British Colonial Legacies and Manifestations of Power Politics: A Case Study of Walled City of Lahore

Abstract

The underlying study is an endeavor to trace the role of British colonial legacies and it’s off shot in formulation of political authority and power politics in Lahore. The various administrative, recruitment and socio-economic policies of British in United India were one of the key determinant factors for shaping influential local identities and economic classes among the indigenous population. These led to manifest the role of local kinship in politics and its ability to control the distribution of resources in post-colonial Punjab. It has been observed that British’s attempt to define and redefine local identities for their sake of their administrative and political control over the colonial territory played a vital role for the materialization of power configuration in post-colonial societies in general and specifically in Lahore. This research primarily deals with notion that how British’s deliberate patronage to two significant identities; Kashmiris and Arians led to strengthen the role of these respective biraderis (caste) in electoral politics of Lahore in later years especially in the Walled city of Lahore. This study highlights that these two biraderis are leading the contemporary power politics of National and Provincial assemblies in the respective constituency as voting preferences of electorates and ticket allocation by key political parties are largely shaped by influence of biraderis. This study is primarily qualitative as historical and explanatory approaches have been incorporated while employing empirical evidences from the primary and secondary resources. This research aims to identify the link between British policies of using local power apparatus for the colonial objectives and its role to shape the power patterns of electoral politics of Lahore