KARACHI: A book of Urdu translation of a long essay by the late Prof Hamza Alavi titled Pakistani Siasat: Fauj Aur Naukarshahi Ka Kirdar ( The Army and the Bureaucracy in Pakistani Politics) by Dr Riaz Shaikh was launched at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Friday evening.

Presiding over the event, retired Justice Rasheed A Razvi said conspiracies have been hatched from the time when Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was alive, beginning with the dissolution of the NWFP government. The military-bureaucracy alliance was then joined by the judiciary which kept legitimising their acts, followed by the joining of a fourth force, the politicians who played in their hands. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had the opportunity but he squandered it, he said.

He said today the survival of independent politics is difficult. He was of the view that civil society, lawyers, journalists, architects, etc, should get united to raise their voice for democracy. He lauded the effort of Dr Shaikh for not just translating butupdating Mr Alavi`s thesis.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Syed Jaffer Ahmed shed light on the current state of the military and the bureaucracy, and with reference to political parties commented, `Our present political class doesn`t have any power or the commitment to take the struggle for democracy forward.

They have tiny wishes like seeing their son become prime minister.

`The essay that Dr Shaikh has translated was printed in 1967.

Before that Prof Alavi had penned an essay in 1961 titled Burden of US Aid published in a journal in the UK.

From there on an argument was developed about how the civil-military bureaucracy alliance came into being. The culmination point of the whole thesis is his 1973 article titled The States in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Dr Ahmed said Prof Alavi focused on a few very important subjeets. The first one was `mode of production`. He was of the view that Europe`s feudal system was different to the one existing in Asia. `In the former, it`s to do with hereditary. In India, land was the state`s property. After the arrival of the British in India, the British gave pieces of land to those who were their collaborators which created a certain class [feudal] in the region.

But when the British found out that they were pleasure-loving who kept selling land for luxurious pursuits,they came up with the Permanent Settlement Act. So the British created a class and protected it.

He said the other topics that Prof Alavi chose to write on were ethnicity/nationalism, feminism and the state. He argued that when Pakistan was incepted the situation was fluid and a disciplined force like the bureaucracy could control it; subsequently a military-bureaucracy alliance was formed.

Journalist Mazhar Abbas said these days the `ideology of convenience` (nazarya-i-sahular) was on display. The kind of legislation that has taken place in the last few weeks has weakened politics and political parties. It has strengthened the military and the bureaucracy. He mentioned a visual in which politician Shehryar Afridi is seen coming out of incarceration with his clothes in his hands. He called it an eye-opener for politicians.In thelatterpart ofhis speech, he mentioned the changing political scenario in Punjab.

Dr Shaikh said the piece that he has translated was penned in 1967 when the movement against Gen Ayub Khan was on. He [Dr Shaikh] has so far published five books containing translating Prof Alavi`s articles but this one [being launched] contains only one long piece.

Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed, Sohail Sangi and Mehnaz Rahman also spoke.