Pakistan
would have been different.
Dr
Mazhar Abbas is PhD in History from Shanghai University (China) and Lecturer in
History and Pakistan Studies at Government College University Faisalabad
Original
Headline; Islamisation of Land Reforms in Pakistan
Source: The Daily Times, Pakistan
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/religious-clerics-judges-islamised-land/d/122323
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