Between Feudalism, Militarism, and the Mirage of Reform

There is never an end to the geopolitical turbulence across the world and specifically in South Asia. With most of the states battling the economic and political headwinds, Pakistan is a curious case to analyse. In the current year itself, the country awaits another turning point. For a couple of years a new narrative expanded over the horizon, it was sentencing former Prime minister Imran Khan (IK), and his party deliberately pushed to the edge. Despite all the odds, IK remains the most popular politician. His efforts to challenge powerful groups were short-lived, and a new government formed through a tightly managed election. The new government has low public support but has strong backing of the establishment, perhaps brought in to take the headwinds of Imran’s consistent popularity. Much talked and celebrated is the recent Saudi-Pakistan defense pact, the strategic Murual Defense Agreement (SDMA) signed last month, it may seem to be a diplomatic breakthrough nonetheless the country still struggles with weak institutions, ongoing financial problems, and a persistent alliance among the military, bureaucracy, and feudal elite, and the agreement like many others offers little scope to help the country become a better place to live.

Pakistan’s 23rd IMF program highlights its dependence on foreign bailouts and this is a circular pattern of its existence. There are no cuts and no transparency in defense spending, a substantial amount of the budget goes to debt payments which leaves little scope for critically important social welfare schemes. It doesn’t stop here, military has crept into these projects under the garb of ‘development’ and ‘natio-building’, the lines are getting blurred between the military and civil administration. Pakistan ranks 135th on the 2024 Corruption Index and still depends on short-term solutions like loans, aid, and deals, instead of making real reforms. As in the past, IMF requirements lead to budget cuts that hurt the poor but leave the wealthy and military leaders untouched.

This is a curious case of a hybrid regime, where military works out the spending and civil administration instead of building institutions, takes the fallout of public anger. This goes on until there are new faces in politics and new leadership in the army. From the very beginning, Pakistan didn’t build institutions rather empowered a military-bureaucratic nexus that conflated security with national identity. Pakistan inherited weak state structures from the western frontiers of the British Raj. The military’s self-perception as the guardian of the national destiny ensured civilian transience and bureaucratic permanence. Right from the inception, Pakistan received generous U.S. aid and Cold War patronage, and aid from the rich gulf monarchies. Most of the money was captured by political and landed interests, while other US cold-war allies invested in state building capacities but Pakistan got trapped in dependency cycles. Proximity to great powers is not development; discipline is instead.

At the heart of this political paralysis, lies Feudalism! which shapes the logic of power. Military structure reflects feudal estates, bureaucracy reflects landlordism, and the country hinges on too much of Islamism for legitimacy. A handful of families dominate the rural economy, electoral politics, and the administrative machinery. Located at the western fringes of British empire, the country has been in the slumber Feudalism and any attempt to wash it out has been thwarted and sabotaged. Even to this day, rural inequalities persist, agrarian makeup of the society is in tact, and a stagnated structure of economy exists because top echelons of politics, military and bureaucracy is still feudal in character. Meritocracy has gone out of the window due to rampant corruption, loyalty trumps merit, downsizes innovation, and a country with nuclear assets, is a state with colonial logic extraction. Lest the land ownership is democtratised, this cycle isn’t going anywhere.

Agriculture employs nearly 40 percent of Pakistan’s workforce but contributes little to growth. Fragmented holdings and feudal tenure keep it in a subsistence mode. Industrialization languishes because landed politicians resist reforms that threaten their rural dominance and power. Since the 1950s, successive governments have relied on Western and multilateral aid as substitutes for reforms. Billions of dollars flowed in the name of security, but little was translated into productivity. Pakistanis continue to live amid chronic inflation, poor education, and crumbling health systems—victims of a state that prioritizes geopolitical bargaining over human development.

If any organ of the broader structure of the country has been a constant, it is the Military. All military generals or rulers hitherto have promised development after every coup, but institutionalised rent-seeking. The human development index keeps sliding low but the military assets have gone up, along with corrupt politicians eating from the same cake. Military has perfected the art of what may be called as, developmental hegemony. It works as a model where governing not merely through coercion but through its ubiquitous presence in “civil” domains such as the Fauji Foundation and the Frontier Works Organisation. It not only helped them in domestic conduct rather in foreign policy as well. From the Cold-war decades, to the War on Terror and now Chinese investments, Pakistan military has monetized its geography. Every cycle of aid produces short-term inflows and long-term distortions—ballooning defence budgets, weak taxation, and elite capture. Pakistan became a broker state, mediating crises rather than producing goods.

Pakistan is sitting on a ticking climate time-bomb, Sindh faces intensifying water crisis due to Punjab centric development structure. The Indus river basin is being mismanaged by upper stream Punjab, this has turned Sindh into drought-prone province, where 50 million people are on the brink of collapse. Environmental degradation thus becomes another instrument of control—a twenty-first-century feudalism in which access to water defines power.

Pakistan’s federal structure remains Punjab-centric, and Punjabi dominance across the military, bureaucracy, and judiciary sustains systemic imbalance and fuels provincial resentment. Another variant of pushing people away from development, is Karachi’s decline. Ethnic polarisation and criminalized governance has become life-breath of this cosmopolitan city. The marginalized muhajirs, who have been instrumental in making up the governance structure of the city, puts a serious question mark on the national integration of Pakistan. Power remains concentrated in the Punjab military-feudal triad, leaving urban Pakistan in perpetual neglect.

With such a big void created by the feudal structure, the country has been legitimising its conduct by having a larger network of Madrassa system, which shapes the ideological narrative of Pakistan. It helps the Establishment fill in the vacuum created by absence of any ‘civilisational legacy’ in the nation-building. This education structure thrives in most parts of the country, merges religion with nationalism and poroduces citizens who view military-rule as a moral guardian-ship. A society schooled in obedience cannot demand accountability; faith replaces rights, and conformity stifles reforms.

The only proof of sovereignty for Pakistan is its nuclear arsenal, so called “Islamic-bomb”, it functions as a perfect counter to India and works better as a political bluff. Nuclear triumphalism nurtures complacency and masks governance failures. Deterrence has become a delusion: prestige without progress. Along the Durand Line, recurring clashes with Afghanistan reveal the contradictions of Pakistan’s “strategic depth” doctrine. Post-U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban turned from proxy to problem, while Kabul’s growing ties with New Delhi deepened Islamabad’s insecurity. The militarization of the frontier policy alienates Pashtun communities and undermines regional connectivity, limiting Pakistan’s role in Central and South Asia.

Before this cycle ends, there will be another on the horizon, the problem of Pakistan lies not in bailouts or defense pacts but in dismantling the twin monsters of feudalism and militarism. Institutional building must replace patronage, education must prioritize critical reasoning over dogma, and land reform must precede industrial growth. Pakistan has to get away with its school-boy nuclear bluff and leader of the islamic world, and has to stop calling its nuclear assets as Islamic-bomb to garner sympathy in the Muslim world. A Taliban run Afghanistan is going to challenge its monopoly on Islam in the subcontinent, and a big security challenge along the Durand Line. Unless the social architecture of power is re-engineered, Pakistan will remain geopolitically relevant yet domestically fragile—a paradox of strength without stability, oscillating between illusion and implosion.

Mehraj Bhat is a researcher in South Asian geopolitics.