Comparative Politics and International Studies Series. London: Hurst Publishers, 2022. xxvii, 364 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, maps, B&W photos.) US$63.00, cloth. ISBN 9781787386884.
This monograph is innovative, rigorous sociology-based research that delves into the social, political, and historical contexts that inform one of the key law enforcement organizations in Pakistan, the Sindh police, in the postcolonial megacity of Karachi. Author Zoha Waseem adopts a research approach that is simultaneously rich and sophisticated, and includes vitally important ethnographic work. The latter was carried out in contexts that could be perceived as inhospitable and challenging—all part and parcel to the postcolonial condition of Karachi. Waseem carefully deals with these aspects by producing an insightful reflective account of their positionality.
Waseem consistently deploys accurate historical accounts interlinked with postcolonial sociological approaches to explain the paradoxical nature of the policing practices of Sindh’s police in Karachi, while providing an overarching context to study policing culture in postcolonial contexts not only in Pakistan, but significantly also in neighbouring India and Nigeria. Further, Waseem introduces to the discussion key social and ethnic factors in order to characterize and contextualize how policing culture and practices have evolved in Karachi, which also helps the reader acquire a comprehensive sociological perspective on policing culture and practices across Pakistan. Overall, this is a valuable addition that enhances the validity and robustness of Waseem’s scholarship.
The book analyzes with a remarkable degree of detail and sophistication the securitization process of various issues such as political dissent and migration (a historical issue of contention in Karachi), which are subsequently incorporated into narratives of national security threats that feed into the militarized ethos of various institutions in postcolonial states. Following this, Waseem rightly associates militarization of the police and its consequences to securitization processes, and explains how this has impacted and shaped Sindh police ethos, in line with the crescent militarization of Pakistan’s key socio-political structures.
One of the main arguments that Waseem develops throughout the chapters is associated with the interlinking of policing practices with two key concepts: procedural informality and militarized policing. This relationship, as Waseem aptly theorizes, can be found at various levels of rank and file. Procedural informality, usually linked to different types of corruption and policing malpractices, dates back to the British Empire in India. Since independence, successive governments in Pakistan have used law enforcement institutions to increase surveillance and censorship on political dissent, thus subverting and relegating to second place the main policing purposes—that is, guaranteeing citizens protection and enforcing law. Adding to this, a lack of resources and poor funding have contributed towards the institutionalization of procedural informality, of which corruption is its most generalized form. Adding further, the insecurities generated by political parties seeking control, either justified on ethnic or economic arguments, have enhanced a specific policing culture in Karachi that substantially relies on procedural informality, from higher to lower ranks, as Waseem explains.
One of the strong arguments that Waseem weaves relates to the politics of militarism and militarization that have dominated state-building and governance in Pakistan, and how that has also become entangled with policing practices in Sindh and other provinces. In the case of Karachi, militarization has contributed towards disempowerment of an already under-trained, impoverished police force. The introduction of a paramilitary force—the Sindh Rangers, sanctioned by the Pakistan Army—serves as a paramount example of the militarization dynamics of policing in Karachi. Chapter 5 carefully demonstrates how the militarization of policing happened in Karachi, and how it has impacted policing culture and practices in the city. The step in the direction of militarized policing—at the expense of further disempowerment (financially and morally) of an existing institution—reflects well the ways in which militarism as an ideology operates and expands. Waseem’s work is a key contribution that demonstrates the relevance of studying militarism as a political ideology in the context of Pakistan, thus helping to document how militarism has been transforming Pakistan’s key societal and governmental structures, including law enforcement agencies.
The ethnographic component of this monograph plays a decisive role in enhancing the scholarly relevance of Waseem’s work. Adding to the reasons mentioned earlier, ethnography brings the reader closer to the predicaments associated with real life in the singular megacity of Karachi. By taking part in various policing routines, Waseem was able to apprehend, and then rigorously reproduce, what constitutes the real living conditions among lower-ranking officers, thus bearing witness to the paradoxical security conundrum embodied by these actors. Given that police forces in Pakistan are often perceived as key agents of corruption, Waseem is able to scholarly document the processes behind such perceptions, and, more importantly, expose what are the key historical and political roots of the paradoxical nature of policing in Karachi.
Insecure Guardians is an essential book full of well-articulated key arguments contributing to a better understanding of the sociological and postcolonial grounds of Sindh police in Karachi, and elsewhere in Pakistan. It also contributes decisively to scholarly approaches to the study of policing practices in postcolonial, non-Western contexts. In view of the rich historical integration of Pakistan’s socio-political realities, this book is also a welcome addition to Pakistan political studies scholarship.
Maria Bastos
London School of Science and Technology, London