Abstract:
My thesis explores the problem of unequal development within the federation of
Pakistan with reference to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from August 1947 to July 1977.
In the development paradigm regionalism/provincialism is considered as a petty bourgeois
phenomenon; my thesis refutes this viewpoint and considers the problematic of
regionalism as inherent in capital logic. Maximization of profit engenders centralization of
capital and concentration of resources thereby creating the dualism of core and periphery.
The process of capital accumulation generates the contradiction of development and
underdevelopment, Centre and periphery, core and hinterland. Development at the
centre/core perpetuates underdevelopment in the periphery/hinterland. Poverty in the
periphery is neither the poverty of natural resources nor the poverty of human resources; it
is the enigma of capitalist growth.
The problematic of core/periphery, centre/hinterland gains extra significance due
to federal status of Pakistan where both the centre and the provinces derive power from
the Constitution and neither one is subordinate to each other unlike a unitary state. My
study however, unravels a different process, the State uses constitutional jurisdiction to
legitimize power accumulation. In order to maintain hegemony over the civil society the
state centralizes power, moreover this concentration of power is essential to fulfill
accumulation and reproduction of capital as well. To do so the factors of production are
mobilized to the areas with maximum return; as a consequence labour, capital and raw
material from peripheral provinces is invested in the core regions.
The state Legitimizes capital accumulation by concentrating political power in the
centre through the Constitution, relegating the provinces to a subsidiary role. The second
source of legitimation by the state is the academic and religious institutions as well as
communication media (the ideological apparatuses). Besides the ideological institutions
the state seeks support from the military, police, bureaucracy (repressive/coercive
apparatuses) as well as landlords and bourgeoisie owning the means of production.
Finally, hegemony is maintained by reorganizing the power bloc, hurting individual
capitals in the process but protecting the total capital. My research is an holistic analysis of
Unequal development in its historical, political and economic dimensions unraveling the
Centre/Periphery problematic within the Federation of Pakistan with reference to Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province.