Agrarian class struggle and state formation in post-colonial Pakistan, 1959–1974: Contingencies of Mazdoor Kisan Raj

State formation in post-colonial societies is often explained with reference to the roles of elites. In Pakistan, landed elites continue to dominate the rural political economy through informal and formal institutions, but the history of its largest peasant movement shows how agrarian class struggle can change the institutional forms and functions of power. The Hashtnagar peasant movement achieved lasting de facto land and tenancy reforms in north-western Pakistan in the 1970s through forcible land occupations that were regularized by state intervention. I argue that although divisions among elites were important, the state intervened in favour of peasants due to the rising organizational power of tenants and landless labourers under the centralized leadership of the radical Mazdoor Kisan Party. Agrarian class struggle weakened the informal power of landed elites and gave rise to institutions of peasant power. However, other fractions of the ruling class sought to undermine their landed opponents while co-opting the militancy of the peasant movement by strengthening state institutions to intervene in favour of upwardly mobile tenants. The latter were separated from poorer peasants and the landless, thus demobilizing the movement.