Southern Punjab’s socio-economic makeup piqued public interest earlier this year, when news of counter-terrorism operations in the region was plastered all over international media. Why would Pakistan’s agricultural heartland, otherwise synonymous with sufi beliefs and Corolla sales in harvest season, suddenly become a breeding ground for radicalism?
The causal relationship between economic deprivation and extremism has been well-established in academic tradition. In a 1961 paper titled “A Study of Unemployed Negroes” – back when political correctness was not in vogue – researchers noted that the “groups hardest hit by economic deprivation will come to view violence as a plausible concomitant of economic depression”. Similar theories received further evidential support in the aftermath of 9/11 and war on terror, as the intersection between extreme poverty and terrorism became more obvious.
According to provincial PSLM survey of 2013, incidence of multi-dimensional poverty within Punjab is highest in the rural districts of south. Both Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur divisions are identified as extreme poverty zones, with poor ratio of up to 72 percent in districts of Rajanpur and DG Khan, and up to 49 percent in all others. This is in sharp contrast to northern and central Punjab, where incidence of poverty in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, and Sargodha divisions is below 20 percent of total population.
Yet, unlike the hinterland districts of western Balochistan, identified as Pakistan’s least developed region, rural southern Punjab is in no way poor. According to a BR Research survey from 2013, incidence of commercial bank branches is above national average in the region. This is defined as ratio of commercial bank branches to district population, which for southern Punjab clocks in close to twenty-five thousand headcount per branch.
Put together, the two metrics indicate the stark income and wealth inequality persists in the region that over decades have become synonymous with its feudal makeup. Afterall, where cash goes, commercial banks follow, even if three-fourth of the population lives below extreme poverty line.
If rural socio-economic profile was the sole source of economic deprivation, other districts of Punjab would have been no different. Yet, no provincial district outside south is identified as extreme poverty zone. To explain this anomaly, look towards the datasets for farm sizes across the province.
On aggregate basis, Bahawalpur and DG Khan divisions have a share of 25 and 33 percent in total number of large and super-large farms in the province (between 50-100 acres, and above 150 acres respectively), according to Agriculture Census of 2010. This unusually high share is part thanks to colonial heritage, but also due to reversal of land reform and redistribution initiatives during 1980s, deemed un-Islamic by Federal Shariat Court in the Zia era.
Over the last decade, while the farming community across the country has suffered from poor financial returns and natural calamities, anecdotal evidence suggests that non-tenured farmers suffer the most. Lack of revenue-earning assets, along with poor higher education infrastructure means that ever greater numbers of youths are marginalized. Remember, that the same region also has one of the highest birth rates in the country, partly due to illiteracy but also a function of age-old ‘more working hands equals more income’ maxim.
In this context, radicalism often offers young, alienated, semi-literate men a way to break out of the cycle. Where that rabbit hole might take them is anyone’s guess, but enough background stories of suicide bombers have been conducted to suggest that it rarely ends well.
Military operations only go so far. If policymakers wish to counter radicalism in south Punjab before it’s too late, they should start with giving young population of Southern Punjab a chance at better future. Land reforms can go much further in achieving that goal.