Upstarts Chip Away at Power of Feudal Pakistani Landlords

[Valin]

NY Times:

(H/T Long War Journal)

SABRINA TAVERNISE
August 28, 2010

MUZAFFARGARH, Pakistan — In Pakistan, where politics has long been a matter of pedigree, Jamshed Dasti is a mongrel. The scrappy son of an amateur wrestler, Mr. Dasti has clawed his way into Pakistan’s Parliament, beating the wealthy, landed families who have ruled here.


Jason Tanner for The New York Times
Jamshed Dasti, a lawmaker, drives a bus he donated to provide free transportation for his constituents in Muzzafargarh, Pakistan.

In elite circles, Mr. Dasti is reviled as a thug, a small-time hustler with a fake college degree who represents the worst of Pakistan today. But here, he is hailed as a hero, living proof that in Pakistan, a poor man can get a seat at the rich men’s table.

Mr. Dasti’s rise is part of a broad shift in political power in Pakistan. For generations, politics took place in the parlors of a handful of rich families, a Westernized elite that owned large tracts of land and sometimes even the people who worked it. But Pakistan is urbanizing fast, and powerful forces of change are chipping away at the landed aristocracy, known in Pakistan as the feudal class.

(Snip)